In his virtual town hall on Sunday 3rd May, Donald Trump made countless assertions that were untrue.
“We have a pretty good roadmap right now.”
No. You don’t.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re successful, if you call losing 80 or 90 thousand people successful. But it’s one of the reasons that we’re not at that high end of the plane as opposed to the low end of the plane.”
The USA is at the top of the list of countries currently worst affected by the pandemic. Total deaths are on track to exceed 134,000 by August.
“We have an incredible testing. We have the best testing system right now in the world. We also make all the ventilators.”
Blatantly false.
The reality is that the USA is in the group of global losers on every measure available. They include these:
Total number of active cases
The USA leads the world by a huge margin with a total yesterday, Monday 4th May, of 954,887 active cases. This was 43.5 per cent of all the world’s cases – in a country comprising just 4.25 per cent of the world’s population. This percentage is increasing by one per cent every two days.
The hapless country in second place is the United Kingdom – also run by a dysfunctional right wing party which routinely denies the science. The USA is well ahead of the UK, however, with almost six times Britain’s 161,506 active infections.
When we add together the active cases in the USA and the UK we get one of the starkest global comparisons. This total – a staggering 1,116,393 cases – is more than the entire rest of the world combined. In just two countries.
The chart at the top of this page illustrates this graphically.
Recoveries as a percentage of active cases
Successful nations in combating the coronavirus now have many more recovered patients than those still suffering.
Leading nations are Austria, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand and Hong Kong, all with more than five times the number of recoveries than active cases. They are followed by Germany, Denmark, Croatia, Malaysia and Ireland — all with twice as many recoveries. These nations may now be ready to open their economies.
At the other end of this table are those who shouldn’t ease restrictions any time soon. These include the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Sweden. Recoveries in the USA are around 19 per cent of active cases. More on this analysis is provided here.
Total deaths
Today, Tuesday 5th, the USA clicked over 70,000 deaths. This is the world’s highest raw number, by far. Italy is second with 29,079 and the UK third with 28,734. The gap between the USA and the rest of the world is widening every day.
Deaths per million people
Last Saturday, 2nd May, the United States joined the dismal 200 club with more than 200 deaths per million inhabitants. It has surged to 212 since.
This ranks ninth among major countries (above one million population), behind only Belgium, Spain, Italy, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland. The USA has now surged past Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, Germany and Iran.
Tests per million people
On the Worldometers master list of tests completed relative to population, the USA ranks 41st. Among the 51 very highly developed major nations (UNDP classification) the USA is in the bottom half, ranking 27th with just 22,545 tests completed per million.
If the USA had doubled its tests, it would still be behind the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Cyprus, Lithuania, Israel and Kuwait – all poorer countries than the USA. But much smarter.
There is no excuse for the USA to be lagging the rest of the world. There is no valid explanation. Unfortunately, until the current inept and mendacious administration is replaced by one capable of assembling a competent professional team, these dire numbers appear set to worsen.