US election 2020: Lancet lashes out at Trump’s ‘disastrous’ coronavirus response, urges vote for change

The medical journal’s editorial said the US was experiencing a ‘continuing devaluation of science’

Earlier, the New England Journal of Medicine slammed the US’s ‘astonishing’ failure to bring Covid-19 cases and deaths under control

Reading Time:2 minutes

US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump leave after speaking at a rally on Thursday in Tampa, Florida. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:05pm, 30 Oct 2020Updated: 7:17am, 31 Oct 2020

The Lancet has become the latest science journal to urge Americans to vote for change in next week’s presidential election, publishing a scathing editorial on Friday that described the US pandemic response under Donald Trump as “disastrous”.

The medical journal did not explicitly back Democratic challenger Joe Biden in its commentary, focusing instead on the issues it said had hindered the US from adequately tackling the “greatest public health crisis in a century”.

It highlighted the country’s “fraying social safety net, continual erosion of trust in the public sector, the perceived diminished responsibility of the federal government, and political interference with crucial public health apparatus” – particularly in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These it said “have culminated in the disastrous US response to the coronavirus pandemic”.

Trump’s handling of the pandemic has been a key theme in the election campaign, with the president accused of undermining scientific institutions and spreading false information.

America is the world’s worst-hit country, with 8.94 million infections, and on Thursday it announced a record number of new coronavirus cases, topping the grim milestone of more than 90,000 diagnoses in 24 hours.