The COVID-19 pandemic was mishandled, a critique

The United States of America was presented with the chance to save lives, instead, thousands of people will die.

The modern world has never faced a more life-altering  pandemic. It’s hard to fathom, but we are living through a tremendously historic event. It feels unreal, but this is it.

According to a Business Insider article, the government ran several simulations predicting the outcome and consequences of a disease pandemic similar to COVID-19. The results of which are not far off from reality.

 A respiratory virus dubbed the “Crimson Contagion” was similar to COVID-19 and swept the nation, resulting in 7.7 million infected and over 500,000 deaths. The report found that confusion and miscommunication between branches and layers of government led to a lack of funding and collaboration to control the spread, according to the Business Insider article.

Some of these direct effects included “delays and inconsistencies at the state and local levels over school closures, mandates that most people work from home and practice social distancing, and systemic problems in manufacturing more medical supplies,” According to the Business Insider article.

The government and the Trump administration were warned of imposing crisis. Why did they ignore the simulation — because of lies. The New York Times compiled a list of  Trump’s exaggerations and under exaggerations since January. The virus came to America and Trump barred entrance from China. That was good. What wasn’t, however, was the exaggeration of how under control the situation was. For the better part of late January and early February, Trump made claims of less than 12 reported cases, how the infected were all recovering and how the warmer spring weather would kill the virus.

The estimations of how small an issue COVID-19  presented, despite prior simulations and research, allowing for little to no preparation. About two months later, the country rapidly ran out of supplies, charts from the Wall Street Journal signified unemployment had reached an all-time high and we had two weeks until America peaked in daily deaths, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s COVID-19 webpage.

Amidst this crisis, America continues to play the blame game. Trump has redirected the criticism to the Democratic Party and journalism, making claims during his daily press conference that they are using the pandemic as a means to make the presidency look bad, claiming the media’s main goal is “sensationalism” instead of factual reporting.

Announced on  April 8, BBC reported that Trump believes the World Health Organization is largely responsible for the pandemic, claiming they are “China-centric.” Considerations of defunding them are in the works, according to Trump’s press conference.

Blame has also been thrown toward China and their handling of the virus. Some blame is valid, some is redundant. The Atlantic reported that China lied about the seriousness and didn’t act when they should have. Is it their fault America is the most infected country? No, it isn’t China’s fault America didn’t prepare until it was too late.

As President George Bush once said, “If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare.”

When writing this,The New York Times projected the death toll to reach 10,000 and total confirmed cases would reach 350,000. Deaths are projected to reach 100,000 to 240,000. Millions of Americans will be affected by this virus.

Vaccine and treatment research has accelerated at unprecedented rates. Both CNBCand The Washington Postclaim there is no confirmed treatment for Coronavirus; despite Trump putting tremendous faith in the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, an unconfirmed and still-experimental treatment. On top of that, by the time there is a validated and mass-produced vaccine, much of the spread will be on a rapid decline, according to The Guardian’s article.

Personally, I’m quite tired of the blame being thrown around. I’m tired of false hope being spread, and I’m tired of innocent people dying because of Trump’s downplaying of the situation.

It is clear I am not a fan of Trump. I remember clearly one of the main arguments for his election was, “he says it how it is.” As far as I can tell, his leadership through this episode of American history has been filled with ill-preparedness, exaggerations and an inability to admit to his failings.

Has he said it how it is or did he say what people wanted to hear? The power is in our hands now.

All the American public can do is stay home and hope they and their loved ones don’t get COVID-19.

There will be no fast-tracked solution to this pandemic. Forbesreported there is a chance of a second wave of the coronavirus, which would prevent us from returning to school in the fall. There is a chance the coronavirus will run our lives for years. That is, of course, if we don’t stay home.

Social distancing isn’t a buzz word; it’s a way to save lives. Hanging out with your friends 6-feet apart isn’t social distancing. You can’t quarantine with different people on different days. We can stop this by following CDC guidelines,we can unite under one common purpose, and we can do what the government failed to do.

Stay home. Save lives.

Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected]