What Went Wrong

Dr. Omer Qazi, a distinguished endocrinologist currently working at the University Hospitals in Birmingham, England and a member American college of physicians and the American college of clinical endocrinologists, just released a book, What Went Wrong: The Tale of a Bug That Stalled the Globe. His book sets out to highlight the poor decisions around the world that were made in the war against COVID-19 that have proved costly everywhere. In it, he addresses the failures that led to the loss of lives due to lack of preparation and how this reflects the priorities of world leaders. He discusses the medical advice from around the world that was overlooked and how the situation could have unfolded if things were handled differently. I invited him to share a guest post with DWT readers that focuses especially on the U.S.

What Went Wrong 
-by Dr. Omer Qazi

"We have it under control, there is this one person coming from China and we have it under control." These were the exact words of President of the United States and then the world witnessed the ultimate mishandling of the most severe and serious infections of the century. The ignorance and the downplaying of the pandemic resulted in making the world's most powerful country's health system, a cripple. This was followed by the deaths of thousands of people across the country and affecting millions of families. The due fast and prompt action was instead replaced by the ignorance and twisting of the medical facts as per the political needs. From the first day to this day, the USA tops the charts as the worst-affected country in the world with coronavirus from all the possible angles which directly tells anyone who cares to know the kind of response given by the government. As of today, the total number of cases in the USA has reached over 4,760,000 with over 158,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in the country. There are still more than 2,200,000 cases which are active in the country and around 18,600 are still serious or critical. There are more than 14,300 cases per million which is one of the highest in the world with above 470 deaths per million.

The world responded to this pandemic in a very substandard way of fighting the deadliest disease by undermining the advice by the experts. This started from the delayed imposition of the flight restrictions from China to the rest of the world. China kept on exporting the cases to the whole world and no country responded to that in the required timeline. After that, there was a delayed decision making in terms of early lock-down which resulted in spreading the disease further and making the exported bug a product of their own community. The delay started from the origin of the disease to the World Health Organization's action of considering it a global issue to the national response from US administration, everything was contributary to this widespread of the disease.

On January 24th Mr Trump tweeted, "It will all work out well." So, after thousands of people under the ground sadly, we all know how well it worked out. The health system was made to crash across the globe with extreme pressure and lack of facilities. Doctors and medical staff were not provided with proper protective equipment and resulted in their deaths as well. The healthcare facilities were not prepared to tackle such a situation and ultimately the pressure was so enormous that the systems collapsed leading to more infections and deaths as well. The situation was so bad that at a certain point the US had to import the protective equipment from the developing countries as well. On the 27th of January, Mr President tweeted, "We are in very close communication with China concerning the virus. Very few cases reported in the USA, but strongly on watch. We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary."

Apart from all this false positivity and lack of knowledge, false medical advice was another issue which included the usage of Chloroquine and drinking the antiseptic solution and that too came from none other than the President of United States which also resulted in few deaths due to the toxicity of these interventions. This very serious business was mishandled with non-seriousness which resulted in the loss of life.

He tweeted further on 24th February, "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all the relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me."

At this stage, 35 people were diagnosed In US with coronavirus. Declaring a pandemic under control at such a neonatal stage was an overstatement by the highest office in the US.

A little glimpse of the politicizing of the situation is evident from many statements given by him such as, "Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more, he would say it is too much. He didn't like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent."

On 26th February's tweet, the war against media instead of coronavirus continued: "Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Coronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise, their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. The USA in great shape."

Later, the USA went against the WHO and China blaming everything on them and putting the real agenda behind. The things could have been dealt with differently and the lives could have been saved with the help of quick action on borders as well as acting on the medical advice and preparing the health facilities to combat the deadly disease. We could have been able to save millions of lives instead of grieving the loss.