Comedian Lilly Singh accuses US of ‘failing to live up to status as world leader’ over Covid crisis

Comedian Lilly Singh has accused the US of failing to live up to its status as a “world leader” by not helping India and the rest of the world enough during the coronavirus crisis.

During an episode of her show, Late Night with Lilly, the 32-year-old comedian said: “When Covid struck us over a year ago, we were all in unchartered waters and none of us really knew what to do, but I want to make it clear that today that’s not really the case.

“I don’t think the US is living up to its status as ‘world leader’ right now. It’s barely being a ‘world sidekick’ right now.”

The YouTuber went on to explain how everyone is “privileged” in North America: “Someone can post a picture of cinnamon toast crunch and we’ll make a national crisis out of it.”

However, Ms Singh said she believes believes that the people in charge “will still do the right thing.”

The talk show host spoke about US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who declared that the US would share a portion of their AstraZeneca vaccines that they do not intend to use.

She similarly recommended another approach to help control this emergency would be to “supply raw material to India to help with their vaccine production,”

She said there was “one important commitment” that the US has not made yet: “Experts are saying that one of the most efficient ways to get the world vaccinated is to share the recipe of the vaccines.”

The Bad Moms actor said she believes the US should share the recipe for Pfizer and Moderna so that “other nations could make their own vaccine” doses.

The comic also mentioned how Indian authorities were asserting that they were in the “end game” of the pandemic in March, however at present India’s death and infection rate “is unlike anything we’ve seen before during this pandemic.”

“Each day, India is repeatedly breaking the record for most cases they set the previous day,” she said.

The 32-year-old comedian suspected said she suspected that the cases are way higher than what the official reports state due to a lack of testing units.

She also said “experts are speculating that politicians and leaders are probably hiding the real numbers and they could be as large as two to five times larger.”

India’s infection rate has seen the country rise above 20 million cases in total, 355,000 of which were added on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, it took India just over four months to add its second 10 million cases, versus more than 10 months for its first 10 million.

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AP News Digest 3:20 a.m.