Moe Davis Statement on COVID-19 Toll

Statement

We have reached a milestone in our failed national response to the coronavirus global pandemic. According to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center, which is tracking the spread of the worldwide pandemic, the United States passed the 50,000 mark in deaths from COVID-19 on Friday.

It wasn't long ago that the president brushed off the potential death toll. Remember when he said on Feb. 26, when we had 58 confirmed cases in the U.S., "when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."

This despite repeated warnings from his own administration that we were facing a much more dire future.

He didn't act on those warnings. And two months later, we now know how tragically the federal response was botched. How the administration failed to institute more vigorous testing early on to track and isolate the virus. How it failed to take control of the supply chain so that ventilators and personal protection equipment were managed nationally and equitably.

How it failed to issue stay-home orders quickly and on a national basis, leaving states to act disjointedly. Every one of those decisions has costs lives.

We now know how the president failed us. And how he continues to fail us every day.

What we don't know is how many will pay for his failures. Today, the number is 50,000.

It is a milestone. Not a plateau.

We cannot take four more years of his failed leadership. We cannot vote for followers who will blindly support that failed leadership.

How many have to die before voters realize that?

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