US to blame for global spread of COVID-19

The United States should take much of the blame for the global spread of the novel coronavirus, which has caused more than 278 million infections and nearly 5.4 million deaths worldwide, and which is still hampering the global recovery.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, top government officials of the US repeatedly and purposely played down the risk of the virus, comparing it to a common flu virus, hence the country's disastrous response to its epidemic.

While turning a deaf ear to warnings from the international community and health experts, the White House failed to roll out epidemic prevention guidelines and measures in a timely manner, and allowed the virus to spread unchecked across the entire country. That is a major reason why the US quickly evolved into the epicenter of the global pandemic and is still burdened with both the world's highest caseload and highest death toll.

Besides, when most countries chose to limit mobility to fight the pandemic, the US prematurely relaxed the restrictions on domestic and international travel.

In August 2020, the US State Department recklessly lifted a previously issued advisory that warned citizens against traveling abroad, on the deceitful grounds that the pandemic was under control, blithely disregarding the fact that the US accounted for one-fourth of the total global infections.

It is a move that is believed to have led to outbreaks of the virus in other parts of the world. At least 12 countries have reported that their COVID-19 "patient zero" came from the US.

The US witnessed a peak in its COVID-19 epidemic from November 2020 to January 2021, with the average number of daily confirmed cases reaching 186,000. During this period, the number of US citizens traveling abroad hit 87,000 per day, according to official data. That contributed to a large spillover of the pathogen from the US.

Furthermore, the US has pushed up imported cases in multiple countries by deporting undocumented immigrants during the pandemic, while its troops overseas have violated epidemic prevention protocols in several countries, speeding up transmission of the virus.

Meanwhile, some African countries have had to destroy millions of doses of vaccines from Western countries because they will have expired by the time they can be administered. This is because the US and its allies hoarded vaccines until just days before their expiration date.

Had they donated or sold these vaccines to African countries much earlier, the vaccines would have helped these countries better respond to the pandemic. From this perspective, the US and some Western countries should be held responsible for the worsening of the pandemic globally.

— Xinhua News Agency