Kumail Nanjiani Vents Frustrations Over COVID Spikes Across US, Blasts Government: ‘This Was All Preventable’

With the number of coronavirus cases spiking across the U.S. again, The Lovebirds actor Kumail Nanjiani fired off a blistering Twitter thread Sunday morning on President Donald Trump‘s response to the pandemic. Nanjiani said the government is “doing nothing,” adding that he and his wife Emily V. Gordon feel “let down by our country.” He said the deaths caused by the pandemic were “all preventable,” pointing to the much lower death tolls in other countries.

“I’m sorry. I’m generally a very optimistic person & have fought to keep positive these last few months. But today is hard,” the Silicon Valley star began. “We are heading into a massive Covid spike & the people who are supposed to protect us are doing nothing & blaming us for being concerned.” Nanjiani, 42, said he and Gordon have spent the last eight months in quarantine because she is in a high-risk group. “But it’s not about us. We’re the lucky ones,” he wrote. “Over 226,000 people have died. That’s so many families destroyed. People have lost their homes, their jobs.”

Nanjiani said it feels like other countries with lower death tolls are “in another world.” He continued: “Are they dealing with the same disease we are? I guess that’s the difference. They’re dealing with it. We’re not. We politicized every suppression effort.” He noted that some saw wearing masks as a “sign of weakness.” Protecting family, friends, and neighbors were also seen as a “sign of weakness,” as is “getting your heart broken every day by rising cases” and “worrying that the next text is a sign of weakness.”

Nanjiani noted how Trump has deflected blame for the virus’ spread, putting the blame on China. “[Eight] months & we’re still here,” he wrote, before urging his followers to donate to good causes. “People are doing fantastic work out there. Most days it works. But not today,” he wrote. Nanjiani told people to “be careful out there,” adding he is afraid there could be a “couple of bad months ahead of us. And I feel hopeless & helpless today.” In the end, Nanjiani said he plans to “try & crawl back to optimism now.”

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases is now over 8.6 million in the U.S., with 225,215 deaths recorded as of Sunday evening, reports Johns Hopkins University. The country is in the middle of another surge in cases. On Friday, more than 85,000 cases were recorded, breaking the single-day record set on July 16, reports The New York Times. The number of patients hospitalized with the virus has climbed 40 percent in the past month.

On Sunday morning, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper the Trump administration is “not going to control” the pandemic. “We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and other mitigation areas,” Meadows said. Trump has repeatedly said the country is “rounding the corner,” and did so again during his final debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden last week.