US moves closer to 200,000 coronavirus deaths, weeks before election

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The United States recorded nearly 200,000 deaths from Covid-19 on Monday.

Washington, United States:

On Monday, the United States came close to recording 200,000 deaths linked to Covid-19, the latest grim step for the country just weeks before voters decide whether President Donald Trump remains in power.

According to a rolling count from Johns Hopkins University, 199,531 Americans have died and 6.8 million have been confirmed to be infected.

The United States has had the highest official death toll in the world in months, ahead of Brazil and India, with 136,895 and 87,882 deaths, respectively.

Overall, the United States accounts for 4% of the world‘s population and 20% of its coronavirus deaths, while its daily death rate relative to the general population is four times that of the European Union .

Critics say statistics show the Trump administration’s failure to meet its toughest test ahead of the November 3 election.

“The first responsibility of a president is to protect the American people. And he will not do it. This is totally disqualifying,” Democratic rival Joe Biden said last week.

Trump insisted on “Fox and Friends” Monday that the United States “is turning the corner with or without a vaccine.”

But the president is optimistic that the early approval of a vaccine will increase his chances of re-election.

“I would say you will have (a vaccine) well before the end of the year, maybe the end of October,” he told Fox, adding that his priority was “total safety – that’s number one. “.

Trump has set himself even more ambitious goals, saying that by April of next year, most Americans who want to get vaccinated will receive a vaccine.

Most experts say betting on vaccines is not a viable strategy.

Without adhering to masks, distance and contact tracing, and stepping up testing, tens of thousands more could die before life returns to normal in the United States.

“What we need to do is move … towards a more proactive screening approach to test asymptomatic individuals,” Thomas Tsai, Harvard surgeon and health policy researcher, told AFP.

He said the government should approve rapid home antigen testing, which he has been reluctant to do so far, that would require the government to pay for them instead of insurance companies.

“Covid will be the third leading cause of death this year in the United States,” tweeted Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under former President Barack Obama.

“The impressive death toll from the virus is a reflection of a failed national response, but it is not too late to turn the tide.”

Only the number of people who die from heart disease and cancer will be higher.

– Series of errors –

The United States is likely to have crossed 200,000 deaths in July, said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Institute, citing the excess mortality rate.

The initial lack of testing led to an undercoverage of the virus toll.

“We are the outlier to have been caught totally devoid of any testing, and simply without learning from mistakes,” Topol added, explaining why the virus continues to kill more than in Europe, despite improvements in disease management to the hospital. .

Belgium, Spain and Britain still have higher per capita death rates than the United States, but were able to partly control the first wave of epidemics through near-total lockdowns.

“We never got proper removal, and yet we open everything up and try to make it look like it’s okay,” Topol said.

The adoption of public health measures remains mixed in the United States.

In many cities, students have all but returned to school, indoor areas of bars and restaurants remain closed and the use of masks is on the rise.

But the hot spots are still burning, currently in the Midwest and on college campuses that have reverted to in-person learning.

Critics say Trump has abdicated responsibility and left state governors to handle the crisis and decide on lockdowns.

“We had a short period of responses across the country that totally baffled the average person,” William Schaffner, professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University, told AFP.

“We needed a unified, cohesive and strong national response.”

The public health system will be tested as fall and winter approach, Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina said.

Anticipating a “twindemic” of coronavirus and flu, officials are stocking up on a record number of flu shots.

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