On May 12, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that COVID-19 deaths in the United States surpassed one million, marking "a tragic milestone." Behind this staggering number are millions of grieving families and broken hearts. As of today, the U.S. has had the most COVID-19 deaths on the planet.

The elderly and children of minorities are at particularly high risk. According to official statistics, the death rate of people over 75 years old is 145 times that of the young. Compared with white children, African-American children are twice as likely to die from the coronavirus and Indigenous kids, five times more likely to die.

In addition, at least 200,000 children in the U.S. are being robbed of their parents or caregivers by the pandemic, becoming "COVID orphans." Among them, over one-half are ethnic minorities.

Even though the continuous mutations of the coronavirus have brought more difficulties to pandemic containment, wearing masks and getting vaccinated remain common sense measures against the virus spreading. However, this is quite controversial in the U.S. and has often been used as a political tool for fighting by parties and interest groups. Some places resigned themselves to the chaos and refused to take actions to stem the spread of the virus. If the U.S. government is really concerned about its people, why not reinforce COVID-19 response and disseminate scientific information?

When the pandemic first struck in 2020, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden lambasted the Trump administration for its lame performance in pandemic response. In early 2021, with high public expectations, the Biden administration promised to enhance pandemic measures. Today, with more than one million Americans having lost their lives to COVID-19, shouldn't the Biden administration be reminded of its promise?

In the nutshell, the loss of one million American lives is the tragic price of the U.S. government's incompetence to control a pandemic which it instead politicized.

Credits: 

Scriptwriter: Yuan Xin

Designers: Wang Shiqi, Ricardo Galvão

Chief editor: Ge Jing

Managing director: Mei Yan

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