COVID-19 death rates and arrogance

Donald Trump downplayed the threat as long as he could, then became a last-minute advocate of lockdown. He has now moved on to being the liberator of the American people from lockdown (without any contact tracing, of course). The problem with him as a leader is that he is not only arrogant but flighty and astoundingly ignorant.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson must be very grateful to have U.S. President Donald ‘Lysol’ Trump, pictured, to make him look good by comparison. The American president’s sins of omission on coronavirus are why the U.S. has one-third of the COVID-19 infections in the world, with only one-twentieth of the world’s population, writes Gwynne Dyer. Photograph courtesy of White House/Andrea Hanks

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

April 27, 2020

LONDON, U.K.—Something has gone wrong in the "anglosphere," as the English-speaking countries are known in some other parts of the world. Smaller English-speaking countries are coping with the COVID-19 emergency quite well. New Zealand’s coronavirus death toll so far is 18, and Australia’s is...

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