Covid's toll in U.S. reaches 1 million deaths, a once unfathomable number
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 2 years ago • 135 commentsBy: Elizabeth Chuck and Corky Siemaszko
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The U.S. on Wednesday surpassed 1 million Covid-19 deaths, according to data compiled by NBC News — a once unthinkable scale of loss even for the country with the world's highest recorded toll from the virus.
The number — equivalent to the population of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the U.S. — was reached at stunning speed: 27 months after the country confirmed its first case of the virus.
"Each of those people touched hundreds of other people," said Diana Ordonez, whose husband, Juan Ordonez, died in April 2020 at age 40, five days before their daughter Mia's fifth birthday. "It's an exponential number of other people that are walking around with a small hole in their heart."
Registered nurse Bryan Hofilena attaches a "COVID PATIENT" sticker on the body bag of a deceased patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, 2021.Jae C. Hong / AP file
While deaths from Covid have slowed in recent weeks, about 360 people have still been dying every day. The casualty count is far higher than what most people could have imagined in the early days of the pandemic, particularly because then-President Donald Trump repeatedly downplayed the virus while in office.
"This is their new hoax," Trump said of Democrats in front of a cheering crowd at a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Feb. 28, 2020. "So far we have lost nobody to coronavirus."
A day later, health officials in Washington made the inevitable announcement: a coronavirus patient in their state had died.
Now, more than two years and 999,999 fatalities later, the U.S. death toll is the world's highest total by a significant margin, figures show. In a distant second is Brazil, which has recorded just over 660,000 confirmed Covid deaths.
Dr. Christopher Murray, who heads the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said although this milestone has been looming, "the fact that so many have died is still appalling."
Refrigerated trucks functioning as temporary morgues at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Brooklyn, N.Y., on May 6, 2020.Justin Heiman / Getty Images file
And the toll continues to mount.
"This is far from over," Murray said.
Each death causes a ripple of lasting pain. Diana Ordonez's husband worked in information security management and had just gotten promoted before he died. When he wasn't working, he loved to be with his family.
The Ordonez family.Courtesy Diana Ordonez
For their daughter, Mia, now 7, losing her dad has brought anxiety, overwhelming sadness, sleep trouble and lots of questions. Ordonez, 35, of Waldwick, New Jersey, doesn't always have answers.
"I try to be understanding, but I definitely have felt so many times that I'm not equipped to parent this person," she said.
She finds times of joy are tinged with sadness, too.
"It is shadowed by, 'God, I wish he was here for this,'" Ordonez said. "It could be simple moments, like watching Mia at ballet, or going to a birthday party and watching her jump up and down, holding hands with her friend."
'We had the opportunity to be a shining example'
Per capita, the U.S. ranks 18th worldwide in Covid deaths, while Peru has the highest number. Still, many see the staggering death toll as evidence of America's inadequate response to the crisis.
"We had the opportunity to be a shining example to the rest of the world about how to deal with the pandemic, and we didn't do that," said Nico Montero, a 17-year-old in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Montero made headlines earlier this year when he traveled to Philadelphia, where children ages 11 or older can be vaccinated without parental consent, to receive his shot at age 16.
Nico Montero wrote an op-ed about getting vaccinated for his school's newspaper.Kimberly Paynter / WHYY
Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said many expected the U.S. to better control the virus's spread.
"We were very encouraged by the rapid development of the vaccines, and everybody really thought we were going to vaccinate our way out of this," he said. "But then we had people that wouldn't even take the damn vaccine."
Steven Ho, 32, was an emergency room technician in Los Angeles when the pandemic began. He said he thinks changing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confused the public, while disputes over vaccines and masks cost lives.
"We just didn't do a good job," he said.
Ho quit his hospital job last year — one of many health care workers who have done so. A recent study calculated that about 3.2 percent of health care workers left the industry per month before the pandemic. That share jumped to 5.6 percent from April to December 2020. Relative to February 2020, the health care workforce has lost nearly 300,000 employees, the U.S. Department of Labor reported April 1.
Ho decided to become a comedian. Combining his experience treating Covid patients with comedy, he donned his hospital scrubs to create a popular series of TikTok videos called "Tips From the Emergency Room."
It was Ho's way of coping with what he had witnessed.
"It helped me release this pent-up energy, anger and sadness," he said.
A pandemic that continued long after the advent of vaccines
More than half of U.S. Covid deaths have occurred since President Joe Biden was inaugurated in January 2021.
Most of those deaths — more than 80 percent from April to December 2021, for instance — were unvaccinated Americans, according to the CDC. As of February, the risk of death from Covid was 20 times higher for unvaccinated people than for those who were vaccinated and boosted, the CDC data showed.
"We know vaccines work. We know masks work. We know social distancing works, and we know crowd control, limiting crowded spaces, works. This is like a no-brainer, but we cannot seem to do it," Murphy said.
Health care workers transport a patient on a stretcher to an ambulance at Life Care Center of Kirkland in Kirkland, Wash., on Feb. 29, 2020.David Ryder / Getty Images file
Sherie Hellams Gamble — whose mother, Patricia Edwards, died of Covid in August 2020 — worries about the effects of the ongoing pandemic on health care workers. Edwards, 62, was an intensive care unit nurse for three decades who treated her patients as if they were family, her daughter said.
"I still talk to people that were working with her. I always find myself saying, 'Please be careful. I'm thinking about you,'" Gamble, of Greenville, South Carolina, said. "Two years later and they're still in the fight — I know that cannot be easy."
Patricia Edwards.Courtesy Edwards family
Nine months after Edwards died, she was recognized with a lifetime achievement award in nursing. Gamble said it was bittersweet to accept the award on her mother's behalf.
"It solidified her work that she's done," Gamble said.
The family created a scholarship in the hopes of bringing more nurses like Edwards into the field. Gamble said she imagines that if Edwards were still alive today, she would likely be telling everyone to take care of themselves.
"She would probably be saying, 'Not only does your health affect you, but it affects other people, so do what you can do to keep yourself healthy,'" she said.
Gamble is certain her mom would have another reminder, too: "Don't take for granted life and the days you are still here on Earth."
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Why so many? Disbanding the organization that had been set up to deal with such a situation, trivializing it, intentional delay, a patchwork quilt in dealing with the challenge, refusal to comply with guidelines - put them together and that's why.
They do look and act like an unruly Danny Kaye daycare down there.
Why so many, you forgot one reason, the death count due to VRR (vital records review). Peoples deaths were researched for any possible connection to covid19 within 30 days prior to their death or tested positive at death.
Case in point, we had a neighbor die at 98 years of age, he was listed as a covid death even though he had never tested positive, was never exposed to it, and died at home. His family tried to get the covid death declaration removed from his death certificate, they will not remove it and give no reason for it being listed as cause of death.
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Even the local new outlets here stopped using "died of covid" and changed it to "with" or "complications from" and we all know the whole comorbidity thing.
There are loads of people who die at home from COVID and they are not counted. Call it a wash.
Comorbidity exists with every viral and bacterial infection, Jim. The fact is, if they didn't get COVID, they wouldn't have died then.
And the people that I knew who died from COVID had no underlying conditions.
Perhaps but I doubt it. People don’t just disappear when they die and the trend for the longest time was to error on the side of COVID for monetary and political reasons A cause of death must be assigned no matter where they died.
COVID was/is money maker compared to more normal deaths causes of death. Age, pre-existing conditions, etc. I lost a good friend to “COVID”. He was 72 and coming off a second round of Chemo and his immune system was trashed. A normal cold could have taken him out at that point.
Disingenuous at best to call his a COVID death and I know for a fact he would not have wanted to be characterized as such.
A recent WHO report indicates that the actual world pandemic death toll may be three times that which has been indicated.
Global COVID-19 deaths may be 3 times higher than official records
Curious as to why far right wingers still downplay the reality of covid.
Probably the same reason for downplaying anthropogenic global warming.
Right wingers are just sub 100 IQ morons who are being used by corporations.
"Curious as to why far right wingers still downplay the reality of covid.
Probably the same reason for downplaying anthropogenic global warming.
Right wingers are just sub 100 IQ morons who are being used by corporations."
So true. It's baffling. People are so nonchalant about masking - that stupid judge dropping the masks on transportation, insane - and the numbers are going back up up up up up AGAIN.
WHAT A SURPRISE!
Sparty, I said that comorbidity exists with every viral and bacterial infection. Why do you think that there are deaths from the flu? If a person died while having COVID, COVID or complications of COVID was the cause of death.
My next-door neighbor had lung cancer but she died of pneumonia. Pneumonia was the cause of death. Same for your friend. The fact that COVID transmits so easily is what makes it so deadly.
A better question would be why many on the left insist on being so melodramatic.
It’s so trite
Agree to disagree.
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There are a number of factors unique to the United States that must be considered. The United States did not adequately control entry into the country because of an exceptionally large number of entry points. The United States has concentrated distribution of necessities into large buildings that are much more difficult to ventilate and sanitize. In urban areas utilizing mass transit longer commutes congregate people into confined spaces for longer periods of time. The majority of the population in the United States does not have the monetary means or the type of housing that allows maintaining a larger stock of necessities so people must shop more frequently. The United States has a higher incidence of chronic diseases that increased the risks of more severe COVID. The United States has a large elderly population but lacks the infrastructure necessary to accommodate and protect older people.
Those are systemic obstacles for addressing a pandemic. The pandemic was also politicized which added unpredictable complicating factors to managing the pandemic. There were mass protests across the country for political reasons. Large numbers of people were traveling and intermingling for political reasons. People were engaging in riskier behavior as an act of political resistance and defiance. Keep in mind that political gatherings to conduct government business and for political activities in Washington D.C. also experienced outbreaks regardless of mitigation measures that were in place.
Many of the factors you list can apply to any country with larger populations and big cities However, I think that those I listed are major factors, and most of them specific to the USA.
I blame people's general stupidity: not wearing masks, refusing vaccinations, not social distancing, and spreading misinformation. Then they blame the scientists.
These are the same people who don't understand cell theory and still mouth the conspiracy theory that Covid19 was created in a lab.
I won't be one of them because I got a Covid19 booster last night at RiteAid.
See, you're smart. If only more people in this country followed your example and had your intelligence, we might have been able to beat Covid.
1 million dead, all due to trump's incompetence and maga-mania misinformation.
All while he and his criminal enterprise of an administration profited off of insider information, etc., etc., etc., etc. So much blood and death on their hands which they project, deflect, and deny onto Democrats and President Biden, as usual.
More conspiracy theories?
Truth.
Given none of it has been proven it's more fiction and conspiracy theory.
Nope that's your forte.
Of course!
Just look at ALL that evidence for the insane claim!
No shit. 4 years of investigating EVERY aspect of his life and business with zero evidence. I guess some people just can't accept the reality that they were wrong from the start.
That's the dumbest thing that I have read all day.
You should pay attention to the left.
I thought that I was a lefty. Did I get expelled when I wasn't looking?
Trump was not determined to be innocent. He just wasn't charged in court.
Trump was not determined to be guilty. He wasn't charged in court.
zero evidence....well there is something EVIDENT about that state meant to swim in D Nile with crocidile arme and alligator alligations that tear up
that blatant Lie in weight, dfrowninmg one in Denial....
There has to be sufficient evidence to charge him in court. So far there hasn't been sufficient evidence. Remember, your hurt feelings don't classify as evidence.
Many more people have passed with Biden's super spreader policies in place than during Trump's term
Please tell me who had the answer that would have STOPPED Covid ?
COVID could not be stopped, it could only be mitigated.
The answer on how to mitigate COVID-19 is multifold:
The agents to make this happen are the people. If the people all took COVID-19 seriously and engaged in the above actions, we would have provided the best mitigation possible.
Refusal to comply with those guidelines is only ONE of the reasons for the proliferation of the virus, but IMO a major one that will guarantee that the pandemic will become endemic and persist in the USA.
I mentioned four items. What would you add to this list?
Regular testing as long as covid is in the neighbourhood.
In Liberal La La Land, is Biden ever responsible for ANYTHING?
How did Trump become responsible for all the deaths AFTER Biden became President?
your lack of understanding the term contagious virus and the exponential math involved is noted.
What you think you know about me is vast.
What you actually know about me can fit on the head of a pin!
and you think Trump could have done something to stop it, who has the lack of understanding?
Trump's most obvious failure (gratuitous and stupid) on COVID-19 was downplaying the pandemic. His push to get vaccines was his best success regarding the pandemic.
Trump wasn’t alone in downplaying it at first. Hell, there was plenty of people on left saying they wouldn’t take the vaccine simply because it was developed under Trump. Talk about stupid.
So there is plenty of blame to go around on that but you are right. It happened under his watch and much of the responsibility in inherently his. That’s how it works. Just like now.
The acting PotUS downplayed the pandemic. Does not matter if others did so as well. My point was that downplaying the pandemic was Trump's greatest failure regarding the pandemic. I was talking about Trump; others do not matter.
Right, and if people would point to facts rather than make abstract / partisan / emotional / false allegations, discourse might be more interesting. One can give credit and blame to both Biden and Trump regarding the pandemic. So why not give them credit for what they did right and criticize them for what they did wrong?
For example (i.e. not exhaustive, merely illustrative):
That’s a cop out. It does matter when people in Fauci’s position downplayed it as well. And he did, no matter how you try to wordsmith his comments. And Fauci was far from alone. Pelosi, Harris, the media, etc ... hell, China was downplaying it as late as mid January, denying human to human transmission.
So COVID was a developing situation and to lay the blame all at Trumps feet is disingenuous at best considering others reactions.
Again as noted, Trump is far from blameless here but there is still plenty of blame to go around.
Hardly. I was talking about Trump. My criticism and praise was about Trump. Nobody else was included or implied in my comment.
Not when I am talking exclusively about Trump. I was not talking about everyone on the planet; I was talking about one person: Trump — when he was PotUS.
Do you ever make a comment about a single individual?? Is it a cop-out to note that your comment was about that individual and that other individuals do not matter to the point you are making?
Did you read me laying all the blame at Trump's feet? If not, then why make this comment and imply that I did?
Of course. Again, as noted, my comment was about Trump. You speaking of other people is irrelevant to the point I made. If you were to criticize Biden for speaking mistakes is it relevant if someone brings up the speaking mistakes of Bush? No! Biden's speaking flaws are his to own ... it does not matter that others have speaking flaws too. See?
And I expanded the discussion and explained how it does matter how others reacted. So yeah, Trump was not an island in this situation. Not even close.
If you don’t want to hear more aspects of a conversation I suggest you don’t respond. Again, Trump was not alone in handling the situation poorly. Which IS extremely cogent to this discussion.
All the time when appropriate. Do you always only look at only one individual when many are involved?
I never said you did. My comments stand on their own merit.
Fair enough. I acknowledged Trumps failure several times here and my opinion is that your analysis of the situation, speaking only of Trump in this context, did not even begin to be expansive. Which is why others were brought up since they were clearly involved in that context. With the failures in how our government dropped the ball on us in this pandemic.
Speaking only of Trump in this regard in disingenuous at best. No need to debate that. It’s fact.
LOL, you 'expanded the discussion'? That's great Sparty. So when you decide to make a point exclusively about Biden's speaking, you will have no problem if someone 'expands the discussion' and talks about Bush's struggles with the English language? After all, Bush's problems would matter to your point simply because your interlocutor has 'expanded the discussion'?
Synch point. Here is what I wrote: (1 Trump success; 1 Trump failure)
There is no hint of Fauci or anyone else in the above. I made a specific point about the key failure and key success of Trump as PotUS regarding COVID-19. These are individual actions of Trump.
There is nothing disingenuous about making a point regarding a single person. Nowhere do I even hint that Trump is the sole reason for anything or that he is the only one to blame (or credit).
When someone 'expands' the scope of another's comment and starts arguing points that were not made, that is what we call disingenuous (among other things).
SOP .... as you resort to sophomoric insults and snark.
How predictable and boring.
Once again and as is usually the case in conversations with you, I stand by each and every comment I’ve made here and yield the last word to the people who clearly need it more than I.
What is predictable is that you take a very straightforward comment ...
... and attempt to introduce a strawman argument. And, as usual, when your attempt fails you whine that you were mistreated.
Quote the part where I delivered a 'sophomoric insult'. You cannot because it does not exist.
Tell me what would have stopped this virus other than the vaccine or natural immunity?
Nothing would have stopped the virus. The best we could do is to mitigate it.
You have now asked me this question twice. Did you not read my answer @2.3.1?:
So I am curious how Trump's attitude toward the virus made any difference whatsoever, because we did Clean Hands, Social Distance, Masks were hit and miss which Fauci also contributed. These were happening as of early as April of 20. All of these practices were in place along with the vaccine and more people died under Biden than Trump, please explain why that is.
Goosie (and Just Jim), good grief. The president of the USA downplayed the virus. That gave support for those who were inclined to not clean hands, social distance, mask, etc. And those who were ambivalent but trust what the PotUS states would not be so inclined to take the precautions.
The words of the sitting PotUS have an impact. We have 331+ million people in the USA. If only a third of them take the PotUS seriously, we are talking over 110 million people.
Because, as I have explained twice now, there is a large minority of people in the USA who REFUSE to get vaccinated. And many do NOT take precautions (or not seriously).
So if you want to blame Biden because people made individual, personal choices to NOT follow the recommendations of the administration and NOT take advantage of the free vaccines that were available to them, etc. then you must be in favor of the Biden administration forcing people to do so.
Figure out your position. Outside of a clear message that the pandemic is real, that the variants are dangerous, that everyone biologically eligible should be vaccinated and making vaccines, test kits, masks, etc. available ... what, exactly, do you think the Biden administration should have done to encourage people to be responsible?
Show me the data to proves your claim, I washed my hands, social distanced and wore a mask and still got Covid twice.
So what are you objecting to now?
Are you trying to argue that taking precautions does prevent one from being infected? If so, I never claimed that precautions were a 100% solution. These measures reduce the likelihood of infection and reduce the severity of infection. If you need data for this do a simple Google query.
Are you trying to argue that the PotUS does NOT influence people? If you actually believe that, nothing is going to get through to you.
Apparently you have moved off of your Biden bitching since you have chosen to not explain what you think the Biden administration should have done, beyond what it did do, to encourage individuals to vaccinate and take precautions.
I think his only large failure was on a COVID testing plan that was overly complicated, limited, and inadequate.
Well Goosie is utterly perplexed, it would seem. He cannot seem to figure out how all the COVID-19 deaths that occurred under Biden's watch could be a result of individual, personal choices during an active pandemic and not due to the administration failing to provide information and resources for individuals to act responsibly.
I saw the Biden administration ensure that vaccines were available, for example. If the vaccines were not available (or not free) then Goosie might have a basis for an argument.
My family took advantage of that. My wife and daughter are teachers and got there first vaccine in Feb 21. I'm immunocompromised and have had four shots to date. My family stills wears a mask if others are present and I continue to work from home.
After all this time there are only two conclusions that I have drawn about this pandemic:
1) Regardless of who was president or who was leading any country, this particular virus was uncanny. If one were to create a virus in a lab to aggressively and relentlessly infect human beings, it would have been similar to this thing.
2) Each new variant seems to be getting weaker and that may finally be what saves the rest of us.
The virus definitely would be a potent weapon if it could be directed. It wreaks havoc in many dimensions. And yes we have not seen a disruptive variant that sets us back to square zero so that it definitely a good (and lucky) happening.
My only objection is the bashing of Trump and how much influence he had over the population. Biden declared he would beat the virus and made all kinds of promises on what he would do and had all the tools to do so. Yet we still had more deaths, if the POTUS has that much influence we should have seen a drastic reduction in the death rate.
But you know the limits of the PotUS. You know that a PotUS cannot literally force people to comply with recommendations and cannot force people to get vaccinated. You know that a PotUS cannot make people behave responsibly.
And a PotUS is also not in control of variants and the resulting outbreaks.
A PotUS CAN, however, take measures to ensure that everyone is informed to take the pandemic seriously; that everyone is informed on what precautions they should take; that everyone is given a convenient and free ability to get vaccinated.
I do not expect miracles from any political figure and certainly do not take every campaign promise literally and 100%. Do you? So being reasonable, what would you have done differently than Biden on the handling of the virus? Don't tell me that you would close the border; Biden is clearly at fault for that. So other than the border, what would you have done differently than Biden?
Now, on Trump, my credit to Trump was in the production of the vaccine.
My criticism of Trump is his downplaying of the pandemic. When a PotUS downplays the pandemic and gives people the impression that it is not much more than the flu and is short-lived, many will believe this and act accordingly. The behavior that triggers is the exact opposite of what we needed early on. Early on the behavior we needed was for everyone to take the virus seriously and take the precautions.
Do you recognize the impact Trump had on some percentage of 330 million people by downplaying the pandemic and thus the sheer number of people who were influenced to not take it as seriously (by a long shot) as they should?
Biden has had the vaccine for his entire Presidency and he has still has lost more people than Trump.
Now if you’re looking for incompetence ..... there it is.
How about if you were handed the presently raging New Mexico wildfire, do you feel you would be in a better position to stop it than when it first started?
The allegory of a wildfire to the spread of a virus reminds me of the code name they called the virus in the movie "The Andromeda Strain", but I really shouldn't be talking movies to you, should I?
What story or poem was that and who handed it to him? Copyrighted?
Be fair, dev. In my first comment above I listed a number of reasons for the magnitude of the deaths and infections in America, it wasn't ALL Trump's fault, but IMO a lot of the blame falls on him, and if it's because he got bad advice from the start, then that mitigates his fault somewhat. After all, not EVERY American was stupid enough to follow his suggestions to drink bleach and inject a disinfectant.
that self centered buffoon's denial of the threat and 4-5 months of inaction created an inevitable domino effect for a contagious virus. as the POTUS during the outbreak, he's responsible for every death.
100% correct!
AND THAT'S BEING FAIR!
Nothing mitigates whatshisname, NOTHING
4 months ago...............That means about 200K since then even with vaccines and what we know. Sad situation.
Wait, doesn't that mean that there were more COVID related Deaths under Biden than there were under Trump? Wouldn't that mean that, at least by his own standards, Biden should resign as President?
Yep. Sure does. But Trump............................again
Gotta place blame somewhere. Even if it is fictional and on somebody that is no longer involved.
Reading through the blame game comments, I reflect on how fortunate Canadians are to have only one person to blame. /S
Get a grip America, the numbers would have been the same under any President or combination thereof.
That's because American partisanship demands their evil villain. It must have someone that they can point to as the "mastermind" behind all their pain and suffering.
Thanks for the link and laughs, the day has become a little brighter.
Let's think about "The American President". Think about what "the American president" said on tape to Woodward to explain why he delayed properly dealing with the pandemic: "I don't want to create a panic." - giving the virus time to spread beyond effective control.
At that time very little was known about the virus. Only a very few cases of it were in this Country and the two political parties had already politized the issue. Add to this that the national stockpiles of PPE were low due to both the current and previous administrations not keeping up the national stockpiles of equipment and the recent shipment of PPE to China as they were the first to report the virus and at that time had significant shortages of PPE themselves.
When Trump banned foreign nationals from entering the country from China and other infected areas, the Democrats were very quick to jump up and condemn those actions as xenophobic and racist.
As far as issuing lockdowns for the country, the federal government cannot do that. That action MUST come from state and local governments as per our laws.
Should Trump have talked differently at the beginning and done more education to the public on this? Hindsight is easy to show why he should have but when this all started up so little was really known and it was already so politicized that had he tried I'm sure the Democrats would have been all over him for fear-mongering. It was truly a no-win situation here.
Yes, it is unfortunate for Americans that when faced with a common and universal problem that there has to be a "patchwork" of differing responses to it rather than a unified concerted effort.
I'm sure Trump appreciates your support and apology. Did you try drinking bleach or injecting disinfectant as a vaccine? Seems like Covid-19 was a little more serious than "It's just like the flu and would disappear in a month."
Your bias is a little telling when you only condemn Trump and ignore what other leaders did at the same time. Why no comment about Pelosi promoting China Town and how everybody should get done there for the holiday. Why no comment about Bill de Blasio promoting restaurant week and telling "healthy" citizens they should be going out to eat. How about Chuck Schumer calling Trump's restrictions on travel xenophobic? Did Trump do things wrong in the beginning and downplay the virus? yes. But so did a lot of other people who seem to be given a pass for their comments. Why are you willing to give them a pass when you blame Trump for what he did?
I find this a little insulting and condescending. If that's how you really feel then I guess we have nothing more to say.
I have some things to say. First of all I'm no more biased than most of the members on this site. I have given Trump credit where credit was due and I have criticized him when I felt he deserved it. Secondly, Trump was the leader, YOUR leader, and when the leader does something wrong the buck stops there. Isn't this what the sign on Harry Truman's desk said - "THE BUCK STOPS HERE".
Although I asked, it was for effect, and I'm sure you're too smart to have done the ignorant things that Trump suggested.
I never said you were more biased than others on this site, what I said was that your bias was showing in that you were only condemning Trump for his actions at the beginning of the pandemic and saying nothing about what others in leadership positions were saying. Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House which meant she was in the #2 position for succession right after the Vice President. Bill de Blasio was the mayor of at the time the eleventh largest city in the world. Chuck Schumer was the minority leader in the Senate. All highly visible leadership positions. Andrew Cuomo was at the time the governor of New York state and around the same time that New York announced it's first Covid case he held daily press conferences until June (111 daily events) before tapering them back. All of them downplayed the pandemic at the start. Once the pandemic really got going they used their platform to attack the administration and play party politics.
Was Trump the President? Yes. And as such he was the "face" of the government. In reality he was only the head of the Executive Branch of the federal government. The president's powers, while greater than the average person, is strictly limited as well. The president cannot make laws, cannot make a federal budget and cannot declare war, those are all powers that are delegated to Congress. Trump can suggest actions to states and cities but he cannot force such actions on them. Trump said a lot of stupid things around the pandemic, but so did the other leaders who shared the stage with him in the White House covid briefings. How many times did Fauci bounce in his talking about masking and social distancing, how did he initially describe the problem other than to also downplay it as something "we're keeping an eye on but don't believe it's of national concern at this time". But all you continue to do is condemn Trump for his actions in dealing with Covid.
Lastly, when I stated that I found your questioning if I tried drinking bleach or injecting disinfectant as a vaccine as insulting and condescending, your reply was to just say you're sure I'm too smart to have done that.. I guess we really are done then and have nothing more to say.
I guess you didn't read the first comment I made on this article when I spoke of the "patchwork quilt" of dealing with the situation - i.e. everybody going in different directions.
There are many government leaders in American politics, Snuffy, but who do you think has the ear of the public more than any other.
My first comment on this article stands, and as far as I'm concerned, and I've said it more than once on this site and on this article, it is the freedom and individual rights of the individual Americans to do as they please, notwithstanding the consequences for those around them. And so many champion that, don't they. Where else in the world have there been stories about people coming into a grocery store and coughing all over the vegetables and fruit, or about people fighting with management of places that request that all be masked? That is the reason this virus will be endemic and it will never be eliminated.
Thank you for speaking the truth...for once.
It won't happen again ... I promise!
True, but that doesn’t give people the apparent joy of calling each other mass murderers.
No they wouldn't have.
The political memory is very short. The pandemic in the United States began during Trump's last year in office. Under Trump's tenure the United States did not understand the disease, did not have treatments, did not have vaccines, and there were shortages of just about everything the healthcare system needed. By the time Biden entered office those deficiencies had been addressed.
Biden took over management of the pandemic with advantages that Trump did not have. Yet, more than half of COVID deaths have occurred on Biden's watch. Biden's advantages coupled with Biden's more authoritarian central planning approach to managing the pandemic hasn't proven effective; the death toll demonstrates that. Biden had all the tools science could provide (which Trump did not have) and Biden certainly imposed more draconian measures to force people to utilize what science provided than did Trump. Yet, here we are lamenting the damage caused by COVID.
Joe Biden politicized the pandemic and has used science as an exculpatory whipping boy to avoid scrutiny of Biden's highly political approach to managing the pandemic. Biden deliberately chose to divide the country for political purposes - and - Biden's politics has killed people. The body bags don't lie.
Most deaths from COVID, once the vaccines were made available, were preventable. Everyone in the USA who was biologically eligible for the vaccine had the option to be fully vaccinated and take precautions (e.g. social distance, masking, cleaning, ...).
The freedom that exists in our country means that people can engage in stupid acts. Our government (and that includes the current PotUS) cannot force people to be responsible and, if you remember, any attempts made to this end were rebuked.
Blaming the government for individuals exercising their freedom to be irresponsible is irrational.
Perhaps. What could have happened will always be conjecture. Keep in mind that mass protests for political reasons were occurring across the country. And those mass protests did not conform to prescribed mitigation efforts.
The early phase of the pandemic became a political contest between a central planning role of government and a decentralized planning role of government.
For the central planning approach the role of government was to impose restrictions and requirements which required enforcement. However, the central planning approach did not assist the population in conforming to imposed requirements. The central planning approach could not succeed because central planning focused government's attention on regulating people which could never regulate or control the virus. Mitigation measures were imposed but the government did not provide assistance in meeting required mitigation efforts. The result was hoarding behavior, profiteering, government created scarcity, and inconsistent application of mitigation necessary to meet imposed requirements. Central planning requires more than regulating people and punishing those who can't or won't conform to requirements.
For the decentralized planning approach the role of government was to advise the public and takes steps that would assist the public in application of mitigation measures. The government disseminated guidelines and information to assist people in protecting themselves and inform the public how to mitigate spread of the virus. The government essentially commandeered manufacturing to increase production of what was needed for mitigation measures and directly address scarcity. The decentralized approach focused the government's attention on the virus and relied upon the population to regulate and control the virus.
The response to the pandemic failed because of the politically aggressive demands to focus government's attention onto regulating people without assisting the public in application of mitigation measures. The central planners imposed requirements onto the public but did nothing to assist the public in conforming to those requirements. So, the public had a double burden. The public had the burden of complying with government requirements that may or may not have been practical and the public had the burden of regulating and controlling the virus.
In a pandemic only the public can regulate and control the virus. The government imposing requirements only places a greater burden onto the public. The government's attention was focused on regulating the public while the public's attention should have been focused on regulating the virus instead of complying with government imposed requirements. The central planning approach ensured that the government was not a partner in the public's efforts to regulate and control the virus.
"Blaming the government for individuals exercising their freedom to be irresponsible is irrational."
Opening the border wide to thousands of unvaxxed illegals is really irrational
Not for those who want open borders or amnesty for illegal aliens.
To the rest of us, yes it is irrational.
I did not speak of what 'could have happened'. I stated what happened. Those who were biologically suitable for the vaccine had the option to take it. Everyone had the option to mask, social distance, wash hands, etc. Those who got sick and died did so because of their choices and the choices of the human beings they were around (unfortunately).
The government worked to ensure the vaccines were available and distributed with very few barriers. They worked to provide masks. They worked to impose restrictions.
Yes, not controlling the border is a failure.
Now, are you able to acknowledge what I wrote?
You can not know that. The people who have died were obviously more susceptible to an infection progressing to severe COVID. And we know that vaccinated people are dying now because they are more susceptible to an infection progressing to severe COVID.
The vaccines are not a treatment or a cure. And we know that the vaccines only provide temporary protection for those who are more susceptible to COVID. The only plausible conjecture is that people who are more susceptible to severe COVID are more likely to die whether or not they are vaccinated. The vaccines would stretch out the time for a million deaths to occur but we would still see a million deaths caused by COVID.
I most certainly do know the hard facts I posted. The vaccines were made available and social distancing, masks, etc. do help. The vaccines demonstrably save lives. Walking around unvaccinated puts one at substantially higher risk. There is no denying these facts.
This ⇡ however, is conjecture and it denies reality.
Placing higher importance upon, IMO, the MAJOR reason why Americans will live with it forever, i.e. those requiring that personal rights and freedom must ALWAYS trump the good of the community and the life and health of those around them.
As I said above, handing a person a raging wildfire which could have been controlled when it first started and telling them it is their fault it is uncontrollable is to me some kind of childish stupididy.
That's just not true.
The vaccine was not available to most people by the time Biden took office. it was still mostly available to healthcare workers, the elderly, and those at high risk.
And the whole "Biden politicized the virus" thing - please. Trump purposely egged on those violating best practices, holding rallies (RIP, Herman Cain), refusing to mask, compromising the safety of his own Secret Service agents by demanding a joyride while being treated for Covid himself.
More than 1 million Americans had been vaccinated by December 24, 2020.
December 11, 2020Food and Drug Administration issues an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the first COVID-19 vaccine – the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
December 12. 2020, The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) issues interim recommendation for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in persons aged 16 years or older for the prevention of COVID-19.
December 18, 2020The U.S.Food and Drug Administration issues an Emergency Use Authorization for the second COVID-19 vaccine – the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
December 19, 2020The Advisory Committee on Immunization practices (ACIP) issues an interim recommendation for the use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in persons aged 18 years or older for the prevention of COVID-19.
February 27, 2021FDA approves emergency use authorization for Johnson and Johnson one shot COVID-19 vaccine.
March 8, 2021CDC announces that fully vaccinated people can gather indoors without masks.
March 11, 2021President Joseph Biden announces a federal vaccine website where users can find vaccines near them. He also directs all states, tribes, and territories to make all adults eligible for the vaccine by May 1st.
March 13, 2021U.S. surpasses 100 million vaccinations administered.
April 21, 2021U.S. surpasses 200 million vaccinations administered
Source for above:
CDC Museum COVID-19 Timeline | David J. Sencer CDC Museum | CDC
As the timeline shows, the Biden Administration had a tremendous advantage over the Trump Administration in fighting Covid. We already had the vaccines before Biden took office.
All healthcare workers, as I recall. Most Americans who weren't healthcare workers, elderly, or at high risk couldn't get vaccinated until spring of 2021. By then, Covid had already been sweeping through the nation for a year. The genie was out of the bottle.
Now, we could have slowed it down. Not stopped it. But we didn't slow it down. Some of us fought lockdowns and mask mandates. They had parties and visited family and went to church without masking. They had political rallies. Well, one side did.
Many refused to vaccinate. They were more likely to be conservative.
Biden had the advantages of a vaccine and better knowledge, but he had one huge disadvantage. Covid was already here, and had already spread to every town and county in the US. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and this genie multiplied itself pretty quickly.
March 13, 2021
U.S. surpasses 100 million vaccinations administered.
April 21, 2021
U.S. surpasses 200 million vaccinations administered
Now, do you think the Biden Administration had advantages that the Trump Administration did not have regarding Covid?
No.
100 million vaccine doses was enough to vaccinate 50 million people, since the one-dose J&J vaccine was approved so much later. By that time, healthcare workers and nursing home residents were vaccinated. But the US has about 330 million people, so that's a lot of folks still unvaccinated.
And that's not anybody's fault, really. But it means that you're overestimating the advantage Biden had. Vaccinating a fraction of people against a virus that was already in the door was helpful, but not enough to undo the damage already done.
Trump squandered his advantages. Early in the pandemic, the virus was limited to points of entry - coastal cities with international airports, for the most part. If we had enforced strict lockdown, quarantined those returning from overseas (including US citizens, whom he exempted from his ban on arrivals from China), and required masking/social distancing, we would have been better off. If he hadn't dismantled the pandemic response team. we may not have run short of PPE supplies, which put frontline workers at risk. Trump's persistent downplaying of the virus encouraged people to be careless and even defiantly reckless. He hosted parties without masks at the White House. He allowed a bidding war between the federal government and state governments for PPE. He gave pretty much a textbook example of how not to handle a pandemic.
And this should be obvious to anyone who can think objectively.
Come on TiG. When are people ever objective? Objectivity seems to be an increasingly rare commodity these days.
Again, you choose to live in a delusional alternate reality.
Many of the COVID deaths are disinformation deaths because a virus was politicized.
Many of the anti-vaxxers were dead right.
Here is the sad truth.
And remember, COVID is no worse than the flu..... errrr...
>cough< wheeze >cough<
the vaccines are a gov't plot. I'm sure I'll get better real soon...
Like inflation, it's just temporary!
You can't force me to wear a mask to help prevent a deadly disease, but we can force women to carry to term whether it kills her or not. "PRO-LIFE" baby!!!!!!
~sarc~
Which woman was forced to give birth?
yo moma.
John Hopkins reported 114,308 new cases of COVID and 1960 deaths yesterday.
On their website.
I think he meant geographically. Was that just in the US in other words.
JH breaks it down by country and the numbers I posted are for the US only.
Here's where.
New York is the epicenter again.
Are you shocked Nerm? NYC is also the hub of the world.
Perrie,
I thought you might like the way the covid data is displayed on the following CDC website. It lists ages, sex, various underlying issues, etc for all deaths since covid deaths have been reported in the US.
Thank you very much mocowgirl. I do!
You're welcome.
That has been my major source of comprehensive information on covid death stats for what seems like a decade at this point.
Some of my other sources of information have been discontinued or states are no longer reporting in a timely manner, if at all.
I find that very annoying. I mean, while I agree that we have to learn to live with the virus, clearly the fact that it killed a million Americans that we know of, it is hardly a flu. In fact, the flu still gets an annual accounting, which is somewhere between 20-40 thousand annually.
It is striking how the media lost interest in hyping the number of fatalities and covid infections in January 2021 (outside of the late summer surge in Florida) Similar to how the cumulative counting of deaths in Iraq/Afghanistan stopped being a thing once Bush left office.
But not at all surprising.
That's odd considering it's all I have read in the national and local papers and the major network news.
you want to argue that Covid is getting as much attention as it did in 2020?
In 2020 it was new, we had lockdowns, people dropping like flies and no vaccine. But that is not what you said. You said: It is striking how the media lost interest in hyping the number of fatalities and covid infections in January 2021
2 years later this is what the NBC homepage looks like:
A front-page topic still dedicated to all things COVID. And when you click on it you get this:
Hardly a disinterest in the virus that you are portraying.
Perrie, if you think the news is hyping cumulative death counts and cases the same they were when Trump was President, I don't know what to tell you. You live in a different reality than I do. That used to be front page news.
Oh and I looked at NBC's front page today. Not a single covid relate story there.
They canned the death count here in California long before Bidens death count get close to them greatly exceeded the count they ran on Trump, oh and they quit when they couldn’t claim better results than long open Florida that could rationalize their oppressive coastal urban lockdowns here.