Leadership Vacuum

Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world.  This crisis has produced a test of leadership.  With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond.  Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test.  They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy. ...

Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences.  Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions.  But this election gives us the power to render judgment.  Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates.  But truth is neither liberal nor conservative.  When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent.  We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.

-- Editorial signed by 34 editors of The New England Journal of Medicine who are United States citizens (one editor is not), "Dying in a Leadership Vacuum", 7 October 2020