COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, killed about 11,000 people in the United States between Tuesday and Thursday.
Today News Africa reports that there were almost 6200 deaths recorded on Tuesday, more than 2600 others on Wednesday and close to 2200 fatalities on Thursday.
Citing a revised data, the only platform further reports that the New York City on Tuesday reported 3,778 additional deaths that had occurred since March 11 and had previously been classified as “probable” as coronavirus deaths.
The death certificate listed as a cause of death “COVID-19” or an equivalent”.
The Wall Street Journal reported more than 4500 deaths in the past 24 hours, but the newspaper could have been mixing up revised data in New York for Tuesday and new deaths on Thursday.
Between Tuesday and Thursday, there were also more than 90,000 new infections nationwide, an indication that the peak may still be months ahead, as new cases seem to mean that the virus continues to spread rapidly.
In all, the United States had 34,617 deaths and 57,508 recoveries from a total 677,570 infections as of Thursday night, according to the latest data.
The U.S. has recorded more deaths than any other country on earth, even as President Donald Trump continues to brag about the reportedly wonderful job he has done and blames everyone else for his own failures.
On Wednesday, he announced he would be halting funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) for reportedly mishandling the coronavirus crisis.
The announcement triggered condemnation, including from Amnesty International and Bill Gates.
But the WHO is one source of information for the United States. The country has many other intelligence sources that surveil the world and alert the administration about potential outbreaks.
As far back as January until now, Mr. Trump was warned at least 10 times, reports said, but he did little to prepare the country about the coronavirus. He even dismissed it, labeled it a as hoax at a big rally, blamed Democrats and Barack Obama for his lack of preparation, and only began to take action in March when many people were already dying from the disease.
Ever since, he has tried to rewrite history, blaming everyone and claiming that he canceled flights from China early on to curb the spread of the virus. But many journalists have pointed out that he canceled flights but did nothing to prepare for the pandemic.
When disaster hit, the United States did not have enough of virtually everything, from ventilators to the PPEs.
Mr. Trump and his Republican colleagues as well as anchors at Fox News downplayed the crisis, claiming it was just like the common flu.
But WHO has said the coronavirus is ten times deadlier than the common flu. It also said it has been sharing all the information it has with member countries.
In anyway, Americans also work for the WHO and could not have hidden information from their own country.
But with 200 days to go before election on November 3, and with the U.S. economy in shambles, in addition to the about to 30,000 Americans deaths from the virus, and counting, Mr. Trump is trying to rewrite history and reopen the country for the economy to pick up so he can brag about the strongest economy that has ever existed anywhere in the world!
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert and the WHO have warned against reopening the country too quick only for a resurgence of the virus to occur and to close the country again.
But Mr. Trump is not likely to catch the virus himself, any visitor coming close to him has to be tested.
The tens of thousands of people or the hundreds of thousands of people who would die are ordinary American citizens who do not matter in Trump’s world.
After initially saying there were only 15 cases and the virus would soon go away and praising China for a reportedly fantastic job it was doing, Mr. Trump in recent days has been downplaying the number of deaths, claiming that because of his earlier actions, he saved millions from dying.
It seems at times Mr. Trump does not have empathy and has only one thing in mind, to be re-elected on November 3.
Former President Barack Obama has endorsed Joe Biden, his former Vice President. If he wins in November, the world will wake up in January a different place, with a virus behind, deaths behind and a new presidency that may need to work hard to bring back dignity, love, respect and decency in the most powerful country on earth.
