There's A Lot Of Evidence Mounting That Trump Has Been The Worst President In History-- Who Would Have Guessed?

 

The 2020 Social Progress Index has been released and it has been noted that the "pandemic threatens to set back global development by a decade, delaying achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 62 years unless urgent actions are taken. 'The 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include the eradication of poverty, improving access to education and action on climate change, will only be fulfilled by 2092 once the effects of the pandemic are taken into account.' Environmental Quality (36.87) and Inclusiveness (39.25) are one of those areas where the world shows particularly alarming results, raising questions about the future of environmental sustainability, more since climate change is predicted to continue through this century and beyond."

In terms of quality of life, wealth isn't the whole story. The U.S. is still one of the richest countries on earth but ranks only 28th on the index "falling behind less wealthy countries like Greece, Cyprus and Estonia. The U.S. is just one of three countries in the world that has declined in social progress over the past decade, together with two other fascist-run countries, Brazil and Hungary.

As Avivah Wittenberg-Cox of Forbes pointed out, while all three above-mentioned, declining states are run by populist, male leaders, “the four top-ranked countries in the world on 50 dimensions of wellbeing, in the just-published 2020 Social Progress Index, are all run by … women.” Indeed, Norway, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand occupy the top positions in the overall ranking, performing especially well in the Foundations of Wellbeing dimension; however, there is still room for further improvement in all three dimensions.

Meanwhile, Trumpistan is 91st in the world in access to quality education; 97th in access to healthcare; 95th lowest homicide rate; 100th in avoiding discrimination against minorities...

Yesterday, the U.S. passed the 8 millionth confirmed case-- and went over the 200,000th death. But the stunning series of reports discussed yesterday in ARS Technica goes beyond the obvious to spotlight how badly the U.S. is failing pandemic-wise. "A grim series of articles published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association makes clear just how hard the United States has failed at controlling the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic-- from the country’s horrifying death toll to its inability to drag down its shamefully high death rates."

It was already clear that the US has tallied more deaths from the coronavirus than any other country and has one of the highest death rates per capita in the world. But, according to one article in the series, the US is also failing to lower COVID-19 death rates-- even as harder-hit countries have managed to learn from early disease peaks and bring their rates down substantially.

...If the pandemic continues in the US as it has, the researchers’ estimate suggests that there may be more than 400,000 excess US deaths for the whole of 2020. The significance of this estimate “cannot be overstated,” write Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of JAMA, and Phil Fontanarosa, JAMA’s executive editor, in an accompanying editorial. The toll “accounts for what could be declines in some causes of death, like motor vehicle crashes, but increases in others, like myocardial infarction.”

In yet another article, a team of psychiatrists highlights that every single extra death creates its own radius of devastation. “Each COVID-19 death leaves an estimated 9 family members bereaved,” the psychiatrists write. This “projects to an estimated 2 million bereaved individuals in the US,” given the 225,000 extra deaths so far. “Thus, the effect of COVID-19 deaths on mental health will be profound.”

They go on to explain how this tandem epidemic of grief will lead to spikes in prolonged grief disorders, substance abuse, and societal disruption. And this toll doesn’t include the mental health distress of health care workers, who witness first-hand the ravages of COVID-19 disease and deaths.

“In summary, a second wave of devastation is imminent, attributable to mental health consequences of COVID-19,” the psychiatrists write. “The magnitude of this second wave is likely to overwhelm the already frayed mental health system, leading to access problems, particularly for the most vulnerable persons.”

With the extra deaths, long-term health problems, looming mental health crisis, and loss of gross-domestic product from the pandemic, Harvard economists David Cutler and Lawrence Summers estimate that cumulative financial costs of the COVID-19 pandemic will be $16 trillion.

Of course, the health, death, and economic tolls won’t be felt equally, write Lisa Cooper of Johns Hopkins University and David Williams of Harvard. The implications for the United States are “sobering,” they write, but are “even more profound for communities of color.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has further compounded health, social, and economic disparities in communities of color,” they add. “The effects of 2020 will be felt for years to come.”

You can't just blame Trump. Think of all the help he's had from the Republican Party and particularly from Governors like Ron DeSantis (FL), Greg Abbott (TX), Brian Kemp (GA), Kristi Noem (SD), Doug Ducey (AZ), Mike Parson (MO), Bill Lee (TN), Kim Reynolds (IA) Kay Ivey (AL), Tate Reeves (MS), Henry McMaster (SC), Doug Burgum (ND), Asa Hutchinson (AR), Kevin Stitt (OK) and Pete Ricketts (NE).