COVID-19 in the United States has killed over 158,000 and has infected more than 4.8 million, claiming the lives of at least 1,000 Americans each day in a widespread outbreak throughout the nation, from the densely populated cities to the rural areas.
These are real people who died because of the coronavirus pandemic, with real families who have been bereaved and with lives disrupted and dreams shattered.
Worldwide, the number of coronavirus pandemic confirmed cases has exceeded 18.2 million, with a death toll of more than 692,000 — making the United States the hotspot of infection, accounting for 28% of all deaths around the world.
How could this happen to the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world, which used to be the leader that the global community looked up to for scientific facts, treatment and the prevention of diseases?
How could other developed countries successfully flattened the curve to the point of bringing down the death toll to almost zero while the United States continues with an uptick in infection and death statistics? Where did we go wrong?
Crucial to the success of other developed countries in defeating this invisible enemy are two important factors: Strong fact-based decisive and proactive leadership of public officials and the cooperation and compliance of the people.
Case study: Italy defeats COVID-19
Let us take Italy as an example. It was the epicenter of the pandemic in the first quarter of the year after it overtook China. What did Italy do?
In January, the Italian government confirmed the country’s first cases of the disease in two Chinese tourists visiting. And after two deaths were reported in the Lombardy region, it was put on total lockdown in February, which was shortly expanded to cover the entire country when more cases and deaths were reported in other regions.
Italy was the first nation to implement a national quarantine in the war against the coronavirus pandemic. The Italian national government heeded the call of local government officials, trade unions, and other institutions asked for a generalized shutdown of the Italian production system.
In March, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a further enlargement of the lockdown by shutting down all non-necessary businesses and industries. All commercial and retail businesses except those providing essential services, like grocery stores, food stores, and pharmacies, were closed down.
The goal was to limit mobility and halt the spread of the virus. Checkpoints were implemented and sanctions were imposed against violators. The Italians cooperated and complied with the orders. Google published a series of mobility reports in April using aggregated data to show the trend of how busy some categories of places were.
Comparing to a baseline data obtained for January and February, the data for Italy in April showed a 94% drop for retail and recreation places, an 85% drop for grocery shops and pharmacies, a 90% drop for parks and beaches, an 87% drop for public transit hubs, a 63% drop for workplaces, and a 24% rise for residential places.”
The lockdown went past the initial April 3 deadline and just started to open responsibly in phases beginning in May. Italy’s lockdown showed the importance of acting decisively. The first regions that imposed it recovered faster and the exponential increase of cases stopped.
The New York Times Rome bureau chief Jason Horowitz referred to “the expanded lockdown as “sacrificing the Italian economy in the short term to save it from the ravages of the virus in the long term”.
Fast forward to end of July — from overburdened hospitals and doctors put in the position to prioritize saving people with better chances of surviving than the older ones as in all disasters man-made or natural given limited resources and urgency in time, Italy’s hospitals are now basically empty of COVID-19 patients, with daily deaths nearly zero.
The number of new daily cases has plummeted to “one of the lowest in Europe and the world,” said Giovanni Rezza, director of the infective illness department at the National Institute of Health told the New York Times. “We have been very prudent,” she added but they remain vigilant.
According to the Times, “[Italy’s] government has been guided by scientific and technical committees. Local doctors, hospitals and health officials collect more than 20 indicators on the virus daily and send them to regional authorities, who then forward them to the National Institute of Health.”
Truly a community effort among the government, the people, and different institutions.
Where did the U.S. go wrong?
But what do we do when United States President Donald Trump denies and defies what science says, goes against all the advice of scientists and health officials, and urges people by his misleading rhetoric and example to do the same? How can we have a concerted effort toward defeating the virus and emerge victorious like Italy?
As the United States breaks records in the number of confirmed cases, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Brix, and other health officials continue to advise people to stay at home and warn against the opening of businesses, schools, retail, houses of worship and other places where people gather without social distancing.
They also continue to push for more wide-scale testing and contact tracing and mandating the use of masks. With the new information we are learning about COVID-19, they argue that the spikes we are seeing are coming from asymptomatic people who did not even know they are carrying and transmitting the virus around.
Dr. Birx also warned that the pandemic has entered “a new phase,” different from what it was in March and April, and has become more widespread, contradicting the president’s position as he pushes for schools and more states to open.
In response, Trump called her “pathetic, and said in a press briefing on Monday, August 3, just when our death toll topped 155,000: “I think we’re doing very well. I told Dr. Birx I think we’re doing very well. She was at my office a little while ago. She’s a person I have a lot of respect for. I think Nancy Pelosi has treated her very badly — very, very badly. Very nasty.”
And as more states are reversing on their re-openings because of the uptick in covid cases, and despite some public health experts calling for areas of the country to enter a hard lockdown to destroy coronavirus, Trump again tried to bend the truth arguing against proven facts. He said: “Lockdowns do not prevent infection in the future. They just don’t. It comes back — many times, it comes back.”
This is misinformation coming from the president himself! Lockdowns work! “Stay-at-home” orders work. Testings work. Contact tracing works. Quarantine works. Social distancing work. Hygiene works.
Lockdown helps isolate those who are infected to prevent them from spreading the virus. Testing and contact tracing help us identify who these people are, who had contact with them when they were infected by the virus, who should be isolated. Quarantine helps identify and isolate potential virus carriers. Lockdowns prevent further spread of the virus until it is stamped out.
Italy won the war against the virus, as did New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Africa and even, China. Other nations are flattening the curve. These nations took early, quick, and decisive action that included nationwide lockdowns, testing, contact tracing, social distancing, mandating people to wear masks.
Another important factor is for the people to work together toward one goal, one objective: Defeat the virus! The leader of a country plays a very important role in unifying its people but it has to start with that objective, overriding any personal, political and financial interest.
The Trump problem
The United States already gave up its head start in the war against COVID-19 when Trump willfully and intentionally chose to ignore the warnings from our own intelligence agencies, the World Health Organization, and the prescience and foreknowledge we should have learned from other countries’ experience.
Instead, Trump chose to cover-up the threat of the pandemic, and worse, even told the American people that it was a “hoax” fabricated by the Democrats who just want to kick him out of office.
And so the United States lost a lot of valuable and unredeemable time that could have otherwise been used to equip the American people with knowledge about this invisible enemy and how the government was strategizing to win this war.
We could have used this lead time to manufacture more PPEs (personal protective equipment) to protect not only our frontlines but every American as a protection against the virus.
We could have used these critical months beginning in January to produce more test kits for more wide-scale testing all over the country, equip our hospitals with more ICU beds and medical equipment in anticipation of the worst-case scenario in this war against the virus.
But NO. Trump chose to berate and denigrate the scientists, health officials, state leaders, Democrats and even manufacturers who were willing to help. Trump called them “alarmists” engaging in fear-mongering and instead tactically lied to the American people that the United States got the virus under control, that this was just like the common flu that would go away by springtime, and that it would just miraculously disappear like magic.
When the World Health Organization declared the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11, Trump reluctantly acknowledged the pandemic and created a Coronavirus Task Force, conducting daily briefing with the country’s top epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, and Dr. Deborah Brix, along with other health officials. During this time, state governors started implementing shelter-in-place and “stay-at-home” safety measures like California and New York, among others.
We would think there was an epiphany and Trump would defer to scientists and health officials on matters relating to a field he is ignorant about, but NO! He would continue undermining the safety measures like social distancing, wearing of masks, and would even encourage Republican state officials and Americans to protest against social distancing and demand to re-open the states.
\Worse, he even pushed the use of the anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine, and lied to the American people that this drug is a game changer cure that has already been approved by the Federal Drug Administration for COVID-19, only to be fact-checked by Dr. Fauci and the agency itself. Trump would flaunt anecdotal evidence but numerous testings following scientific protocol have disputed his claims, and warned against fatal side effects for out of hospital setting use of this drug that does not work to treat the infection.
We had hoped that Trump would realize the magnitude of the problem we are in and for once, do the right thing for the safety and well being of the American people.
Unfortunately, from the beginning of this war against the virus, Trump governed with a tunnel vision that made him focus more on his ratings and the economic numbers, and became obsessed with fighting and defeating his political enemies more than the COVID-19. His end goal was to win his re-election bid at ALL costs.
“Walang maloloko ang manloloko kung walang nagpapaloko. Hoy! Gising! mga kababayan kong Pilipino sa America.”
Let us do our share in defeating this virus. Make an informed conscientious decision. It will save our lives and the lives of others.
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
