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CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday criticized the U.S. reaction to coronavirus, saying other countries have been examples of how to keep deaths from the disease low.
“I’m trying to figure out what kind of disaster that our country has had that’s ever been as bad as this that’s been self-inflicted,” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street.”
The “Mad Money” host pointed to how the worldwide Covid-19 outbreak has transpired in countries such as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan — all of which have fewer than one coronavirus death per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University. He also referenced Vietnam, which has had no recorded deaths linked to Covid-19.
The U.S., 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 fatalities of more than 140,500 people.
“Those are big, big countries, and they’re faring so much better,” Cramer said, contending their adoption of face masks and development of contact tracing programs have been key reasons for containing the virus. “They’re also disciplined and we’re unruly. This may go down as us being, I’d say, a lesser-developed country versus those countries.”
America’s efforts to identify touch search systems have been disappointing, Cramer said, describing them as “out of the picture in our country.”
Contact search consists of identifying who is a nearby inflamed user and then contacting them to take the necessary precautions. Public fitness experts say this is a vital strategy to prevent infections from becoming epidemics on a large scale.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease specialist, told CNBC last month that the search for coronavirus contacts in the United States is “going well.”
Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. have been rising in recent weeks after the reopening of local economies and the relaxation of earlier mitigation efforts. Deaths in certain parts of the country also have been ticking upward, although experts say an increased understanding of how to treat the virus — in addition to younger people becoming infected — should mean mortality rates do not reach levels from earlier in the pandemic.
State governors and other U.S. leaders in Washington, such as Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been intensifying their calls for Americans to wear masks as a way to help slow transmission of the virus. Some states have adopted mandatory policies.
“I think if we can get everyone to wear a mask now, I think in four, six or eight weeks we could just have this epidemic,” Redfield said last week.
President Donald Trump has been mask-averse.
However, Trump wore a mask during a public visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on July 11, after long-resisting bipartisan calls to lead by example that masks are important to 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 requiring it. Ford issued a statement saying Trump wore a mask during a private meeting at the plant but later took it off.
In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump said he does not think the U.S. needs a national mask mandate.
“No, I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don’t believe in that,” Trump said, before questioning why some experts had advised against the general public wearing masks earlier in the pandemic.
“Suddenly, everyone has to wear a mask, and as you know, the mask is also a problem,” Trump said, without offering the main points of the disorders he thinks cause the masks. “That said, I in the mask. I think the mask is good.”
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