. . . the path of pandemicide was paved in pursuit of the president’s reelection and his relentless, all-consuming post-election campaign to refute his opponent’s victory, claiming election fraud and even theft. Despite the summer surge in COVID-19 infections nationwide, Trump abandoned virtual campaigning in favor of crowded, largely maskless gatherings of his supporters, knowingly risking that each rally would become a superspreader event. According to a study by Stanford University, 18 campaign rallies held between June 20 and Sept. 22, 2020, spawned in excess of 30,000 COVID-19 cases, likely leading to more than 700 deaths. During the same time period, half of Trump’s campaign rallies were followed by COVID-19 surges in the counties in which they took place. While Biden’s campaign rallies were largely virtual or held in parking areas with participants in their vehicles, Trump’s tightly packed, mostly mask-free throngs increased in both number and frequency, further spreading the virus and causing the U.S. government’s top COVID-19 response expert, Anthony Fauci, to warn that the president was “asking for trouble.” . . .
According to a new Lancet Commission report compiled by an international team of august scientists and public health leaders, some 40 percent of America’s COVID-19 death toll during the Trump administration was needless, meaning it could have been averted with available nonmedical interventions.
By the time the election took place, Trump had ignored the pandemic, not attending a single COVID-19 White House meeting for at least five months, since late May. Behind the scenes in the fall, the Trump administration lobbied Congress vigorously to block the movement of funds to states for vaccine rollout efforts, leaving them unable to efficiently execute mass immunizations. . . .