Crescent International
With more than 86,000 positive tests, the US now has the most coronavirus infected cases in the world.
This is what Crescent International had predicted more than a week ago (March 19) when President Donald Trump was still boasting that the US was far behind other countries in the number of cases.
The US’ confirmed cases now surpass China (81,897 cases) and Italy (80,589).
The figures were collated by Johns Hopkins University and released on Thursday March 26.
Its fatalities, however, still lag behind Italy (8,215), Spain (5,000) and China (3,296) but this would not be the case for too long.
Asked about the latest figures during his White House briefing on March 26, Trump said it was “a tribute to the amount of testing that we’re doing.”
But how many tests has the US, with a population of 330 million people conducted so far?
Only about 552,000 coronavirus tests in all 50 states, according to Vice-President Mike Pence who heads the White House Coronavirus task force.
Compare this with Iran that by March 24 had already tested more than 41 million people, that is more than half its total population of 80 million.
Iran has also developed test kits for coronavirus that will be available on the international market soon.
With 552,000 tests, more than 86,000 people have tested positive. When more people are tested, this figure is likely to rise exponentially.
“As many as 96 million people could be infected in coming months, and 480,000 could die,” according to a projection prepared for the American Hospital Association by Dr James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre.
Other studies estimate the US death toll could be as high as 2.2 million.
That research, led by British epidemiologist Dr. Neil Ferguson and published on March 16 by the Imperial College of London, showed that merely acting to slow rather than completely stop the spread of COVID-19 would “still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over.”
Dr Ferguson himself tested positive a few days after his study was published.
Meanwhile, Islamic Iran has offered to help the US in its fight against the coronavirus, if it asks for help.
The offer was made on March 26 by General Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), during biological defence drills to fight the virus.
General Salami was reacting to alleged offers of help by various American officials, including Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, that Washington was ready to help Iran contain the pandemic.
“When Americans say they want to help the Iranian people under these conditions, it is nothing but demagogy,” IRGC’s top commander said.
The general added, “They are themselves plagued by this virus outbreak and their healthcare infrastructure cannot protect the American people against this phenomenon. If the American nation needs help, we can render assistance to them, but we do not need their help.”
Trump has quietly appealed to various countries to help the US fight the pandemic as its own healthcare system is at a breaking point.
An invisible virus has brought the self-proclaimed sole superpower to its knees and is begging for help.
Some contrition at last?
