It's an American writing for what's presumably a mostly American audience (he was a reporter at the New York Times). It's unfortunate that despite his use of "G

It's an American writing for what's presumably a mostly American audience (he was a reporter at the New York Times). It's unfortunate that despite his use of "Great National Misery", links to graphs depicting the pandemic in America, "3 million Americans die each year", etc. is not enough to set the context for the average reader. He's not conflating the world with America, he's pretty much talking about America. Covid is a plague on the world, but this article is about America.