By John Ross
The COVID pandemic in the US is rapidly worsening again. This is in striking comparison to China. As this trend develops the dominant sections of the US media are becoming more strident in their attempts to conceal this situation. Looking at both the comparison of the COVID-19 situation situation in the US and China, and US media reactions to this, shows the threat to the US own people, other countries, and to China from US policy and propaganda.
Starting with the objective epidemic situation, the trend in the US is again rapidly deteriorating. The US daily average number of COVID-19 cases has risen to over 150,000 – a tenfold increase in six weeks. The average daily number of COVID-19 deaths is now 1,100.
The comparison of China and the US over the entire course of COVID-19 is graphic. There have been 38 million COVID-19 cases in the US compared to under 95,000 in the Chinese mainland. There have been 630,000 US COVID-19 deaths compared to under 4,700 in China.
In terms of US history, the scale of COVID-19 deaths is horrific. It is now larger than the amount of Americans who died in World War II— 420,000.
Looking in more detail at the situation since the emergence of the COVID-19 Delta variant, US deaths in the week ending Monday totaled 7,225 – for comparison the number of deaths in China was zero. Numerous other facts about the US situation can be found in the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China report titled “America ranked first? the Truth about America’s fight against Covid-19.”
Turning to the treatment of this situation in US media, the stark contrast between the success of China in protecting its population against the COVID-19 Delta variant, and the failure in the US, has meant that even in the US a few relatively objective reports on China appeared – which is unusual given the normal tight control of the US media to maintain anti-China rhetoric. For example, a Monday Bloomberg report objectively noted, “It’s been just over a month, and China has once again squelched COVID-19, bringing its local cases down to zero…the leaders of the world’s most populous nation used the same playbook they followed to quell… previous flare-ups…”
“First there was one asymptomatic infection… in Nanjing… In less than three weeks, daily cases ballooned to more than 100… Then it ended, almost as quickly as it began. The number of infections dropped to single digits the next week amid tightening curbs, then zero… China eliminated the virus in about a month, roughly the same time it took to quell previous outbreaks.”
But the fact that the wall of silence about China’s success in fighting COVID-19 showed even small cracks, compared to the rapidly worsening US situation, merely led to a frenzy of attacks in most US media. For example, Fox News, one of the most powerful US news channels, launched the following attack on CNN, a reliable supporter of US foreign policy, for publishing even a part of the factual situation in China, “CNN is being dubbed the ‘China News Network’ for publishing a report that boasted of the country’s coronavirus vaccination rates…”
“A piece published on Friday raised eyebrows with the headline, ‘China’s about to administer its billionth coronavirus shot.” In short, simply this factual report allegedly made CNN the “China News Network.”
Simultaneously a renewed attack on China was launched by so called “non-governmental organizations”, but which in reality parallel US government propaganda. For example, the head of co-called “Human Rights Watch,” Kenneth Roth, has from early 2020 attacked China’s response to COVID-19.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times News Exchange Item
