“Trump death clock”, allegedly represents deaths delay in COVID-19 response by President trump

Washington: The New York-based filmmaker, Eugene Jarecki has created a clock named “Trump Death Clock” which was installed on the roof of a Times Square building today. The clock calculates & presents the portion of US Covid-19 deaths which could have been avoided if the US President Donald Trump had acted sooner and not delayed the response to the pandemic. As of Monday, the counter showed more than 48,000 deaths out of a total 81,848 fatalities, by far the highest tally in the world.

The United States has been the worst affected country all over the world with more than 1.3 million cases & nearly 81,000 deaths. New York is the most severely affected state with 26,682 fatalities.

According to the reports, the filmmaker explained that the “clock” ticks on the assumption that 60 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the United States could have been prevented.

It further explains that the Trump administration had delayed the implementation of mandatory preventive measures including social distancing and school closures. The actions could have different results if they would have imposed a week earlier than it did, on March 9 instead of March 16.

The New York-based filmmaker, who has twice won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, explained that 60 percent was a conservative estimate calculated by specialists following remarks made in mid-April by leading US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci.

Anthony Fauci is one of the trusted faces of the US government. Responding to the US Govt’s plan of action, he had earlier said that, ” if you had started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives.”

Affected by the huge number of avoidable deaths in the country, Jarecki wrote in a post, “The lives already unnecessarily lost, demand we seek more responsible crisis leadership.” 

He further wrote, “Just as the names of fallen soldiers are etched on memorials to remind us of the cost of war, quantifying the lives lost to the president’s delayed coronavirus response would serve a vital public function.”

On Tuesday, the US witnessed less than 900 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours for the second consecutive day but even after a slight decline in COVID-19 fatalities, the death toll crossed 80,000-mark and the total number of confirmed positive cases stand at  1,586,514 .