Although the COVID-19 death count is sobering — almost 3.4 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore — there is reason for optimism in the United States as more and more Americans get vaccinated for the novel coronavirus. Over half of U.S. residents have been at least partially vaccinated. Nonetheless, the U.S. has had more COVID-19-related deaths than any other country in the world. And journalist Nina Burleigh, in an article published by The Nation on May 17, looks back on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was going from bad to worse.
The CDC’s COVID-19 response, according to Burleigh, was undermined by far-right white evangelical fundamentalists on one hand and Koch Brothers-like corporatists on the other.
Burleigh notes that the CDC, for many years, was viewed as “the global model of excellence for public health” in many other countries. But during the Trump era, she points out, the CDC was “not so popular” among Trump’s supporters — even when COVID-19, during the spring of 2020, was becoming increasingly deadly. Continue reading.