CNBC’s Jim Cramer criticized the United States’ response to the coronavirus on Monday, saying that other nations around the world have been examples of how to keep deaths from the disease low.
“I’m trying to find out what kind of disaster our country has had that has been as bad as this self-inflicted one,” Cramer said in “Squawk on the Street.”
The “Mad Money” host noted how the worldwide Covid-19 outbreak has occurred in countries like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, all of which have less than one coronavirus death per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University. He also made reference to Vietnam, which has recorded no Covid-19 related deaths.
The United States, by contrast, has 42.95 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins, and leads the world in overall confirmed cases with nearly 3.8 million and total deaths of more than 140,500 people.
“Those are big and big countries, and they are doing much better,” Cramer said, stating that his adoption of face masks and the development of contact tracking programs have been key reasons for containing the virus. “They are also disciplined and we are undisciplined. This could be reduced to being, I would say, a less developed country compared to those countries.”
The United States’ efforts to institute contact location systems have been a particular disappointment, Cramer said, describing them as “out of the ordinary in our country.”
Tracking contacts involves finding out who has been around an infected person, and then contacting those people to take appropriate precautions. Public health experts say it is an important strategy to prevent infections from developing into large-scale outbreaks.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told CNBC last month that tracking of coronavirus contacts in the United States “was not going well.”
Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the US have increased in recent weeks after the reopening of local economies and the relaxation of previous mitigation efforts. Deaths in certain parts of the country have also increased, though experts say that a greater understanding of how to treat the virus, in addition to younger people becoming infected, should mean that death rates do not reach previous levels of the pandemic. .
State governors and other American leaders in Washington, such as CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, have stepped up their calls for Americans to wear masks as a way to help delay transmission of the virus. Some states have adopted mandatory policies.
“I think if we could get everyone to wear a mask right now, I think in four, six or eight weeks we could control this epidemic,” Redfield said last week.
President Donald Trump has been adverse to the mask.
However, Trump wore a mask during a public visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on July 11, after lengthy bipartisan calls to set the example that the masks are important in reducing Covid-19 transmission.
During a May visit to a Ford plant in Michigan, the president was seen on the factory floor without a mask despite state law and company policy that requires it. Ford released a statement saying Trump wore a mask during a private meeting at the plant, but then took it off.
In a Fox News interview broadcast Sunday, Trump said he does not believe the United States needs a national mask mandate.
“No, I want people to have some freedom, and I don’t believe in that,” Trump said, before questioning why some experts had discouraged the general public from wearing masks earlier in the pandemic.
“Suddenly everyone has to wear a mask, and as you know, masks also cause problems,” Trump said, without providing details on the problems he thinks the masks cause. That being said, I believe in masks. I think masks are good. ”
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