There is a long way to go to overcome the COVID-19. US government officials have been quietly calculating - if the US government wants to declare "victory over the epidemic", how many new deaths per day must be controlled to be accepted by the American people?
On June 6, the US "politician" news network quoted three anonymous insiders to disclose the news. According to the reports, the discussions of US officials were conducted privately. Although these discussions showed that the US government planned to draw a preliminary framework for overcoming the epidemic, they also just highlighted how difficult it is to end the current epidemic in the United States.
In order to declare "victory over the epidemic", the US government secretly calculated how many deaths per day could be "accepted"
According to people familiar with the matter, these discussions involve many departments of the US government, and the purpose is to assess what kind of death figures the American people will tolerate. Officials believe that it is acceptable that the number of deaths per day should not exceed 200. If this figure can be controlled, the annual total number of deaths will be controlled at about 73000, which is only slightly higher than the annual number of influenza deaths in the United States. A source pointed out that if the number is set at 500, it would be too high, because in this way, the number of deaths per week will catch up with the number of victims of the "9 / 11" incident.
"People usually feel that no more than 100 or 200 cases a day is enough." The source added that since fewer than 200 people die every day, hospitals will not be overcrowded, and the infection rate will be relatively low. The number of deaths in each region will be lower, which will make Americans feel that they have returned to their lives before the outbreak of the epidemic.
Although there are many considerations, insiders admit that these discussions and evaluation criteria are only a private "exploration", which has never become a formal measurement standard and has not been published before.
Cyrus shahpar, director of epidemic data of the White House, told the "politician" news network that from the perspective of public health, setting such a standard is meaningless, because the virus has been evolving rapidly, and the key question is how long such a number can be maintained.
"I think most experts will say that it is difficult to have any lasting figures as the standard... Our overall goal is to reduce mortality. You can't give up your efforts to reduce mortality at any time."
Shapar added that he was not satisfied with the current daily death rate. "I really don't know why they think 200 is an OK number."
The "politician" news network reported that at the beginning of the outbreak of the COVID-19, the number of deaths per day in the United States has never been less than 200. Even when the epidemic slowed down last summer, an average of 230 Americans died from the new crown every day. When the epidemic was serious, the number of deaths in the United States every day even reached more than 2600.
In recent months, the white house seems to want to shift the public's attention from infection to hospitalization and death, trying to ease the anxiety of the American people and tell them that the new crown is easy to control with vaccines and treatment.
But in fact, there are still many loopholes in the US epidemic prevention work. Statistics from the data website "our world in data" show that only one third of Americans have received booster injections; Only 67% of Americans have reached the definition of "full vaccination" stipulated by the CDC. The proportion of Americans receiving "full vaccination" ranks 68th in the world, lagging behind countries such as Bangladesh and Rwanda.
Trend of cumulative death cases in the United States since the outbreak of the epidemic
Trend of cumulative death cases in the United States since the outbreak of the epidemic
At present, the United States is still the country with the most serious COVID-19 in the world.
As of June 6 local time, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown in the United States has exceeded 84million, and the cumulative number of deaths has exceeded 1.01 million; Over 100000 new confirmed cases and 300 dead cases were added in a single day on an average of 7 days.
In the middle of May this year, the U.S. epidemic crossed a new tragic milestone - the death toll of COVID-19 in the United States exceeded 1million. This shocking figure also means that about one in 330 Americans died of COVID-19.
The British Guardian issued a warning on June 1 that the United States is now in the fourth serious period of growth of COVID-19 cases, but experts believe that the actual infection rate is much higher than reported. According to an early survey of the surge of cases in New York City, the number of newly diagnosed cases may be seriously underestimated, and the actual number of cases may be 30 times higher than that reported.
The war epidemic is full of challenges, but American officials are planning to use figures to define the standard of victory. Their thirst for "victory" and their obsession with digital games make people sigh.
U.S. government officials should finally realize that what died in the tragedy of the epidemic is not cold numbers, but fresh lives.