Washington called out on rights failures

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that if the US government really values and protects human rights it should do so for everyone without discrimination.

He made the remark at a daily news briefing in response to the Poor People's Pandemic Report, which pointed out that COVID-19 deaths in the United States are disproportionately tied to poverty.

The report was compiled by the Poor People's Campaign, an antipoverty organization in the US, and a team of United Nations economists.

Zhao, citing the report, said that the overall death rate from the pandemic in poor counties in the US is almost double that of rich counties. He noted that in the 300 counties with the highest death rates from COVID-19, an average of 45 percent of the people there live below the poverty line.

During the third wave of the pandemic in the US, the death rate in the poorest counties was 4.5 times that of the richest counties and during the latest wave of the virus, the difference in mortality was also almost three times, Zhao said, adding that the lack of medical insurance among people in poor counties is thought to be extremely relevant to the mortality difference.

The conclusions of reports and studies point out that the US government has deliberately ignored the rights of the poor and minorities, with the disadvantages they face leaving them unable to get proper treatment, the spokesman said.

Zhao also noted that research papers have showed that American Indians and Alaska Natives had two to three times the death rate for those hospitalized with the virus compared with whites. Indigenous people in the US chronically suffer discrimination and with their marginalized status, they are unable to see doctors, he added.

"As pointed out at the beginning of the report, the COVID-19 pandemic didn't discriminate, but society and the government did," said the spokesman.

The US is the only wealthy nation not to guarantee health services for all. More than 980,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the US, the most of any country in the world.