The anti-science leadership of Trump, Bolsonaro, and Putin led to the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty ImagesUS President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are overseeing the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. Public health experts say that "science denialism" and downplaying the threat early on undoubtedly contributed to the virus spiraling out of control in these three countries.
There's a "certain amount of luck involved" in terms of how countries fare during public health crises, one expert told Insider, but he added that "overall these leaders have cost tens of thousands of lives in their countries."The US, Brazil, and Russia have the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. All three countries are also led by men with well-documented records of pushing against science and spreading disinformation. Public health experts say it's not a coincidence that the coronavirus outbreaks in these countries spiraled out of control, while warning that the cavalier attitude these leaders continue to exhibit toward the pandemic could lead to even more cases and fatalities. "Science denialism and ignoring the epidemiology data early on is definitely part of the reason there is such a strikingly large epidemic in these three countries," Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, told Insider. "An ostrich, head-in-ground political approach to an oncoming epidemic is the most surefire on-ramp to more infections and deaths," Feigl-Ding added. US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Russian President Vladimir Putin all "downplayed the seriousness" of COVID-19 and "delayed for long periods before acting," Lawrence Gostin, the director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law School, told Insider. "Undoubtedly, the response of leaders is crucial in curtailing an infectious disease outbreak. The fact that these three leaders are highly nationalistic and have a history of rejecting science and discounting expert advice played a major role in COVID-19 running out of control in their countries," Gostin added. "And now they are pushing re-opening too soon."Trump minimized the threat of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, for weeks in the early part of the US outbreak, even as top public health experts warned that cases would rise and the country should prepare forMuch like his past denial and skepticism of the science surrounding major issues such as climate change, Trump has repeatedly pushed against the experts and available evidence in his response to the coronavirus pandemic., an anti-malarial drug, that the Food and Drug Administration has warned can cause heart problems and has not shown to be "safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19."as a cure for COVID-19, prompting uproar from public health experts and warnings from the manufacturers of cleaning supplies against injecting or ingesting their products. "What we have learned in looking at country responses to COVID-19 is that acting early and acting aggressively worked best. And using the best public health evidence mattered a great deal, such as the need for widespread testing, contact tracing, and social distancing," Gostin said. a robust testing system to get a handle on the virus, Trump has from the beginning signaled that he's more interested in keeping case numbers down for the sake of optics. The president in March, for example, said he didn't want infected patients from a cruise ship to disembark because it would increase the number of cases for the US. "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault,"
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