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A2 UP FRONT
Wednesday 23 september 2020
Continued from Front "We have from the very be-
The bleak milestone was ginning lacked a national
reported by Johns Hopkins, testing strategy," Nuzzo
based on figures supplied said. "For reasons I can't tru-
by state health authorities. ly fathom, we've refused to
But the real toll is thought develop one."
to be much higher, in part Sandy Brown of Grand
because many COVID-19 Blanc, Michigan, called the
deaths were probably as- death toll "gut-wrenching."
cribed to other causes, es- Her husband of 35 years
pecially early on, before and their 20-year-old son
widespread testing. — Freddie Lee Brown Jr.
In an interview Tuesday and Freddie Lee Brown III —
with a Detroit TV station, died of COVID-19 just days
Trump boasted of doing an apart in March, when there
"amazing" and "incredible" were fewer than 4,000 re-
job against the virus. corded deaths in the U.S.
And in a prerecorded "The thing that really gets to
speech to the U.N. General me is ... if things had been
Assembly, he demanded done properly, we could
that Beijing be held ac- have put a lid on this," said
countable for having "un- Brown, who has no other
leashed this plague onto In this July 31, 2020, file photo, Romelia Navarro, right, is comforted by nurse Michele Younkin as children. "Now it's just unbe-
the world." China's ambas- she weeps while sitting at the bedside of her dying husband, Antonio, in St. Jude Medical Center's lievable. It's devastating."
sador rejected the accusa- COVID-19 unit in Fullerton, Calif. The real number of dead
tions as baseless. Associated Press from the crisis could be sig-
On Twitter, Democratic nificantly higher: As many
presidential candidate Joe cy physician at Baylor Col- a 35-year-old Washington into nursing homes and ex- as 215,000 more people
Biden said, "It didn't have to lege of Medicine in hard-hit state resident who had re- ploited poor infection con- than usual died in the U.S.

be this bad." Houston. "In the case of our turned from visiting his fam- trols, claiming more than from all causes during the
"It's a staggering number country, we failed miser- ily in Wuhan, China. 78,000 lives. first seven months of 2020,
that's hard to wrap your ably." On Feb. 26, Trump held At the same time, gaps in according to CDC figures.
head around," he said. Black and Hispanic peo- up pages from the Global leadership led to shortages The death toll from CO-
"There's a devastating hu- ple and American Indians Health Security Index, a of testing supplies. Inter- VID-19 during the same
man toll to this pandemic have accounted for a dis- measure of readiness for nal warnings to ramp up period was put at about
— and we can't forget proportionate share of the health crises, and declared, production of masks were 150,000 by Johns Hopkins.
that." deaths, underscoring the "The United States is rated ignored, leaving states to Researchers suspect some
For five months, America economic and health care No. 1 most prepared." compete for protective coronavirus deaths were
has led the world by far disparities in the U.S. It was true. The U.S. out- gear. overlooked, while other
in sheer numbers of con- Worldwide, the virus has in- ranked the 194 other coun- Trump downplayed the deaths may have been
firmed infections — nearly fected more than 31 million tries in the index. Besides its threat early on, advanced caused indirectly by the cri-
6.9 million as of Tuesday — people and is closing in fast labs, experts and strategic unfounded notions about sis, by creating such turmoil
and deaths. The U.S. has on 1 million deaths, with stockpiles, the U.S. could the behavior of the vi- that people with chronic
less than 5% of the globe's nearly 967,000 lives lost, boast of its disease track- rus, promoted unproven conditions such as diabe-
population but more than by Johns Hopkins' count, ers and plans for rapidly or dangerous treatments, tes or heart disease were
20% of the reported deaths. though the real numbers communicating lifesaving complained that too much unable or unwilling to get
Brazil is No. 2 with about are believed to be higher information during a crisis. testing was making the U.S. treatment. Dark, the emer-
137,000 deaths, followed because of gaps in testing The U.S. Centers for Disease look bad, and disdained gency physician at Baylor,
by India with approximate- and reporting. For the U.S., Control and Prevention masks, turning face cover- said that before the crisis,
ly 89,000 and Mexico with it wasn't supposed to go was respected around the ings into a political issue. "people used to look to the
around 74,000. Only five this way. world for sending help to On April 10, the president United States with a degree
countries — Peru, Bolivia, When the year began, the fight infectious diseases. predicted the U.S. wouldn't of reverence. For democra-
Chile, Spain and Brazil — U.S. had recently garnered But monitoring at airports see 100,000 deaths. That cy. For our moral leadership
rank higher in COVID-19 recognition for its readiness was loose. Travel bans milestone was reached in the world. Supporting sci-
deaths per capita. for a pandemic. Health of- came too late. Only later May 27. ence and using technol-
"All the world's leaders took ficials seemed confident as did health officials realize Nowhere was the lack of ogy to travel to the moon."
the same test, and some they converged on Seat- the virus could spread be- leadership seen as more "Instead," he said, "what's
have succeeded and tle in January to deal with fore symptoms show up, crucial than in testing, a really been exposed is
some have failed," said Dr. the country's first known rendering screening imper- key to breaking the chain how anti-science we've
Cedric Dark, an emergen- case of the coronavirus, in fect. The virus also swept of contagion. become."q

Facebook: Fake pages from China tried to disrupt US politics

Associated Press Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and President Donald formation regarding the results of the election,
Facebook says it has removed a small network Trump. including by creating fake websites or social
of fake accounts and pages that originated in Facebook did not link the network directly to media content to discredit the process.
China and focused on disrupting political activ- the Chinese government. It said the people be- U.S. intelligence officials warned last month
ity in the U.S. and several other countries. hind the network tried to conceal their identity about ongoing or potential efforts by China,
The U.S.-focused activity was just a "sliver" of the and location via virtual private networks and Russia and Iran to interfere in the 2020 election.
accounts' overall activity and gained almost no other methods. Concerns about foreign efforts In an August public assessment, the country's
following, Facebook said. Their primary focus to interfere in the election were underscored chief counterintelligence official, William Evan-
was Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. by a warning Tuesday from the FBI and Depart- ina, said officials had determined that Beijing
In the U.S, the accounts posted material both in ment of Homeland Security that foreign actors regards Trump as unpredictable and wants to
support of and against presidential candidates and cybercriminals were likely to spread disin- see him lose to Biden. q