- As of this week, the US has now recorded more than 500,000 coronavirus deaths since the COVID pandemic began.
- The White House hosted a candlelit remembrance ceremony on Monday to honor those who’ve died from COVID-19.
- White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said the number of deaths suggests that the US response to the pandemic has been worse than almost anywhere else in the world.
Earlier this week, the US passed a grim milestone amid a pandemic that’s given us so many already. The US has now recorded more than 500,000 deaths from the COVID-19 coronavirus, those being victims of an outbreak that’s also now generated more than 28 million reported infections in the US over the past year.
The Biden administration, for its part, decided to call attention to that new record of coronavirus deaths on Monday, with a candlelit remembrance ceremony at the White House — including President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her husband Doug Emhoff — meant to honor the lives of the tens of thousands of Americans who’ve died from the virus. “We often hear people described as ordinary Americans,” Biden said during the memorial. “There’s no such thing. There’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary.”
Speaking of extraordinary, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci sees something else, too, when he looks at that grim record of coronavirus deaths — proof that the US response to the pandemic has been extraordinarily bad. Perhaps even worse than anywhere else in the world.
In spite of being a “highly developed, rich country,” Dr. Fauci told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos that the US has “done worse than most any other country” in responding to the coronavirus pandemic: “It’s so tough to just go back and try and, you know, do a metaphorical autopsy on how things went. It was just bad. It is bad now.”
The next closest country to the US in terms of coronavirus deaths is Brazil, which has only recorded about half the number of deaths that the US has.
Even so, some people have greeted Dr. Fauci’s remarks not with an understanding of all the individual behaviors that contributed to making them so — people refusing to wear masks, socially distance, refrain from gatherings, traveling, and eating indoors, for example. Some people, instead, think Dr. Fauci should be… fired?
Here are some reactions to Dr. Fauci’s comments from Twitter:
Fauci on COVID-19 fight: US has 'done worse than most any other country' https://t.co/SXWMt1Ouz0 🌐 Click on link for details 🌞 Fauci is a waste of space! No policy, No idea, Unable to organise a convention in a brewery. 🌞
— Allan Foxall (@AirAcademy) February 22, 2021
Fauci on COVID-19 fight: US has 'done worse than most any other country' IT’S TIME …RESIGN DR FAUCI. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO GIVE THE PROPER ADVICE TO OUR LEADERS… #firefauci https://t.co/FI9hkjhTk9
— Bruce lowry (@djbrunowa) February 22, 2021
Obviously you were the wrong man for the job. You've been an embarrassment.
Fauci on COVID-19 fight: US has 'done worse than most any other country' https://t.co/3UaIZeuZHl
— cynthia thelen (@ThelenCynthia) February 23, 2021
Fauci on COVID-19 fight: US has 'done worse than most any other country' https://t.co/MgnX9xO6OU So Dr Fauci was put in charge on 1/19/2021 and a month later 100,000 people have died. He should be fired.
— Robert Czeranko (@rczeranko) February 23, 2021
REMEMBER: This is the guy who led us to doing worse! And, yet, he is still in charge of it.
Fauci on COVID-19 fight: US has 'done worse than most any other country' – ABC News – https://t.co/DtJ27C1kYA via @ABC
— New York Mets Bob (@MetsBob) February 23, 2021
