Pandemic in America, A Missed Opportunity

As of April 1, America finds itself engulfed in the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. But how did they get there? As of early January the current federal administration was briefed on a novel corona virus spreading within China. Early reports showed a high mortality rate and fast spread. Many news reporting outlets covered these early events. America however had just moved past presidential impeachment.

Never had the country and more divided along political and ideological lines. So when the “liberal”, “left” media reported their concerns over the potential danger posed by the novel corona virus many on the right considered it to be another partisan overreaction. Even referred to it as a hoax in late February when rallying his base for re-election. This laid the groundwork for a delayed, patchwork and partisan approach to solving what would become America’s greatest health challenge in a century.

America, long been known for its medical expertise, would face its hardest days. The novel corona virus, Covid19, did not care if one was democrat or republican liberal or conservative. It only new that with slow action it could exploit the American population unchecked.

The first cases of Covid19 were reported in the state of Washington on the Pacific Rim. And the first victims of the pandemic were some of that state’s most vulnerable. Recorded first in senior living facilities the virus soon spread to the surrounding areas. Almost simultaneously the first evidence of corona virus was reported in New York state and California. At that time the president still minimized the risk to the nation and his actions or in actions lay the groundwork for the disease to spread.

As I write on April 1, there is still no single nationwide policy regarding lockdowns or sheltering in place. Each of America’s 50 states have had to create their own unique policies and procedures to handle the pandemic within their state. This has led to a patchwork approach to disease mitigation.

Currently, America has over 200,000 confirmed cases and over of 4,700 dead. Current Federal estimates place the anticipated death toll in America due to Covid-19 to be between 100,000 and 240,000 people IF mitigation is handled properly. If not handled properly the death toll could rise to more than two million people.

The great missed opportunity of America was in early testing and detection. For three months America has fumbled on this front. The CDC better known as The Centers for Disease Control failed to produce a working test and private labs were encouraged to create testing. On a state level testing has been rationed. Only those showing clear symptoms of possible corona virus have been tested across the country. This has created a situation whereby virus spread cannot be adequately tracked. Who is at fault will be recorded by history. All that is known now is that tens or hundreds of thousands of people in America will die from Covid-19 that did not need to die.

As american are trying there best to control over the pandemic problems during these days, But why the rate of spreading is very high this is not due to the lack of awareness in the people but this is due to the high speed of the screening they are doing they have reach to almost 70% of the the population that they are performing the tests so that they are trying to find out the possible affected people to keep the separated from the other to save themselves from the problems.