Illustration: Luo Xuan/GT

The US has become the epicenter of a relentless onslaught of the coronavirus, as more than 50,000 innocent lives have succumbed to the menace now. The pathogen is yet to show any sign of abating in the country, and hundreds of millions of Americans are sheltering at home, shuddering at the perilous thought of contracting the infection. 

As many small and medium-sized companies run out of bailout funds allocated by the US Congress, economic losses continue to swell. More than 26 million laid-off workers have lost their income but have bills to pay, and they are demanding a livelihood. Queues at the food banks on the streets are trailing longer. 

The whole world has watched the American coronavirus mess with disbelief. For a superpower clubbed with superb human resources and technologies, how did the tragedy befall, and what exactly went wrong that triggered this monumental failure?

As a matter of fact, the US was warned of the looming public health crisis, but it turns out that the Trump administration had squandered two-month-long precious time instead of getting prepared. 

The blunder happened because the US government took things too casually. 

When China's Wuhan faltered to an abrupt large-scale outbreak and lamented for external assistance while the new virus, infected and claimed hundreds of lives in the populous city in late January, the US took the bench and looked on. 

Thereafter, South Korea, Iran, and Italy took turns and languished under the impact of the virus' rage, and the US kept watching the incessant tragedies and did nothing as if the contagion would cower before the US' unparalleled might. 

What did the Trump administration do during those two months? To the bewilderment of other countries, the White House said in an articulate tone that the virus would somehow "miraculously disappear," while the US CDC started to research and develop a coronavirus test kit based on a genome provided by Chinese scientists. However, its test kit was later proved to be seriously flawed because the CDC lab workers did not wear secure protective gloves and gowns, and as a result, they contaminated the kit. 

What else did the Americans do at that time? US President Donald Trump and his cabinet members took a long-distance flight to New Delhi and feasted with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

And, to the agony of Chinese people, some low-caste US media publications attacked Chinese government's decisive move to place Wuhan and Hubei on a clean lockdown to stem the virus' spread as "inhumane" and vilified the city's transforming stadiums and conference halls to makeshift hospitals to treat the ill as "concentration camps." In fact, one of the US media outlets went ahead and unleashed a racist and defamatory slur stating, "China is the real sick man of Asia" in its bold online news headline. 

US' snob and woeful preparedness set itself a trap and contributed to today's colossal distress and sorrow. 

Now, a good number of Americans begin to doubt their long-held conceit of "American exceptionalism," and they have 100 reasons to be suspicious. How come the world's largest economic and military superpower cannot come up with enough simple cotton swabs to accelerate virus case testing, and manufacture sufficient ventilators to help lung-ravaged patients breathe and avert suffocation? How come medics in New York and New Jersey put on rain ponchos while providing medical care to the needy, because the states cannot offer secure gowns?

Incompetence will be the one word other countries pin on the US, the Trump administration in particular. 

Just take a look at the daily White House news briefings, and the world will comprehend what Trump has staged is of least substance, but all theatrics. 

There, he reiterated that his government is the best and has done marvelous things; he chided the mainstream US media reporters who peck at him as "Fake News"; he deplored US medical experts who dare to question his engaging in pseudoscience- for instance, he suggested sun rays, UV, and bleach can cure the virus. 

In an attempt to rescue a receding economy and help his reelection hopes in November, Trump has completely politicized the pandemic, by rushing to lift the social distancing and stay-at-home measures - which are crucial to blunt the contagion. Trump even galvanized the right-wing radicals to take to the streets to "liberalize" states like Michigan and Virginia so that he will prevail again in the upcoming presidential election. 

The US' very institutions and its boastful system have failed, miserably!

The author is an editor with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn