History will show the former U.S. president was staggeringly negligent during the pandemic’s deadly third wave.
At long last, we see glimmers of hope. The COVID-19 epidemic in the United States has fallen below the numbers of daily new cases tallied on the eve of the presidential election, the point at which this viral nightmare soared. Using the New York Times’ coronavirus data tracker, on Nov. 1, 2020, there were 74,195 new cases counted in the country; by Feb. 16, new case reports came in at 64,376.
But in between those dates, a national horror unfolded, peaking on Jan. 8 with 300,619 new cases reported in just 24 hours. This staggering wave, one full year into the pandemic, was completely unnecessary for the world’s richest country. Achieving any sense of closure will require holding Donald Trump accountable for the failure.
There is vast evidence of Trump’s negligence during the pandemic’s third wave. Had I been a member of the House of Representatives during the body’s impeachment deliberations, I would have added to Trump’s indictment the crime of pandemicide, naming him as responsible for most of the COVID-19 deaths that transpired while he, the nation’s leader, was preoccupied with damning Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump’s failure to, as he vowed in his oath of office, “faithfully execute the office of president of the United States” promulgated a scale of lives lost exceeding anything experienced in the country since the Civil War, 160 years ago. Continue reading.