Our impressive Incompetence Exceptionalism

      These graphs were provided by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones this morning:

     It is noteworthy that, though only one Western nation has worse deaths-per-million numbers than the U.S. (namely, the UK), Covid deaths in all Western nations are very much in decline, with the U.S. the exception, where Covid deaths are clearly ascendent.

     The upshot: people aren't dying much anymore in other Western nations. But they're dying at a rate of over 1,000 per day in the U.S.

     Drum seems to include Latin America as among Western nations. Accordingly, Argentina and Mexico are two Western nations with death-per-million numbers better than ours (in the U.S.) that are, however, seeing a definite ascendency in Covid deaths. Mexico's situation looks mighty grim: they've already lost 50,000 people and the death rate keeps going up. Argentina could (but likely won't) turn things around before they see truly awful death numbers. So far, they suffered only about 4,400 deaths.

     We've got it especially bad in the U.S. (worse than Mexico): already a huge number of deaths (160K) and an increasing death rate. That points to many more American deaths in future. So we really stand out.

     Owing to a stunning lack of national leadership—permitting a stunning level of irrational pandemic skepticism among ordinary Americans, especially Trumpians—we have a huge catastrophe on our hands, while most other Western nations do not. 

     American exceptionalism, I guess. American incompetence exceptionalism.

     Again, in the U.S., it's a catastrophe grounded in incompetence. We should feel very ashamed. And angry. But that's not what we're witnessing. It's pretty alienating, among other things.

     America, the irrational, the clueless. The hopeless?

     Hang on, it's gonna get worse!

A DISTURBING FACT:

     The number of deaths thus far reported for Covid-19 in the U.S. is 162,000 (or maybe 161,347). That number is likely to get much higher.

     That number is greater than the number of deaths of Americans in these wars combined:

 

World War I: 116,516

Korean war: 36,516

Gulf War: 294

Iraq war: 4,497

Afghanistan: 2,216

 

Total: 160,039

It's a time for outrage.