US surely tops list of partisan struggles against virus, failure to hold those responsible for deaths

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Illustration: Liu Rui / GT

Bloomberg, a news service known for providing business and economic information, has recently become a hot topic for the media due to its latest ‘Covid Resilience Ranking’, in which the United States is number one. Bloomberg’s list has been taken by many as a benchmark for countries’ effectiveness in fighting the pandemic. Ridiculously, the United States, with a cumulative number of over 33.97 million cases and a death toll of over 608,000, both the highest in the world, has become the most “resilient” country in the world. fight against the pandemic. The country with the most abundant medical and technological resources is still seeing a daily increase of more than 38,000 confirmed cases and 390 deaths. People have reason to wonder: who exactly made this grotesque list?

The United States has become a negative example since the start of the global COVID-19 epidemic. More specifically, the United States made three typical mistakes.

First, it places partisan interests above national interests and allows political calculations to dominate anti-epidemic policymaking. In July 2020, the Vanity Fair published a lengthy article on the confusion over why the United States did not conduct massive testing for COVID-19. According to the report, a White House team had drawn up an aggressive and ambitious national testing plan, but the proposal was dropped for a very clear and cold reason – “because the virus had hit the Blue States hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would make no sense politically.

Second, the United States has placed ideology above human health and life and rejects solutions that are not ideologically favorable to the West. American political scientist and author of The End of History Francis Fukuyama pointed out in interviews last year that China’s anti-epidemic model cannot be easily exported to other countries that lack the cultural traditions of China. Western countries led by the United States in general have prioritized the defense of the correctness and legitimacy of Western ideologies. The reason is simple: the COVID-19 pandemic is a test for capacities and the system of governance. The wrong responses from the United States and other Western countries exposed their institutional flaws and the flaws in the system. This is what the United States and the West cannot afford. In order to safeguard the Western capitalist system, the American and Western elites, including the media, have chosen to call black people white. It seems to them that no matter how many people have died and will die.

Third, the United States prioritizes the interests of the Western camp over global health. It doesn’t allow anyone to question the “superiority” of the Western anti-pandemic model, and it doesn’t matter that more people die. From their advocate of “herd immunity” at the start of the epidemic, to their objection to quarantine measures and the emphasis on “freedom”, to their refusal to recognize Russian and Chinese vaccines, it all points to that people’s lives mean little to them as long as the Western-dominated world order can be maintained. Western media never call on the public to demand that relevant government officials be held accountable for their failed responses to COVID-19, instead they have tried to disguise their country’s failure as a “victory.”

If there is a ranking that takes into account the death toll from COVID-19, the number of confirmed cases, the partisan struggle and the failure to hold those responsible accountable as standards, the United States will undoubtedly be at the top of the list. Bloomberg’s ranking looks like an absurd drama. It is imperative that people see past the negative impact of this misleading and flawed list as soon as possible, which is of great importance to whether the world could beat the pandemic as soon as possible. Bloomberg played dirty tricks to help the United States “win” the test for the COVID-19 pandemic, and the only consequence is that he would be nailed to the pillar of shame.

The author is a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University. [email protected]

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