A second historic failure of leadership

That ' s how Ed Pilkington and Dominic Rushe put it in The Guardian. The first historic failure was of coursethe six weeks or more of dithering, delay and denial in February and March that left us in this catastrophic situation. Yes, the Resident was not the only politician who spent time in denial but whataboutism doesn ' t relieve him of blame, especially since he was briefed repeatedly on the urgent danger of the situation and he rejected what experts were telling him out of hand.The first cases were reported in the U.S. and South Korea on the same day.One country acted swiftly and aggressively to detect and isolate the virus, and by doing so has largely contained the crisis. The other country dithered and procrastinated, became mired in chaos and confusion, was distracted by the individual whims of its leader, and is now confronted by a health emergency of daunting proportions.Within a week of its first confirmed case, South Korea ’s disease control agency had summoned 20 private companies to the medical equivalent of a war-planning summit and told them to develop a test for the virus at lightning speed. A week after that, thefirst diagnostic test was approved and went into battle, identifying infected individuals who could then be quarantined to halt the advance of the disease.The result? As of today the U.S. has reported 37,175 deaths from Coronavirus, that is 112 per million population, which is a substantial undercount. South Korea has reported 232 deaths, 5 per mil...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs