COVID-19: A Case Study in American exceptionalism.

American Exceptionalism is a term used historically to distinguish america from other nations. To distinguish the greatness and the unique cultural and otherwise, superiority of America against the rest of the nations. The nation of crafted on the ideals of Justice, Democracy and Freedom, as John Winthrop would put it, the shining city upon a hill. It has been used to explain our victories from the beach of normandy to the defeat of ISIS.

But as a global pandemic rages on, the first of its kind and intensity in a 100 years, the relevant question should be if American strength, greatness and its unique power in the world, has stood the test of time and if america truly is exceptional.

We begin by the most important number from the virus, The death toll. America with almost 133,000 deaths, is the country with the highest death toll in the world with more than 2 times as many deaths from the virus than the 2nd country with most deaths. To put this in perspective, at a death every 2,489 people. 50% of the global deaths are accounted for by 94% of the nations on earth, and the other 50% by the US alone. More US citizens have died from the coronavirus than all the misadventures in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Kuwait and even Vietnam combined. More deaths than WWI, one of the fiercest battles America ever fought. 

But maybe we are looking at this problem from a bit of a biased view, after all, all countries have massively from the virus, and the sheer population of the US makes it a unique case, a better measure should be deaths per capita? Even with deaths per capita, US is leading in the number of people dead per million among the top 20 most populated countries on earth ( 9th worldwide).
And with 61,000 cases added today, the highest since the start of the pandemic, Even optimist figures put death toll from the virus to surpass 200,000 by October

But the death toll isn't exactly the administrations fault, some might say. Since it is an act of nature, we would have to prove that the administration was unable to respond to such a crisis at the very least and complicit in the deaths of fellow americans at most. Despite the delay in any actual serious lockdowns by the administration, The white house was breifed about the virus on January 3rd, With the first case in the US on january 20th, the same day as South Korea's first case. South korea by the way with 288 total deaths... The US surpassed that in the last 5 hours.

As early as January 30th, there were cases of the virus in 5 US states. A month later on Feburary 26th the president finally took notice, He mentioned that there are 15 cases that day, there were more than 60. March 17th, with 2000 active cases in the US, The president declared the coronavirus a pandemic, days after comparing it to a seasonal flu. The really deadly mistake happens to be the delay, the seriousness, the execution and the duration of a nation wide lockdown. The countries that have been succesful in weathering this storm, like south korea, Germany, New Zealand, all had effective and strict lockdowns for a given amount of time. In the US there was no such thing. There were state lockdowns but most of them, a little too late. March 30th say for the first time a majority of the states imposing lockdowns, But with 168,000 people already infected the first blow in what will come to be a series of knockout punches was already delivered.

Without going to full detail, an estimated 36,000 deaths, or 83% of deaths could've been prevented if the lockdown was imposed just 2 weeks earlier....

By all accounts and data, The US. Response to the coronavirus has been objectively disasterous. and exceptionally so.

  The same concern that is raised in foreign policy issues, In matters of pulling troops out of iraq or syria or afghanistan, The concern of "American Exceptionalism". The brand name on which we spend trillions in defence budgets and military adventures. The concern about mantaining american exceptionalism should be raised when dealing with a crisis that is killing thousands at home, and exposing an expired healthcare system and an ineffective leadership that would put the soviet bureaucracy to shame.

As countries such as South Korea, Germany, China, Japan, New Zealand are well into a recovery phase from the first wave of coronavirus. The US finds itself in a challenging web of both medical, economic and socio-political concerns, with a sudden surge in covid cases, a stagnated economy with historic low employment rates, and a society divided along racial lines with wounds yet to be healed, finds itself in a deeper hole to dig out of.