The United States within a 24-hour span on Friday and Saturday saw its confirmed cases from COVID-19 hit and exceed 500,000 -- the only country with this horrific toll -- while reporting more than 2,000 deaths, which is its largest daily death toll since the first U.S. death on February 29. And on Saturday morning, the U.S. will exceed Italy in the total number of deaths caused by COVID-19.
The U.S. had 502,876 confirmed cases and 18,747 deaths as of 05:15 GMT, Friday (or 1:15 am Saturday, Eastern Time), according to real-time data website, Worldometer. It accounted for 30% of the world's total confirmed cases of 1,699,676 and 18% of total world deaths at 102,734. Italy is currently the world leader in deaths at 18,849, which is only 101 deaths ahead of the U.S. Data from Johns Hopkins University show 2,108 people died in the U.S.in the past 24 hours.
That the U.S. is now suffering such horrendous losses is reigniting the debate over President Donald Trump's leading role in this catastrophe. Ever since the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was confirmed on January 21, Trump has always downplayed the severity of this pandemic in all his public statements. As a result of his politicizing the pandemic in order to not affect his re-election chances in November, the U.S. response to the crisis has been confused, disjointed and late.
Medical experts rue the lost month from January to February when the U.S. should have begun conducting extensive testing but couldn't because of Trump's opposition and the bungled release of testing kits to states by the U.S. Centers to Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
On February 25 when the U.S. had 53 cases and no deaths, Trump said, "The coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it. People are getting better."
Even as late as March 6 when the U.S. had 227 cases and 14 deaths, Trump bragged, "I think we're doing a really good job in this country of keeping it down. We've really been very vigilant and we've done a tremendous job in keeping it down."
The conservative Wall Street Journal, a staunch right-wing publication, made clear its anger at Trump's bungling the U.S. response to the COVID-19 crisis in a scathing editorial a few days ago.
In a story headlined "Trump's Wasted Briefings," WSJ condemned Trump for his performance at the daily coronavirus task force press briefings. The newspaper said instead of the almost daily press briefings being about COVID-19, Trump has turned them into a re-election platform.
"But sometime in the last three weeks Mr. Trump seems to have concluded that the briefings could be a showcase for him. Perhaps they substitute in his mind for the campaign rallies he can no longer hold because of the risks. Perhaps he resented the media adulation that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been receiving for his daily show. Whatever the reason, the briefings are now all about the President."
