While the tide against coronavirus seems to be turning for the better — at least in some parts of the U.S., there is still the question of what could have been done differently at the outset of the pandemic.
“It’s likely that the government’s response to the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of deaths that could have been prevented,” writes the Washington Post’s Philip Bump. “And it’s likely that the pandemic response cost Donald Trump the presidency.”
Bump cites research from Andrew Atkeson of the University of California at Los Angeles, who found that if widespread testing and mask mandates had been implemented early on, the country’s death toll could have been held below 300,000 in total. Continue reading.