The United States mishandled COVID-19 response on the way to 100,000 confirmed cases

Eric Boose / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

The U.S. is the undisputed world leader in yet another category, but it is not a title we should be proud of. Last Thursday, March 26, the U.S. overtook China for the title of most confirmed cases of COVID-19, en route to boasting 189,000 confirmed cases on March 31, according to Johns Hopkins University. Like many of America’s number one rankings worldwide, the U.S. earned its unwanted title through a recklessly laissez-faire response as the pandemic spread. 

That response has been championed by President Donald Trump, who continues to contradict medical experts and downplay the severity of the pandemic, with no evidence to support his claims. On March 26, Trump dismissed New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s request for additional medical supplies, saying “I don’t think you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” before changing course the next morning. Also on March 27, Trump claimed that the U.S. has tested more people than anywhere else. While this is true in terms of raw numbers, Italy and South Korea have tested a higher percentage of their populations, according to The New York Times. 

This is nothing new. Trump has been downplaying COVID-19 since January, when he contradicted the Center for Disease Control’s prediction of more cases, saying that the situation was under control and that everything would be fine. Clearly, everything is not fine. 

While downplaying the developing pandemic, Trump has hyped up potential treatments that are either months away or entirely ineffective. Earlier this month, the president claimed that a vaccine would be available “relatively soon.” The New York Times reports that medical professionals expect the process of making a vaccine available would take 12 to 18 months. With the vaccine out of play, Trump promoted two drugs used to treat malaria as a treatment for COVID-19. While Trump said “I feel good about it,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had to remind the country that those drugs have yet to be proven treatments for the novel coronavirus. 

However, Trump is not the only one who failed to take the growing pandemic seriously. In general, the entire U.S. lacked the commitment needed to be effectively prepared — the commitment shown by El Salvador and South Korea. 

El Salvador was not just concerned with flattening the curve, they got out in front of it. Before there was a single confirmed case of COVID-19 in El Salvador, the country barred entry to nearly all foreigners, required a 30-day quarantine for Salvadorans arriving from other countries, suspended schools for three weeks, and banned gatherings of 500 people or more. 

South Korea was not anywhere near as aggressively preemptive as El Salvador, and found itself among the top 10 countries last week, with 9,000 cases. However, by Saturday they were outside the top 10 again, having effectively slowed the spread of the disease without putting the entire country in lockdown. The Koreans, along with Singapore and Hong Kong, have managed this thanks to their aggressive testing strategy — developing a test in the early days of the pandemic, and making it widely available in order to detect the disease early and contain the spread by quarantining infected people and those they may have come in contact with. In contrast, it was nearly impossible to get a coronavirus test in the U.S. in February and early March. Unless, of course, you played for the Utah Jazz.

South Korea and El Salvador are examples of what the U.S. could have done — how the U.S. could have been prepared. Instead, we are being hit the hardest by this pandemic, despite having almost two months to get ready for it. But for those two months, the national attitude seemed to be that we would be fine, that we would not be hit as badly as China or Italy. As it turns out, we were right. We were hit worse.