by Nomad
The news media is today reporting a third straight day of record-high numbers across the United States with increases in 29 states. With more than 40,000 cases in one day, Vice-President Mike Pence told reporters on Friday:
“We have made truly remarkable progress in moving our nation forward.”
Pence added that the US had “slowed the spread” and “flattened the curve”. The country, he declared, can “take some comfort” in the declining numbers of COVID-19-related fatalities.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the European Union is planning to ban most American travelers from entering any of the EU's 27 member countries. The step is aimed at preventing its member nations from seeing a backslide after easing lockdown restrictions. (This move is still pending formal approval from member countries and the EU’s own relevant bodies.)
With new cases being purposefully underreported, Dr. Sanjay Gupta observes on CNN that, because testing has become a low-priority for the Trump administration, the numbers of new cases do not reflect the actual size of the spread.
This thing may be spiraling even faster than we realize.
As Chris Hayes reports:
“We could have found our way to some form of normal life. But we did not do what was necessary to get there. So, we are stuck…back with exactly the same horrible choice we had fourteen weeks ago.”Comparing the September 11 attacks with Covid-19, 2,996 Americans lost their lives in the terror attacks. The response to that loss of life was immediate- though ill-conceived. Every day (according to the latest figures) the average daily death toll due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S. was around 961.
In effect, America is experiencing a 9/11 attack every 3.11 days and this administration seems incapable of protecting American citizens or even developing a coherent policy.
Trump tweeted on Tuesday that new cases were rising only because the US is testing "more than any other country.Despite his attempt to blame testing, public health specialists have repeatedly said the data does not indicate that increased testing accounts for the recent surge in daily new cases.“Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country, and ever expanding. With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!”