Ruby Rodgers passed along the Fox news report that accurately states that the 2009 Swine Flu (H1N1) killed an estimated 100,000 to 575,000 people, but she neglects to point out that that was the worldwide number and that very fact clearly shows how bad the U.S. response to the current pandemic has been compared with the 2009 response. The U.S. deaths from H1N1 in 2009 were about 12,000 over the course of one year and that was including the second wave.
Currently the U.S. has almost 160,000 deaths from COVID-19 and we aren’t even out of the first wave. Worldwide the COVID-19 deaths are around 692,000. This means that (using the H1N1 worldwide average of 337,500) the American deaths counted for 3.5% of total deaths for the H1N1, but that we currently stand at 23% of world wide deaths from the COVID-19. 23%!
If this isn’t an indication of how poor Trump’s handling of this crisis is, and continues to be, I don’t know what is.
Obama Administration and the CDC mounted an aggressive and coordinated response to the H1N1 Pandemic and worked with the WHO to respond world wide. The H1N1 virus was first detected in California on April 19, 2009. The real-time test for H1N1 was ready by April 28. A vaccine became available in September and by December had been widely distributed to states and Pandemic restrictions began to be lifted. You can read more at https://bit.ly/31CmcGb.
The summary is that Obama’s administration using the CDC and the WHO mounted a textbook response to H1N1 and were largely successful in controlling the virus in the U.S. and limited the death toll. Trump’s response, on the other hand, has been to throw out all the tools put in place by Obama and the CDC for dealing with future Pandemics and to throw the CDC and WHO under the bus. The result: the worst response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the world, with huge numbers of avoidable deaths, a massive hit to the U.S. economy, and a continuing complete lack of coordination from the federal level, leaving states largely on their own. If Trump had followed the guidelines already in place and been a real leader in coordinated action, much of the ongoing pain to families and the economy would have been avoided and Trump would have been a shoe-in for reelection.
Trump was able to float along nicely on the good economy Obama handed to him, but has completely failed to be a leader in a time of crisis. I’m voting for Biden.
Steven Howland
Buckland