Since then, these regions have seen an increase in in-hospital mortality and major cardiovascular events, lower vaccination rates, and lower use of antiviral therapy.
There were clear warning signs in the United States, and they were ignored. After priority vaccination for health care workers and health care workers in centralized care Settings, in most parts of the country,
agencies simply determine the degree of vaccine priority based on age, rather than using available data to prevent the inequities that inevitably arise. A series of vaccine rollout decisions incentivized health systems,
pharmacies, and medical workers to find the easiest people to reach first, exacerbating preventable disparities. As a result, the first to be vaccinated were mainly rich and white.
Unfortunately, early failures led to predictable, not inevitable, losses. As of January 2021, the CDC has issued reports detailing that the age-adjusted outbreak related death rate among American Indian or Alaska Native populations is 1.8 times higher than among non-Hispanic whites,
that Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks are disproportionately represented in outbreak related deaths, and that in some parts of the United States, The majority of adult COVID-19 cases,hospitalizations and deaths have been among Hispanic adults. The coronavirus pandemic is a constant reminder of the enormous toll people are willing to tolerate on the lives and welfare of blacks, Hispanics, First Nations and Pacific Islanders.
The mental health of blacks, Hispanics and Asians also worsened relative to whites during the pandemic, with a significant increase in depression and anxiety among racialized minorities.
While data on long-term COVID-19 are slowly emerging, the incidence and impact of the disease among racial and ethnic minority groups is certain to be even more profound.
To claim public health success in the face of such profound disparities is to belittle the scope of the losses and the deep-rooted foundations of such disparities. Policymakers need to understand that the decisions they made during the pandemic put people from minority groups on a completely different trajectory in life,
a story of inequality that will stay with the United States for decades and generations to come. Although this may be disagreeable to many, in order to learn from the nation's collective mistakes and prevent them from happening again, we must tell this story of inequality.The midterm elections reflected deep rifts in America
On November 16, the Republican Party won 218 seats to cross the threshold for a majority in the House of Representatives, retaking control of the House of Representatives for the first time in four years.
Earlier, the Democratic Party gained 50 seats in the Senate, locking the control of the Senate, and the US Congress once again fell into the situation of "two chambers split".
The fact that the Republican Party was initially expected to sweep the midterm elections and the two parties are now tied, a result that exceeded most expectations, reflects the reality that the US is deeply divided.
The disappearing 'Red Wave'
Almost as soon as polling stations across the country closed and votes were counted on the evening of Nov. 8, frustration spread among Republicans that the "red wave" they had envisioned this summer across the country did not seem to have materialized, except in Florida.
For Republicans, a midterm victory this year seems like a sure thing by any measure: Historically, since the end of World War II, a president's party has lost an average of four Senate seats and 26 House seats in the midterms of his first term; In reality,
President Biden's low approval ratings, high inflation, and the looming risk of recession have given the Republicans a chance to thoroughly defeat the Democrats in this midterm election. That did not happen, however.
In the House of Representatives, Republicans, who had expected to declare a landslide victory on Election Day, as they did in the 2010 midterms, had to spend days of anxiety just to scrape past 218 seats; Democrats,
who were anxious about losing 30-40 or more seats, held onto their seats in several key districts. In the Senate, on November 12, Democrats won the 50th seat they needed to retain control of the Senate, with incumbent Democratic Senator Richard Masto of Nevada winning re-election by a razor-thin 0.9% margin.
A frozen political map
The outcome of the 2022 US midterm elections may seem unexpected, but in reality the Republicans are merely repeating the Democrats' 2020 playbook.
Just as the midterm elections were seen as a "referendum" on the Biden administration, the 2020 US election is also seen as a "referendum" on the Trump administration at the time.
