The global community is very much clear that the policy failure of the US administration to contain Covid-19 has created a lot of social-economic problems within the US. Though the US administration is claiming that it has completely addressed the Covid-19 issue, health experts and social scientists are showing maximum errors in policy formulation, implementation, and outcome. Since the massive expansion of Covid-19 cases to till now, there is not an outstanding result seen in course of Covid-19 control efforts. As health experts suggest, the US administration needs to restructure and remodeled its Covid-19 control mechanism and execution methods immediately.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV-2, a virus that was previously unknown, to be a pandemic. It was silent, airborne, infected, and killed a disproportionate number of the elderlies, those with compromised immune systems, and even healthy people. At first, the US health department had intentionally ignored the warning of the health experts. Many attribute the problems to politics and politicians. Later, the US citizens faced dreadful consequences.
According to Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, the United States was not integrated into its response at the beginning of the pandemic around social distancing and mask-wearing in the Trump administration. Gandhi made the statement to media persons. The administration ignored the issue, as well as issues with the testing platforms and unified messaging, which could minimize the virus.
Donald Trump, a former president, purposefully understated the severity of COVID-19. He gave the public information about the virus in February 2020, claiming it was “no worse than the flu,” was “in control,” and would eventually go away. But in secret, Trump was aware that it was “deadly,” according to veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward.
According to The Hill Daily, William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases and preventive medicine at Nashville, Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center said that contrary to what has been claimed in the US, the coronavirus will never go away or vanish. That won’t happen. The federal government failed to issue a single, consistent message, which led to different instructions on lockdowns, mask use, and stay-at-home orders in states with Republican and Democratic governors.
In the early stages of the pandemic, the US administration was the main source of public information and frequently promoted dubious treatments as cures, such as the antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine. Someone thereafter apparently passed away after accidentally consuming a substance that contained chloroquine.
The fact that COVID-19 disproportionately afflicted Blacks and Latinos was another problem that hindered the US response to the coronavirus. Some white Americans were made to believe it wouldn’t have an impact on them. However, because of years of underfunding in their regional healthcare systems, many of the persons of color who passed away had underlying health problems. Since we’ve received immunizations for the past 15 months, a lot of our unfortunate deaths have actually occurred, according to Professor Gandhi. The states with the lowest vaccination rates are largely Republican states like Montana, West Virginia, Louisiana, Idaho, and Alabama.
Internal medicine physician Brytney Cobia from Birmingham, Alabama, posted on Facebook in July of last year that young, healthy patients were being hospitalized in her hospital with COVID-19 and frequently regretted not obtaining the vaccine on their deathbeds. They beg him for the vaccine as one of their final acts before being intubated, according to Cobia. “They weep. And they claim they were unaware. Furthermore, they believed it to be fake. They believed it to be political. They believed they wouldn’t get sick as easily since they had a particular blood type or skin tone. Likewise, they believed it to be “simply the flu”” he said.
Additionally, while in the pandemic, the US imposed or tightened sanctions on a number of nations, including Iran, making it even harder for them to contain the virus. US sanctions, in particular, prevented Iran from obtaining the necessary anti-pandemic medical supplies and vaccines from the international community.
Bipartisan politics that have permeated federal, state, local bureaus, administrative, legislative, and judicial departments as well as the media are to blame for the high number of COVID-19 fatalities in the US. The inability of the federal government to respond to the coronavirus pandemic has been made clear by its clumsy messaging that minimized the crisis, its inability to distribute millions of test kits and protective medical equipment for healthcare workers, and its unwillingness to seek out national and international cooperation.
The White House and specialists have been at odds over the coronavirus policy. According to an editorial piece in the Economist, America needs measures based on the finest science and transparent, unvarnished public information to combat the outbreak. However, as reported by CNN, the New York Times, and other US and international media, the US administration is ignoring science in the fight against the coronavirus, and scientists’ advice is no longer sought out or blatantly disregarded by the government.
Many Asian countries place a strong emphasis on using scientific methods to contain the pandemic and restore the balance between humans and nature, in contrast to many Western nations that advocate social Darwinism and seek to build herd immunity in order to defeat the virus. And whereas many people in the West advocate for unrestricted freedom and do not wear face masks, vaccinate, or keep social distance, Asian people think that life should be valued and protected and adhere to pandemic regulations.
Even while some people in the West are envious of Asian’s anti-pandemic accomplishments, they criticize the steps that Asian took to attain them. Many Western media outlets have charged some Asian countries with concealing information about the virus, and find it difficult to accept Asia’s relatively quick economic recovery and the fact that it has not only successfully contained the pandemic to a large extent. And the US claimed that some countries in Asia were engaging in “vaccine diplomacy” because it was unable to recognize how the institutions of these countries guided the nation to success after triumphing on several fronts.
The fact that the US stigmatized some countries in the world in the fight against the pandemic and declared itself to be incharge of the worldwide effort to eradicate the virus demonstrates that it is still enmeshed in the Western myth of old. The world is not prepared to pay for the US’ failure to limit the epidemic, thus it is time for the US to act and behave like a great power with greater responsibilities.
According to Fortune Magazine, the US administration has been gradually eliminating government organizations over the past two years that were created precisely to guard against pandemics like COVID-19. A disease security initiative from the Obama administration no longer receives funds. Joe Biden’s administration further destroyed health institutions, by being unnecessarily overconfident.
In conclusion, today’s leaders should opt for a path of cooperation that will increase global resilience, as Henry Kissinger has advocated. The fight against COVID-19’s spread, which UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described as a unique global health disaster in the United Nations’ 75-year history, ought to unite rather than divide the US and other powers. For it, no doubt that the US administration needs to correct mistakes, restructure the mechanism, and work based on reality and requirements. If the US wants global solidarity against the pandemic, at first it should realize its mistakes and join hands with other powers to initiate a compact global campaign to build a world safe and better for the global community.
