The epidemic in the United States has worsened again, "equivalent to holding the ticket of the 'Titanic'"

Source: Overseas Network

With just over a month to go until the end of 2021, the United States has crossed a sobering timescale in the COVID-19 pandemic. According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of November 21, at least 771013 people in the United States have died of COVID-19. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States in 2020 will be 385343. This means that the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States so far in 2021 has exceeded the total number of deaths in 2020. The United States has reopened its borders in recent days, and the situation of epidemic prevention and control has become more and more severe.

Confirmed cases surged

Recently, the new crown pneumonia epidemic in the United States has shown a worsening trend, and many core indicators of the epidemic have remained high.

According to the statistics of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, as of 6:22 Beijing time on November 23, 2021, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in the United States reached 47861585, and the cumulative number of deaths 772157. In the past 24 hours, there have been 137939 new confirmed cases and 1,051 new deaths in the United States.

The number of new confirmed cases in a single day once again exceeded 100,000, and the United States returned to the level of the peak of new crown pneumonia in the summer of August this year. In this regard, the United States infectious disease expert Fauci said that the unvaccinated population is the main source of infection in the Us community, and more than 1/3 of the Americans who currently meet the vaccination conditions have not been vaccinated.

Affected by the surge in new confirmed cases, the number of inpatients in the new crown in many states in the United States is also increasing, and the carrying capacity of many hospitals has approached the limit. According to The New York Times, more than 20 states across the country are currently facing a surge in new hospitalizations. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the 14 days to November 18, New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota were the three states with the highest growth rates in hospitalizations in the United States, of which new hospitalizations in New Hampshire increased by 45% in the past 14 days. Local health officials said the severity of the state's current outbreak is very similar to last winter's, which means that this winter's surge in confirmed cases has begun.

"Wave after wave, wave after wave." Talking about the epidemic prevention and control situation in the United States, Zhang Tengjun, deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Research Institute of the China Academy of International Studies, told the overseas edition of the People's Daily that overall, the epidemic in the United States in the recent period is mainly a series of follow-up effects caused by the Delta mutation strain. The current epidemic situation in the United States is still a difficult stage to control, and the situation is quite grim.

The continued spread of the pandemic is pushing the limits of the U.S. health care system. Under pressure, a large number of medical staff had no choice but to leave this profession that had to face pain and death. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry has lost about 500,000 employees since February 2020. "The U.S. healthcare industry is facing 'hemorrhage.'" The Atlantic reported that one in every five health care workers has resigned since the beginning of the epidemic.

Multiple tears are highlighted

The US "Capitol Hill" reported that infectious disease experts believe that the ravages of the Delta mutation strain, the stagnation of the vaccination rate and the premature relaxation of the mask order are important reasons for the counterattack of the US epidemic.

Recently, the New York Times gave the US government a failing score for its anti-epidemic performance in the past two years in its commentary. The commentary said that people thought that the United States was fully capable of coping with the epidemic. "After all, the United States not only has the CDC, one of the world's most recognized public health institutions, but also many of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies and research institutions." "But the U.S. is doing so badly." This profoundly shows how corrupt and incompetent the major institutions in the United States are, and their systems are facing a certain degree of failure.

The review article combs through the U.S. government's failures to fight the pandemic: at the start of the pandemic, U.S. agencies did not develop test agents in time to grasp the spread of the virus in the United States; the CDC did not recommend that people wear masks until April 2020; regulators failed to provide people with the necessary testing tools; dysfunctional health care systems and partisan strife led to increased politicization of the vaccine problem in the United States.

"Since last year, the epidemic prevention and control in the United States has been like a mess, and a common opinion has not yet been formed. Whether it is wearing masks or vaccinating, there are strong politicization, religious and ideological factors behind various epidemic prevention and control measures. Wei Nanzhi, a researcher at the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the overseas edition of the People's Daily that since March last year, the multi-dimensional tears within the US society have been intertwined and intertwined, showing the world in the form of a vicious circle in the epidemic prevention and control situation. This kind of tearing did not appear because of the epidemic, but it has already existed, but it has been further highlighted because of the epidemic.

Wei Nanzhi believes that the US anti-epidemic policy is divided into three stages: the first stage, when the first wave of the epidemic swept the United States, the Trump administration was passive to fight the epidemic, eager to throw the pot, and missed the opportunity to fight the epidemic; in the second stage, the two parties tried to cooperate in fighting the epidemic, such as passing a series of anti-epidemic bills. However, last year's election was imminent, the two parties were fighting each other, coupled with the large-scale protests and demonstrations triggered by the Floyd incident and the rush to launch an economic recovery plan, which led to a great reduction in the effectiveness of the fight against the epidemic; in the third stage, after the Biden administration came to power, it actively promoted anti-epidemic policies such as wearing masks and vaccinations, but it was repeatedly resisted at the specific implementation level of the state government and the people. As a federal state, the state and local governments in the United States have the leading role in the management of public health affairs such as the fight against the epidemic, and do not act in full accordance with the federal government decrees. Moreover, the movement of people within the United States cannot be prohibited due to the excessive promotion of liberal culture. This has led to a constant rebound in the us epidemic.

"The Trump administration has basically adopted a completely abandoned epidemic prevention and control strategy. In order to make its re-election as safe from the epidemic as possible, the Trump administration denied the seriousness of the epidemic and the effectiveness of the anti-epidemic policy from the beginning. As a result, the United States had almost no restrictions last year, and even did not effectively implement a complete national epidemic prevention and control policy. The total collapse of the epidemic prevention and control in the United States last year laid the foundation for the continued intensification of the epidemic this year. Zhang Tengjun believes that since the Biden administration took office, the epidemic prevention and control policy of the United States has been relatively stable. This stability is to provide as much convenience as possible for the restoration of economic development and people's lives under the condition of controlling the epidemic to a certain extent. The Biden administration believes that the epidemic cannot be completely controlled and hopes to achieve a state of coexistence with the virus in this way. Therefore, the overall prevention and control policy is loose and tight, slightly tightened when the epidemic is serious, and opened as much as possible when the epidemic is relaxed. This policy not only did not allow any effective alleviation of the epidemic, but also repeatedly saw new peaks.

The situation is not optimistic

According to the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States will reach 863,000 by March 2022. In the worst case scenario, nearly 2 million people would die from COVID-19.

According to the US Capitol Hill newspaper reported on November 20, former US Health Agency Director Jerome Adams expects that in the next few weeks, due to the gathering of American people for the holiday, the winter surge in new crown pneumonia cases is almost inevitable, and the key lies in severity. He believes that the American people are somewhat optimistic about the current situation of the epidemic and warn people to strengthen epidemic prevention during the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Wall Street Journal reported that covid-19 has proven to be an enduring threat, and even some areas with high vaccination rates are at risk of another outbreak.

"Higher vaccination rates do help reduce infection and mortality rates in outbreaks. But the problem is that the U.S. government lacks enough enforcement to ensure vaccination rates. The pace of vaccination in the United States has slowed markedly in recent months. If we only rely on increasing the vaccination rate, the epidemic prevention and control effect in the United States will certainly be greatly reduced. Zhang Tengjun believes that what the Biden administration needs to do is not only to start on the vaccine issue, but also to make more efforts in more general prevention and control policies.

"The United States has a misconception: it seems that with a vaccine, all problems can be solved. In fact, over-reliance on vaccines is inherently unwise. Because the virus is constantly escalating, the speed of vaccine development and production may not keep up with the rate of mutation of the new crown virus. Wei Nanzhi believes that epidemic prevention and control may still need to return to some of the most basic ways, such as wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.

Reopening borders has also brought more uncertainty to the prevention and control of the epidemic in the United States. Since November 8, after more than 18 months of border closures to contain COVID-19, the United States has reopened to citizens of 33 countries, namely Brazil, China, India, Iran, South Africa, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and 26 Schengen countries in Europe. According to the Wall Street Journal, non-U.S. citizens from these countries can travel to the United States if they can provide a vaccination certificate and a negative COVID-19 test within 3 days. The epidemic situation in some countries that have been allowed to enter the United States is not optimistic.

"Reopening the border is a dilemma made by the Biden administration in balancing the epidemic prevention and control and economic recovery." Zhang Tengjun believes that the US policy of reopening the border has two important backgrounds: First, the United States is currently facing an intensifying domestic economic crisis. The economic crisis was largely caused by a range of factors, including its supply chain, labor shortages, and rising domestic inflation. The United States urgently needs to resume foreign trade and smooth people-to-people exchanges by reopening its borders, so as to inject a booster into the US economic recovery; second, since the Biden administration took office this year, in addition to economic difficulties, its achievements in other aspects are also very limited. In this context, the Biden administration is aiming at the 2022 midterm elections and needs to make some achievements to save the declining approval rating.

In this regard, the New York Times warned that if the US government does not change its anti-epidemic strategy, it is equivalent to holding the ticket of the "Titanic". When the time comes, people will have to face not only the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, but also a country that is torn apart and a world surrounded by death and suffering that even privileged people cannot avoid. (Reporter Jia Pingfan)

Original title: The situation of epidemic prevention and control in the United States is becoming more and more severe (global scan)

People's Daily Overseas Edition ( November 24, 2021, Issue 07)