\n\n“Despite Covid-19 surges in Europe, the United States of America\u2019s extraordinary death toll remains among the worst in the developed world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of January 9, 2021, nearly 373,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US, with a death rate of more than 1.1 per 1,000 people, according to Our World in Data<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there are nations with higher death rates, this still puts the US in the top 20 percent for deaths among the world\u2019s developed countries<\/a>, with more than twice the death rate of the median developed country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “As a result of Covid-19 surges in Europe, the US does look relatively<\/em> better, compared to other developed nations, than in September<\/a>. Back then, the US had seven times the death toll as the median developed country. That gap has shrunk massively \u2014 to two times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not because the US has done better but because Europe has done much worse. After managing to largely suppress the coronavirus over the spring and summer of 2020, Europe eased up over the late summer and fall, and saw huge surges as a result.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “there are some countries that have managed the pandemic well. That includes some European nations like Denmark, Estonia, Cyprus, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. But the biggest success stories are Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan \u2014 which have broadly adopted more aggressive government measures against the coronavirus than America.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “So why did the US fail so badly? A lot of this comes down to President Donald Trump. He pushed the country to reopen far too early and quickly, calling on states to \u201cLIBERATE\u201d<\/a> their economies. He abdicated federal leadership and instead forced states, cities, and private entities to pick up the slack on a host of issues, particularly testing<\/a> and, recently, vaccines<\/a>. He downplayed<\/a> the need for masks, outright mocking people, such as President-elect Joe Biden<\/a>, for wearing them. The list goes on and on.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In comparison, other leaders around the world have taken Covid-19 more seriously \u2014 embracing social distancing, testing and tracing, masking, and, when necessary, more extreme measures like lockdowns. Even with the recent surge of the coronavirus, many countries across Europe have reacted quickly and aggressively by imposing lockdowns, slowing the spread of the virus. The US, by comparison, has by and large remained open<\/a>, with some states still not requiring masks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, not everything has gone perfectly in Europe and other parts of the world. A lot of people and places have screwed up their response to the coronavirus, showing that it\u2019s no easy challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But when the numbers are added up, the US remains an extraordinary failure in its handling of Covid-19.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n