What Washington needs to reflect on as U.S. becomes pandemic epicenter
The United States has confirmed over 1.2 million COVID-19 cases and over 70,000 deaths as of Tuesday -- merely some 100 days after its first case was reported on Jan. 21 -- making it the epicenter of the pandemic.
With about one third of the world's caseload and death toll, respectively, the United States should reflect on how its administration has pushed its citizens into this abyss.
SLOW RESPONSE
More than two months after the initial briefing for President Donald Trump on the fast-spreading COVID-19, the U.S. government started to treat the virus as a fatal disease that could potentially claim thousands of lives -- a critical period that it has squandered.
In an article published on April 4 by The Washington Post, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had learned of cases in China on Dec. 31. And Robert Redfield, the agency's director, on Jan. 3 received a call from his Chinese counterpart, who sent an "unambiguous warning" that a previously-unknown respiratory illness was spreading in Wuhan.
Redfield relayed the message to Alex Azar, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, who on Jan. 18 called Trump to brief him about the coronavirus. However, the president, according to the article, was in the middle of handling his impeachment battle, and believed Azar was "being alarmist" over the case.
Throughout the following weeks, Trump repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the virus by ignoring the second warning from Azar on Jan. 30, and saying on Feb. 10 at a meeting with governors that the virus would "miraculously" go away.
During a recent interview with Xinhua, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, said, Trump's initial reluctance is "rooted in his concern that tanking the economy would tank his re-election."
When Trump finally agreed in mid-March to recommend social distancing across the country, said a report from the New York Times, he was "subdued" by its disruptions on the U.S. economy that he had been counting on for re-election.
OBSTRUCT TRUTH
Aside from its slow response, the Trump administration has been obstructing the public from learning how it has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, making the United States the worst-hit country with the most fatalities worldwide.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been invited by a House Appropriations subcommittee to testify before Congress next week, as part of the subcommittee's probe into the administration's response to the pandemic.
However, Fauci's testimony was blocked by the White House, which described his appearance at the hearing as "counter-productive" to "opening up America again and expediting vaccine development," deputy press secretary Judd Deere said on Friday.
As an outspoken expert on the U.S. coronavirus task force, Fauci has repeatedly stressed the need to take strict measures, including extending the federal government's social distancing guidelines, to contain the spread of the virus, at times correcting Trump's false claims as the president tried to downplay the situation.
SABOTAGE COOPERATION
Since the onset of the outbreak, assaulting China, attacking allies and assigning blame elsewhere for its failures in containing virus spread have been old tactics for the U.S. administration, which is severely harming international cooperation the world needs to wade through the health crisis.
According to a report by the Guardian, there was dismay among G7 countries that a joint statement on tackling the pandemic could not be agreed upon because Trump insisted on calling it the "Wuhan virus" -- his crude way of pinning sole blame on China.
However, the United States is not making China the only scapegoat this time.
On April 14, Trump announced that his administration would halt its funding to the World Health Organization, which he accused of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus."
In addition to its shirking of responsibilities, Washington's selfishness is making the battle even harder.
According to earlier media reports, Germany has accused the United States of hijacking some of its urgently-needed medical supplies like face masks and ventilators.
The diversion was described by Andreas Geisel, interior minister for Berlin state, as "an act of modern piracy." "There is no way to treat transatlantic partners. Even in times of global crisis, we shouldn't resort to the tactics of the wild west," the Guardian quoted Geisel as saying in a report. Enditem