COVID Has Now Killed More People Than The Civil War, Making It The Third-Deadliest Event In American History

     That's it. 656,000 Americans are dead. We've known for well over a year that coronavirus didn't have to be this bad. 125,000 to 250,000 Americans dead, while absolutely tragic, would have been a successful handling of the pandemic on the part of the federal government. Instead, Donald Trump played politics. He made wearing masks a political statement, refusing to do so in public even as he toured hospitals with mask mandates. He got his COVID vaccine in February and March and neglected to inform his hesitant supporters while simultaneously trying to take credit for said vaccine's development. When he was in the hospital with COVID from either his maskless White House or his super spreader events, taking monoclonal antibodies and refusing to go on a ventilator, he downplayed the severity of his condition. He promoted drinking bleach and claimed first that COVID was a "Democratic hoax" that would "just disappear" and that he didn't "take any responsibility." Nicknames like "Kung Flu" and "China Virus" caused a spike in AAPI hate crimes. It didn't stop there. Governors like Greg Abbott, Asa Hutchinson, and Ron DeSantis sought to keep cruise ships coming in, ban mask mandates, ban vaccine mandates, and take away salaries from employees who disagreed. Schools became battlegrounds between people who trusted science and people with inflated senses of self-worth. The heroes were made out to be villains and the villains were turned into martyrs. That's the difference between most wars and COVID-19; war brings Americans together, and this has created an unnecessary divide to score political points at the expense of human life.

     In a sense, the Civil War was the same. All 655,000 casualties were Americans, Union and Confederate soldiers killed by battles and disease. Two sides were pitted against one another over an issue with an obvious right answer, the bondage of blacks. Now, however, the coronavirus pandemic is deadlier. I don't measure this by percentage of the population, because I recognize that every death is an individual with loved ones whose lives will be ruined. With the Spanish flu having killed 675,000 and the HIV/AIDS epidemic killing 700,000, coronavirus is now the third-deadliest event in American history. Vaccine hesitancy is driving the Delta variant, and coronavirus is on track to become the second-deadliest event in American history by the end of the month and the deadliest event in American history before it is over. It didn't have to be this bad.

     However, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccines are effective, with Pfizer-BioNTech having been fully approved by the FDA; Moderna should receive the same approval within the next month. President Biden has taken this seriously, instituting a federal mask mandate at the outset of his term and utilizing the Defense Production Act for PPE in addition to passing the American Rescue Plan Act and taking action against GOP governors working to spread COVID. 93 percent of Americans over 65, 76 percent of Americans over 18, and 74 percent of Americans over 12 have at least received their first dose of the vaccine, and the approval of the vaccines combined with the worsening Delta variant and the new vaccine mandates is likely to get us to 85 percent of Americans being fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, we are getting out booster shots and vaccinating the world. What comes next? We need to approve these vaccines for all ages this autumn, and we need to expand these mandates permanently to ensure COVID is destroyed. If we can get five out of six Americans fully vaccinated, and we are on track to, we will end coronavirus. We need to come together in a final push to save lives. The next few months will not be easy. Millions of Americans are suffering from the virus and countless tens of thousands will die. However, we will come out of this disaster, because we have no alternative.