Fake news, says Trump as deaths soar
DONALD Trump defied statistics to claim that the US has the “number one low mortality rate” for coronavirus.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the death rate from Covid-19 in America is one of the worst in the world based on a ratio of deaths per 100,000 population.
But the President denied this when talking to Chris Wallace from Fox News. Mr Trump said: “When you talk about mortality rates, I think it’s the opposite. I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.” Mr Wallace responded: “That’s not true sir, we had 900 deaths on a single day this week — you can check it out,” as he referred to data by Johns Hopkins.
America has reported a death toll of 140,541 people, which is the highest overall number of deaths recorded in any country in the world.
New York is the state to report the most deaths with 32,495.
New Jersey in the second worst-hit state in terms of fatalities, at 15,706, and Massachusetts is third with 8,431.
During the interview, Mr Trump asked his press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, to “please bring me the mortality rate”.
“You have the numbers, please?” Mr Trump asked. “Because I hear we have the best mortality rate. Number, number one low mortality rate.”
The chart the White House presented used data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control that excluded countries with lower mortality rates, like Russia, to make it appear as if the US had one of the lowest death rates in the world.
Waving the piece of paper, Mr Trump said: “I hope you show this on air, because it shows what fake news is about.” Mr Wallace then responded, “I don’t think I’m fake news.”
During the tense interview,
Mr Wallace played back comments made by Mr Trump, in which he claimed that coronavirus would “disappear” at some point.
“I’ll be right eventually,” Mr Trump said. “It is going to disappear. I’ll say it again, it’s going to disappear and I’ll be right.”