“Almost 470,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus so far, with the number widely expected to go above half a million in the next few weeks. At the same time some 27 million people in the US have been infected. Both figures are by far the highest in the world.” The Guardian: “The US could have averted 40% of the deaths from Covid-19, had the country’s death rates corresponded with the rates in other high-income G7 countries.” A lot of this, of course, is the historically terrible leadership that coincided with the pandemic. But there are other factors as well.

+ FastCo: “The authors paint a damning picture of Trump politics, concluding that he purposely sought struggling white voters, and then backed policies that threatened their health: He earned his largest 2016 electoral margins in counties with the country’s worst mortality statistics, with life expectancies averaging 2 years shorter than in counties where he lost. His policies overwhelmingly favored corporations and wealthy Americans.” (This is why they want their voters to fixate on culture wars and conspiracy theories.)