The United States have reached a dire new coronavirus death toll of over 200,000, making it the country with the highest mortality rate by a long mark.
At this point, coronavirus deaths in the United States are averaging approximately 770 per day. This figure is expected to significantly rise as schools and universities reopen and the weather gets cooler. It comes as a shock for the world’s richest nation, which despite their top tier technology, high-tech laboratories, and abundance of medical supplies, has managed to become the country most severely affected.
At a campaign rally on Monday, President Donald Trump voiced how proud he was of the country’s handling of the coronavirus, stating that he had done a phenomenal job of controlling the pandemic that “affects virtually nobody”, a claim which appeared to contradict his previous assertion that the virus poses a risk to “plenty of young people.”
“It affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. That’s what it really affects,” Trump told supporters at Swanton, Ohio.
“In some states, thousands of people — nobody young. Below the age of 18, like, nobody,” he continued. “They have a strong immune system, who knows? Take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system. But it affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.”
“It affects virtually nobody,” Trump says of the coronavirus, which has now killed 200,000 Americans and counting pic.twitter.com/qHrZvUWNhX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2020
The pandemic has also brought to light stark institutionalized inequalities between different racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Blacks, American Indians, and Hispanics have all been greater affected due to the economic and health care disparities.
“It is completely unfathomable that we’ve reached this point,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher. “We have from the very beginning lacked a national testing strategy…we aren’t going to restore our economy until every state has this virus under control.”
Trump has previously acknowledged his role in downplaying the severity of Covid-19 in its early stages, as he did not want to “create a panic.”
Donald Trump just tweeted “ALERT” in all capital letters for no particular reason, but he wants us to believe he lied to us about the coronavirus because he didn’t want to create a panic.
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) September 12, 2020
The United States is currently followed by Brazil, with a death toll of 136,000, and India with 87,000, whilst the worldwide figure is approaching one million.
