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COVID-19 Deaths in the U.S. Reach 500,000, But Who is Responsible?

500,000, muertes, COVID-19, USA

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It’s official: the United States has reached 500,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to official figures. Half a million Americans lost their lives at the hands of the virus that swept the entire planet and originated, according to the official story, in Wuhan, China, spreading globally shortly after.

The figure is chilling. The United States is by far the country with the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world. But, at the same time, its mortality rate is not the worst and is quite similar to that of its neighboring country, Mexico.

Belgium (191.57), Slovenia (182.46), Czech Republic (181.85), United Kingdom (181.43), Italy (158.42), Portugal (155.41) have worse rates in their coronavirus death rate per 100,000 population than the U.S.

The country, so far, has a rate of 152.76 deaths per 100,000 population.

At the time, the economic effects against the United States also seemed harmful. And, indeed, they remain complex. But with last year’s economic reopening, for which the Trump Administration was widely criticized, the impact on the markets eased. Hence, the economy, after falling sharply, began to rise again and a large number of jobs that had been lost during the onset of the pandemic were recovered.

On January 12, the country recorded almost 4,500 deaths in a single day, reaching its highest level since the beginning of the pandemic. It took a month, on February 12 (with a new administration in place), to surpass that peak with 5,490 deaths recorded in a single day. However, those numbers began to drop a week ago.

Considering the deaths per state, the most affected, or those with the highest number of deaths, are precisely those with the largest populations. California is about to reach the threshold of 50,000 deaths, Texas has 42,321, New York has 46,346 and Florida, one of the largest states in the country along with the three mentioned, is an atypical case because its death toll has not yet reached 30,000.

Its governor, Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has been criticized for focusing on an economic reopening in the middle of the pandemic, leaving, according to the media, the health sector in a second place. But DeSantis’ health numbers are superior to comparable states — Texas, California and New York. Economically, Florida will suffer less than the Democratic administrations of Cuomo and Newson, which opted for Draconian measures to deal with the virus.

The Wall Street Journal reported that “The U.S. death toll rose above 500,000 Monday, with more than 1,200 fatalities reported on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins data. There were 1,821 deaths reported for Saturday.”

According to the newspaper, “hospitalizations due to the disease fell to 56,159 as of Sunday, down more than 53% from a month earlier, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The number of Covid-19 patients requiring treatment in intensive care units was less than 12,000 for the first time since Nov. 9, with 11,862 people in ICUs across the country.”

The numbers, while not low, show a glimmer of hope for gradually overcoming the pandemic. Especially from the vaccination process that began and became effective with the Trump Administration.

Since January, the United States has been the country that has applied the most doses of COVID-19 in gross numbers. Two days ago, the number was 63,090,634 doses applied, of which 5.70 % were full doses, being the country with the second best record in full doses only behind Israel (34.85 %).

In terms of doses administered per 100 population, the United States is the 4th best-performing country in terms of vaccine delivery with a rate of 19.06. It has surpassed by Israel (85.00), the United Arab Emirates (56.16) and the United Kingdom (26.81).

Muertes, covid, usa
A medical team works with patients with COVID-19 disease. (EFE).

The Wall Street Journal reported that although winter storms hampered shipments of coronavirus vaccine in some parts of the country, vaccinations continued to be provided, “as of Sunday, more than 13% of people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a vaccine.”

“Meanwhile, several new research papers suggest that Covid-19 survivors who have gotten a first dose of vaccine are generating immune responses that might render a second shot unnecessary, potentially freeing up limited supply,” the WSJ also reported.

“The research, while preliminary, found that the previously infected people generated protection against the disease quickly and at dramatically higher levels after a first shot of the current two-shot regimens when compared with people who were vaccinated but hadn’t been sick,” the WSJ concluded.

This is important because the pandemic will be contained faster if the first dose of the vaccine is effective.

Who is responsible for the 500,000 American deaths and nearly 2.5 million two and a half million deaths worldwide? Who is responsible for

As a mark of respect for the 500,000 deaths, the country will lower its flag to half-mast, but a question remains: who will be held accountable?

The world took aim at China for its initial poor handling of the pandemic and at the World Health Organization (WHO) for being overly accommodating to the Chinese regime. To this day, more than a year after learning of the existence of COVID-19, no independent investigation has been carried out to determine the true origin of the virus to prevent this from happening again in the future.

There are also no sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party for its obstruction of WHO investigations or the repeated problems generated for the UN agency, such as the concealment of the virus genome. The lack of transparency was also another drawback for a much more effective initial response to contain the virus.

Last year more than 100 countries called for an independent investigation into the coronavirus pandemic. But that pressure was not enough to achieve an accurate account of the origin of the coronavirus.

The Biden Administration, according to a spokeswoman, will pursue a very different foreign policy than the Trump Administration. As a result, the treatment of China is expected to be much less hostile and that could mean that the Chinese regime will no longer be pressured to account for its initial response to the outbreak.

Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.

Contacto: [email protected]

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