An epidemiologist didn’t hold back in his assessment of the U.S. response to Coronavirus on Wednesday. Yale’s Gregg Gonsalves said the approach came close to genocide.
Gonsalves sent a series of tweets slamming the U.S. government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. He’s not the first person to use the word “genocide” in his criticism.
“How many people will die this summer, before Election Day?” Gonsalves asked.
“What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy?”
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How many people will die this summer, before Election Day? What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy? #COVID19 #coronavirus
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) May 6, 2020
Gonsalves continued with a short Twitter thread highlighting what he called the federal government’s negligence in the face of a global pandemic. He did not refer to President Donald Trump by name.
“So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?” Gonsalves asked.
“And I am being serious here: what is happening in the US is purposeful, considered negligence, omission, failure to act by our leaders.”
“Can they be held responsible under international law?”
Gonsalves then reacted to an article by New York University’s Jay Rosen and repeated his charges of negligence.
“We don’t need to ask how horrible tragedies unfolded in history, we see it now. Good people go about their days, grouse a little about the state of the world, then move on,” he said.
“This is a culture, a country that has lost its moral compass.”
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Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media
