3,000 Americans died from COVID-19 yesterday, with 100,000 more in hospital. The president was obsessing over an election he lost a month ago.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
- The US coronavirus outbreak set grim new records on Wednesday: 3,100 Americans died, a new high, whilst the number of virus hospitalizations passed 100,000.
- The US is still the worst-affected country in the world, and officials are issuing dire warnings about the months ahead.
- But President Donald Trump is barely mentioning the virus, still fixating on his election loss a full month after voting ended.
- On Wednesday, Trump released a 46-minute speech — which he termed the "most important" of his life — that showed clearly where his priorities are.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
More than 3,100 Americans died of COVID-19 on Wednesday and more than 100,000 Americans are currently in hospital with the virus — two grim milestones that show how its outbreak continues to spiral.
The same day, President Donald Trump's focus was squarely elsewhere — disputing the outcome of an election which is now a full month ago.
As US healthcare workers and officials are giving dire warnings that the pandemic will worsen still further, Trump is almost totally disengaged.
Devastating new records
3,157 people in the US died from the virus on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University — an all-time record that far exceeds the daily tolls when the pandemic first took hold.
Here is the graph showing the new high:
Johns Hopkins University
The future trajectory looks bleak too — according to the COVID tracking project, as of Wednesday the US for the first time had more than 100,000 people hospitalized with the virus.
While treatments are better than they used to be, the grim reality is that many will never leave hospital alive, instead joining the death statistics in days to come.
Through the whole pandemic, Trump has been criticized for his relatively hands-off approach.
After an initial burst of interest, advisers began to note him going longer and longer without speaking to his COVID-19 task force, or mentioning the virus in public.
Since the November 3 election — in which voting ended exactly one month ago — Trump's detachment has grown as he has focused increasingly on groundlessly disputing the results of the election, which he lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
A brief exception was to cheer positive results from vaccine trials, which focused on him seeking to claim credit for the breakthroughs, while baselessly suggesting they were purposely held back until after the election.
Trump's attention to the election at the expense of the virus seemed to peak on Wednesday. The president posted a 46-minute speech to Facebook in which he repeated his baseless claims. He suggested that it may be "'the most important speech I've ever made."
Trump's claims have been dismissed by state election officials, and even his own Attorney General.
His address did mention the virus — but described it as a "pretext" or "excuse" to secure his departure from the White House. The only victim of the virus he mentioned was himself.
While Trump repeated claims of a constitutional crisis, health officials spoke of a real one.
Hospital systems, morgues, and the 911 emergency call system are being overwhelmed, according to increasingly severe warnings in virus hotspots.
It may yet get worse. Millions of people travelled across the US for Thanksgiving, which is expected to contribute to still more infections and deaths.
Go Nakamura/Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden warned this week that the US death toll could double in the next two months.
"We're likely to lose another 250,000 people dead between now and January," he said. "You hear me? Because people aren't paying attention."
The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that the winter months could be "the most difficult in the public health history" of the country.
But their leader's priorities are evidently elsewhere.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/3qrMmay
No comments