President Donald Trump has told nearly 20 thousand lies since his inauguration in 2017, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Trump has no problem misleading the public during times when it's most consequential—such as a pandemic outbreak.
With nearly three million cases and over 130 thousand deaths, the President continues to dismiss the threat of the virus as cases rise around the nation, with the United States breaking its daily new case record multiple times in the past two weeks.
The President took to Twitter to boast—falsely—that the United States had "just about" the world's lowest mortality rate of the virus.
Hours later he asserted that the death rate was now the lowest in the world.
This is far from the truth.
Not only does the United States have the highest raw number of virus deaths in the world, but according to Johns Hopkins, the country has the second highest mortality rate of the top 20 nations hardest hit by the virus, judging by deaths per population.
Johns Hopkins
Expanding by the number of deaths per million leaves the United States at the ninth worst in the world.
Measuring the mortality rate by percentage of cases over the last two weeks, rather than percentage of population, still shows the U.S. with a rate worse than 29 countries with populations of more than 10 million.
The Washington Post's Philip Bump elaborated on Trump's claim:
"What Trump's data skips over, of course, is that the reduced mortality rate now plays a role similar to the recent uptick in testing. It's good—but a lot of damage has already been done."
"The United States' failure to contain the initial outbreak of the virus elevated our death toll to the highest in the world. On a per capita basis, the vast majority of countries reporting case and death data have seen fewer deaths per 100,000 residents than has the United States."
Bump also points out that the United States has seen a massive uptick in new cases over the last two weeks.
Trump's claim doesn't account for the fact that people who've contracted the virus don't die at the moment of diagnosis—it's often a painful, weeks or months long process. Judging by ballooning hospitalization rates in states like Texas, the mortality rate could paint a much grimmer picture by this time next month.
National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director, Dr. Anthony Fauci—who also serves as a leading voice on the White House's virus response team—said of the death rate on Tuesday:
"It's a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death. There's so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus. Don't get yourself into false complacency."
People have grown weary of Trump's potentially deadly lies.
With over 130 thousand dead Americans in four months and counting, people weren't satisfied with Trump and his supporters' dismissals.
Cases around the country continue to spike.
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