A billboard in New York’s Times Square shows the number of US coronavirus deaths that its creator says could have been avoided if President Donald Trump had acted sooner — and it’s called the “Trump Death Clock.”
“Just as the names of fallen soldiers are etched on memorials to remind us of the cost of war, quantifying the lives lost to the president’s delayed coronavirus response would serve a vital public function.”
Created by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, the “clock” was installed on the roof of a Times Square building, empty due to the pandemic. As of Monday, the counter showed more than 48,000 deaths out of a total of more than 80,000, by far the highest tally in the world.
Today we launched a HUGE statement, The Trump Death Clock went live in Times Square to hold this President to account for the estimated 60% of COVID-19 that could have been prevented. #TrumpDeathClock https://t.co/o2CrIWYh2M pic.twitter.com/O9Zr9LyaXz
— TrumpDeathClock (@TrumpDeathClock) May 8, 2020
The “clock” ticks on the assumption that 60% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States could have been prevented had the Trump administration implemented mandatory social distancing and school closures just a week earlier than it did, on March 9 instead of March 16.
The New York-based filmmaker, who has twice won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, explained that 60% was a conservative estimate calculated by specialists following remarks made in mid-April by leading US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci.
Fauci, who has become the trusted face of the government’s virus response, had said that if “you had started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives.”
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