A stunning report from a Lancet commission says that 40% of American deaths due to COVID-19 were preventable had demagogue and malignant narcissist Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump taken the virus seriously from the start of the pandemic. Just under 470,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 to date, almost all on Trump's watch. The Guardian reports:
"In seeking to respond to the pandemic, Trump has been widely condemned for not taking the pandemic seriously enough soon enough, spreading conspiracy theories, not encouraging mask wearing and undermining scientists and others seeking to combat the virus’ spread.
Dr Mary T Bassett, a commission member and director of Harvard University’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, told the Guardian: 'The US has fared so badly with this pandemic, but the bungling can’t be attributed only to Mr Trump, it also has to do with these societal failures … That’s not going to be solved by a vaccine.'” (our emphasis)
The report also delves into Trump's overall destructive health and environmental policies, including his repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and take health insurance away from tens of millions of Americans, especially communities of color:
"Trump’s response to documented health inequities and growing inequality was to attack programs and policies intended to make health insurance more affordable and accessible. In Trump’s first three years in office, there were 2.3 million more people without health insurance.
Between 2017 and 2018, the health insurance coverage rate decreased by 1.6 percentage points for Latinos – roughly 1.5 million people – and by 2.8 percentage points for Native American and Alaska native people, while remaining stable for the white population, according to the commission. [snip]
The commission said evidence is growing that Trump’s regulatory rollbacks have increased death and disease. Between 2016 and 2019, the annual number of deaths from environmental and occupational factors increased by more than 22,000 after years of steady decline." (our emphasis)
The four years of the Trump regime were the worst for the health of the American people in modern times, whether from the pandemic, attempts to gut the ACA, or shredding of environmental regulations to allow polluters to return to their dirty work.
