By Frank Schaeffer
The U.S.A has the DEADLIEST day of the pandemic record; 3,903 die and over 125,000 are admitted to hospitals as CDC warns the post-New Year COVID surge will kill another 82,000 Americans in the next 24 days as vaccine rollout stalls and 2021 shapes up to be worse than 2020. Meanwhile, congressman-elect Luke Letlow, 41, is dead because his support of Trump’s lies killed him. Letlow backed ending lockdowns in October and campaigned in front of maskless crowds for many weeks before he died of COVID.
As the U.S. vaccine drive lags, a fast-moving coronavirus variant reaches a second state- more proof the USA is heading into Failed State territory
Israel leads the global vaccine race with a 24/7, 150,000-dose-a-day drive that has already inoculated 7% of its population, while in the USA, “Operation Warp Speed” grinds to a virtual halt in a failed rollout Trump could have helped by invoking wartime powers… and telling the truth. Israel’s program is a federal response, not a patchwork of underfunded state and local “responses” as ours is.
American libertarian ideas of “freedom,” combined with “state’s rights” are stupid and killing us. From guns to public health to education, America is ungovernable. Because of our notions of individualistic “liberty,” 2021 will be worse than 2020. Trump’s slower-than-hoped for vaccine rollout in the United States is about to meet the fast-moving –far more contagious– new variant of the coronavirus. Because of libertarian Republican ideas of “freedom” (no masks etc.,) we won’t be able to respond.
“There is no evidence that the new variant makes people any sicker, but it appears to be much more contagious than older forms. And that threatens to complicate what had seemed a hopeful, if halting, path to recovery from the pandemic in the United States.” NY Times
Federal health officials said in a news conference on Wednesday that they “did not have a clear understanding” as to “why only a fraction of the doses” that had been shipped out around the country have been used. HINT: Americans of both parties won’t admit the USA is ungovernable.
As of Wednesday, more than 12.4 million doses of the vaccines were sent out across the USA, up from 11.4 million on Monday morning. BUT just 2.8 million people had received their first dose according to the Centers for Disease Control because we have NO federal public health system to speak of.
Trump said just a few weeks ago that 20 million Americans would be vaccinated against COVID-19 by now (New Year’s). This was another lie with nothing done to make it happen. Only 2.8 million people have gotten shots, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Trump’s fake “Operation Warp Speed” is really Operation Warp Lie. At this rate, it will take 10 years for America to beat COVID. Thanks for nothing Trump-enabling Republican liars and your evangelical voters.
Why the slow-to-non-existent vaccine rollout?
Trump left the planning for the distribution to state and local public health departments which were already overwhelmed dealing with the pandemic and underfunded by Trump. Now he blames them after doing NOTHING for them.
As usual, Florida is the stupidest Republican failure of all: seniors are camping out overnight on lawn chairs because GOP officials there decided to offer vaccines on a first-come, first-serve basis!
“A functioning federal government provides a floor for the minimum that has to be accomplished and then it provides the resources to do it. That’s all the federal government had to do when it came to COVID, and it didn’t do that,” says Juliette Kayyem former homeland security official. To wit, had Trump’s federal government been on top of things, experts say it could have set up a nationwide online registry documenting who got the vaccines and sending out reminders for second doses; something that all other developed countries did.
Define Failed State
The U.S.A is the least well-equipped for mass vaccination delivery. Our lack of a universal health care system, combined with no spending on public health infrastructure means large portions of the population have no connection to health care.
Our wounded health-care system is reeling and facing new deadlier surges. The vaccine rollout is failing. Americans want to return to normal but first must admit that the USA’s libertarian, individualistic, selfish, consumerist “normal” led to this mess. Let’s reject our sick American idea that selfishness is freedom. If we do, we might even figure out that some government programs are a good thing and demand a National Healthcare system NOW with the funding to run it, and learn to put obedience to the common good above our current ideas of individual liberty.
