COVID vs. World War II

The Trump Administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a murderous crime committed against the American people. [1] The perpetrators of that crime should be prosecuted for it.

Let us compare the sacrifices in lives paid by the American people during WWII, and during YEAR ONE of COVID-19.

WWII (for the U.S.A.): 7 December 1941 to 15 August 1945: 1347 days, (3 years, 8 months, 1 week, 1 day).

YEAR ONE of COVID-19 (for the U.S.A.): 20 January 2020 to 20 January 2021: 366 days, (1 leap year).

The United States lost 0.308% of its 1940 population, as fatalities during WWII: 405,000 fatalities out of 131,669,275 people.

The U.S. population has grown by a factor of 2.513x, from 1940 to early January 2021: 131,669,275 in 1940, to 330,831,759 on 18 January 2021.

The fraction 0.308% of the current population corresponds to 1,018,962 people. That number of people is 2.516x the number of WWII American dead.

So, when the number of COVID-19 American dead reaches 405,000 (in about 1.6 days from January 18, as there are currently 398,000 dead, and over 4,400 deaths/day), the country will have lost 0.1224% of its population to the pandemic.

ALL THIS LOSS has occurred since 20 January 2020, the third anniversary of the day Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States (366 days from 20 January 2020 to 20 January 2021), for:

— a LINEAR AVERAGED ABSOLUTE loss rate of 1,106.6 deaths/day (405,000 dead/366 days),

— which rate is 3.68x HIGHER than the LINEAR AVERAGED ABSOLUTE loss rate during WWII, of 300.7 deaths/day (405,000 dead/1347 days).

The LINEAR AVERAGED RELATIVE (to the population) loss rate per day was 2.229×10^-4 PERCENT during the 1347 days of WWII.

The LINEAR AVERAGED RELATIVE (to the population) loss rate per day was 3.344×10^-4 PERCENT during the 366 days of the year between 20 January 2020 and 20 January 2021.

The linear averaged relative (to the population) loss rate per day (PERCENTS) was 1.5x HIGHER during YEAR ONE of COVID-19 than during WWII.

Between the very end of 1941 and the late summer of 1945, the United States sacrificed 1 out of every 324 of its 1940 population, to win WWII militarily.

During YEAR ONE of COVID-19, the United States will have lost 1 out of every 817 of its 2020 population to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic — despite the intelligent, frantic, selfless and heroic efforts of many thousands of health care professionals and workers — because of the intentionally malevolent, criminally exploited, and psychotically negligent management of every aspect of the Federal response to the pandemic. This is nothing less than a war crime by the Trump Administration against the American people.

That war during 2020 was more than just the traditional and perennial American civil war of capital against labor and democracy; it was a hate-crime war by rabid bigotry against humanity itself, and against objective truth and reality.

The perpetrators of this crime — who besides government officials includes their political, and financial, and vociferous societal enablers — should be prosecuted by a National Tribunal. Remember that the foremost responsibility of any U.S. government administration and congress and judiciary is to protect the American people and defend the Constitution.

The Trump Administration’s management of the national COVID-19 response was an intentional violation of that obligation, and thus a direct assault on the well-being of the American population, and their socio-political collectivity (“the country”).

The perpetrators’s post-facto excuses: of being ignorant (“how could we possibly know it would be this bad?”); of acting legally (“we were just following orders”); and their blatant appeals to fantasy for a dismissal of any concern (“it’s not that bad”, “few get it”, “so few die from it”, “we did a great job getting rid of it”); are as entirely worthless today as they were before the Nürnberg Tribunals over 70 years ago.

To argue that a tribunal to prosecute the perpetrators of the U.S. COVID-19 catastrophe is impractical and politically impossible in no way invalidates the fact that it would be an action of justice to do so. How can any government that fails to offer its people justice rightly expect to retain their allegiance?

Notes.

[1] ‘An unmitigated disaster’: America’s year of Covid,18 January 2020

Manuel Garcia Jr, once a physicist, is now a lazy househusband who writes out his analyses of physical or societal problems or interactions. He can be reached at mangogarcia@att.net