Due to the U.S. government's reckless response, the COVID-19 pandemic went out of control and turned into a human tragedy in the country, according to a report on the state of human rights in the U.S. on Wednesday.

"The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020" was released by China's State Council Information Office.

Despite having a robust healthcare system, the U.S. faltered to control the COVID-19 pandemic effectively. As a result, it led the world with the highest number of infections and related deaths. 

Leaders ignored warnings from health experts and downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, leading to the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Chaotic response and prevention measures confused the public, leading to dire consequences.

The U.S., home to less than 5 percent of the world's population, accounted for more than a quarter of the world's confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly one-fifth of the global deaths from the disease by the end of February 2021, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The virus has killed more than 500,000 Americans, and the number is continually rising.

The report also pointed out that ethnic minority groups, senior citizens, poor, disabled and homeless, and people lodged in various prisons suffered much more from the pandemic.

African Americans are three times as likely as whites to be infected with the coronavirus, twice as likely to die from COVID-19, the report said.

Senior citizens, a group most susceptible to the virus, have been further marginalized in the U.S. Seniors citizens in long-term care facilities account for less than one percent of the U.S. population but more than 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths, according to a report published on The San Diego Union-Tribune website on August 18, 2020.

The poor faced a greater threat of infection and were hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents of low-income communities are three times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those in wealthier neighborhoods, according to a report published on the Los Angeles Times website on May 8, 2020.

The disabled and the homeless were in dire straits. A study released in November 2020 by the nonprofit FAIR Health found that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are three times more likely to die of COVID-19 than the general population.

And outbreak in jails threatened the lives of inmates. ABC News reported on December 19, 2020, that at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, of whom more than 1,700 have died. Nearly every prison system in the country has seen infection rates significantly higher than the communities around them. 

The world's largest economy – which also calls itself a "city upon a hill" and "beacon of democracy" – saw its own epidemic situation go out of control, accompanied by political disorder, inter-ethnic conflicts, and social division, which further added to human rights violation in the country, the report said.