By Chen Qingqing, Zhao Yusha and Zhao Juecheng

When Joe Biden sat behind the President’s desk for the first time after his inauguration, there would be tons of documents and classified files no doubt, mainly about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disaster needing his attention.

It is exactly one year since the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sounded the alarm about the outbreak.

As a large amount of video footage and pictures show, hospitals are overwhelmed by growing new daily cases across with US frontline health workers challenged by the shortage of protective supplies, and are now protesting about the vaccine distribution chaos. 

President Biden has a very tough road ahead, not only because the US has seen deaths due to the coronavirus surpass 400,000, a new high, but also because the unmitigated public health crisis reveals deep-rooted problems of US governance.  

While President-elect Biden led the first national mourning for coronavirus victims the night before the inauguration and the bell of the Washington National Cathedral tolled 400 times to mourn the 400,000 plus lives lost to the epidemic, he was also inheriting a huge mess despite pinning his hopes on the inoculation of vaccines.

Ahead of the inauguration, Biden emphasized that the past year tested Americans in unimaginable ways, and that it’s time for healing and overcoming this crisis together. 

But how?

Many Chinese and foreign experts have raised this question while bringing up a number of issues that the new administration needs to focus on in lifting the US out of its darkest moment, and to consider some of the anti-epidemic experiences proven to be successful in China to contain the spread of the virus. 

The US has recorded the highest number of confirmed coronavirus infection cases, totalling over 24 million, accounting for 25 per cent of the total worldwide infections. And with 420,000 deaths, the US toll also tops the world, accounting for about 20 per cent of the global count, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 

Some Chinese observers are calling the US “the biggest loser of 2020,” the year which should have seen human beings coming together to fight the virus. America’s failed response, chaotic governance and irresponsible attitude also led the country – once the world’s leader – to lose the high ground on both moral and political fronts. 

Missteps, failed reflection 

The US missed golden opportunities right from the beginning which dates back to early January 2020, when the US had information on the impending virus that had led to the outbreak in Wuhan and saw the evacuation of its citizens from the Chinese city.

Despite the warning signs, The US failed to take swift actions to prevent the virus from spreading on its home soil, Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times.

On January 21, 2020, The US’ CDC registered its first travel-related COVID-19 case in Washington state. However, White House officials were worried that there weren’t adequate test kits, and some Congressmen criticised the Trump administration for not taking the outbreak seriously despite then-president Donald Trump assuring the public that “it’s going to be fine,” in early February. 

The US became the country hit hardest by the COVID-19 since March 2020, with the highest number of confirmed cases, which was labelled by American media as “a grim milestone,” and the country saw the acceleration of cases in the following months, which reached another peak in November when 2 million new cases were reported in two weeks.

CNN said in a December report that “every day, the number of families mourning the death of a loved one due to COVID-19 keeps growing at a devastating rate,” with an average of one coronavirus death every 40 seconds. 

It took about 104 days for the US to see the total number of COVID-19 patients reach 5 million in August, but 91 days to hit the 10 million mark in November. And the figure kept growing at an alarming pace, reaching 20 million by December 31, 2020.

“There are two major problems with the U.S’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. One is the lack of testing and the other is a shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE),” Chen Xi, an assistant professor of public health at Yale University, told the Global Times.

From the time of the first reported case to mid-May, it took hundreds of days for the US to catch up with the testing capacity of South Korea, though the two countries reported their first cases about the same time, the expert said, noting that the yearlong trade war the US launched against China had also weighed on the supply of PPE, including facial masks, in the US. 

The US took some time in early March to grant exclusions from import tariffs for dozens of medical products from China such as facial masks, Reuters reported. Even though China has produced about 120 masks for each American, some politicians, especially those anti-China hawks in the Trump administration, refused to listen to the CDC guidelines by rejecting wearing masks. 

Violating social distancing requirements, rejecting the CDC’s mask-wearing guidelines, spreading conspiracies about the virus and even calls to fire Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US medical expert in leading the fight, caused the failure of the US anti-epidemic fight, according to many observers across the world. 

“The US has never done a single right thing during its ‘battle,’ against the virus, if it qualifies as a battle,” said Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, while speaking with the Global Times. 

Its failure is deeply embedded in its “rigged” system, and people cannot blame the Trump administration alone for the death of more than 400,000 Americans, Shen said. “He is the accelerator, not the cause,” Shen noted. 

The New York Times reported on January 13, 2021 that more than 10 percent of the US Congressmen had tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 60 sitting members have contracted the virus since the epidemic began, including 44 Republicans and 16 Democrats. 

Shen is of the view that the pandemic has exposed what he calls a “crisis of capitalism in the non-economic arena.”

Can Biden save the US? 

While fighting COVID-19 should top Biden’s agenda, some Chinese experts who have closely observed the US’ response to the outbreak doubt whether a change in leadership can really save America from the pandemic.

Accelerated mass vaccination might work out, while others question whether the new president can come up with plans implemented systematically and scientifically. 

More importantly, it still remains a question whether the new president can take an objective and scientific perspective after a year of politicisation and polarisation under the Trump administration. 

“Unlike China, which already had learnt much from SARS and other epidemics, the US has to start from scratch. The country was blindfolded by its short-sightedness and refused to learn from China’s experiences,” said Zeng. 

Since calling the COVID-19 “ The Chinese virus,” claiming the virus came from a virology lab in Wuhan, the Trump administration has kept on smearing China and shifted the blame on to Beijing, ignoring the WHO calls to take a more scientific approach to combatting COVID-19 

At the same time, more questions are being raised about the timelines of the US response to COVID-19. For example, a coronavirus death in California was discovered weeks before the first known death was reported in the US, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying recently called for greater transparency and an investigation into US bio-labs. 

If the US truly respects science and facts, it should open the Fort Detrick laboratory and answer questions about its over 200 overseas labs, while inviting WHO experts to look into the origins and answer the international community’s suspicions, Hua told a recent press conference. 

“Although one year has passed, I don’t think any US politician really understands how to contain the epidemic. If they understand, they should reverse America’s profit-oriented medical system and let it serve their people,” said Shen. 

Although Biden has proposed several ways to fight the virus, he has not yet stressed the necessity for international cooperation, like joining hands with China, the only country that has successfully put the epidemic under control.

—This article is published courtesy of The Global Times