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The United States just suffered its 100,000th documented death from the coronavirus.
The true number of coronavirus caused or related deaths in the US is probably closer to 130,000.
As more states and localities "open up," this toll of loss and grief will keep rising, and almost certainly will speed up.
As reported in the New York Times, researchers at Columbia University modeled the dynamics of the pandemic and calculated that if the United States had taken decisive action to limit the spread of the virus by March 1, just two weeks earlier than we belatedly did, 54,000 lives would have been spared.
To start to understand what this means, look at the front page of the New York Times listing the names of 1000 people from across the nation who have died from COVID-19. Then picture 53 more pages like that, memorializing 53,000 Americans who didn't need to die in this pandemic.
Then remember that as late as March 10, the deluded narcissist who promised to Make America Great Again was still blathering, "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."
Unfortunately, even amplified by Fox News and echoed by right-wing true believers, his magic words had no effect on this virulent, deadly virus. Reality inevitably trumps politics, polemics and magical thinking.
Please remember come November--54,000 needless deaths, and counting . . .
REA
Note: The US has 4.3% of the world's population. We've manged to produce 28.6% of COVID-19 deaths. This isn't the fault of China, the World Health Organization, Barack Obama or Joe Biden. The buck stops squarely on the desk in the oval office, no matter what the current resident of the White House would like us to believe.
Much more on how Trump made this pandemic far worse than it needed to be--Dan Benbow details 370 ways that Trump turned this into a man-made catastrophe. Read his piece here.
The true number of coronavirus caused or related deaths in the US is probably closer to 130,000.
As more states and localities "open up," this toll of loss and grief will keep rising, and almost certainly will speed up.
 |
| ". . . while the worst are full of passionate intensity." (from The Second Coming by W. B.Yeats)Photo credit: Michael Vadon |
To start to understand what this means, look at the front page of the New York Times listing the names of 1000 people from across the nation who have died from COVID-19. Then picture 53 more pages like that, memorializing 53,000 Americans who didn't need to die in this pandemic.
Then remember that as late as March 10, the deluded narcissist who promised to Make America Great Again was still blathering, "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."
Unfortunately, even amplified by Fox News and echoed by right-wing true believers, his magic words had no effect on this virulent, deadly virus. Reality inevitably trumps politics, polemics and magical thinking.
Please remember come November--54,000 needless deaths, and counting . . .
REA
Note: The US has 4.3% of the world's population. We've manged to produce 28.6% of COVID-19 deaths. This isn't the fault of China, the World Health Organization, Barack Obama or Joe Biden. The buck stops squarely on the desk in the oval office, no matter what the current resident of the White House would like us to believe.
Much more on how Trump made this pandemic far worse than it needed to be--Dan Benbow details 370 ways that Trump turned this into a man-made catastrophe. Read his piece here.
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