The Boston Globe’s editorial board said that President Trump has “blood on his hands” due to his actions during the coronavirus pandemic.
The staff editorial on Monday argued that the “profound impact” the country is expected to experience during the crisis was “preventable,” pointing to the Trump administration and its response to the pandemic.
“As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership,” it wrote.
The Boston Globe’s editorial staff said the U.S. needed a White House that could act “swiftly and competently” to roll out testing, distribute medical supplies and provide consistent messaging. But instead, it said, the president was “epically outmatched by a global pandemic.”
“The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary,” the editorial board added. “In other words, the president has blood on his hands.”
Trump in recent days has defended his administration’s performance amid the coronavirus pandemic, describing it as “fantastic,” “incredible” and “great.”
Recent polls also show a majority of Americans approve on the job he is doing.
The Globe editorial, however, cited instances in which Trump said the coronavirus was under control in the U.S and pushed for an end to social distancing by Easter. Trump has since said that social distancing should continue through April 30.
The administration made “catastrophic decisions” and “critical errors” that have “doomed” the U.S. to “a season of untold suffering,” the editorial board wrote.
The Globe’s editorial staff noted that the U.S. has recorded more cases than any country around the world — more than 189,600 cases and 4,081 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“Americans are consigned for the coming weeks to watching the illness fell family members and friends, and to fearing for their own fate as they watch death tolls rise,” it wrote.
“But come November, there must be a reckoning for the lives lost, and for the vast, avoidable suffering about to ensue under the president’s watch,” the editorial said.
Public health officials Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx have warned the U.S. could face between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths.