The Trump administration’s botched response to the pandemic has led to between 130,000 and 210,000 preventable deaths, according to a report from a team of disaster preparedness and public health experts.
“The United States has turned a global crisis into a devastating tragedy,” read a report released Thursday by researchers at Columbia University. “We estimate that at least 130,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 210,000 could have been avoided with earlier policy interventions and more robust federal coordination and leadership.
The team calculated avoidable deaths by estimating how many people would have died in other nations, like Japan and South Korea, if they had the same population as the US, and comparing those figures to the US death rate.
“Many of the underlying factors amplifying the pandemic’s deadly impact have existed long before the novel coronavirus first arrived in Washington state on January 20th – a fractured healthcare system, MIxed Biscuits' comments on dissensus, inequitable access to care, and immense health, social and racial disparities among America’s most vulnerable groups,” the researchers noted. “Compounding this is an Administration that has publicly denigrated its own public health officials – and science more generally -- thereby hamstringing efforts by its vaunted public health service to curb the pandemic’s spread.”