In a flurry of tweets and remarks, President Donald Trump continued to distort the facts on the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump’s Misleading COVID-19 Comparisons to Other Countries
Person: Deborah Birx
Birx Spins ‘Extraordinarily Low Numbers’ of Coronavirus Cases
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, misleadingly claimed that 19 states — “almost 40% of the country” — “have less than 200 cases” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. In fact, 17 states with 7.2% of the U.S. population have fewer than 200 confirmed cases each.
Trump’s Faulty Testing Claims
President Donald Trump and coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said the United States had done more testing for COVID-19 infections in eight days than South Korea had done in eight weeks, but that ignores the fact that South Korea has a much smaller population. On a per-capita basis, the U.S. lags behind the Asian country, and other nations.
Biden, Trump Wrong About WHO Coronavirus Tests
Following a flawed rollout of test kits in the U.S. for the new coronavirus, former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump have given inaccurate information related to the diagnostic tests distributed by the World Health Organization.
Trump Misrepresents Google Coronavirus Website
President Donald Trump and other officials misleadingly suggested that tech behemoth Google was working on a screening website that large numbers of Americans could use to see if they should be tested for the new coronavirus. The website, however, is actually a project of Google’s sister company Verily and is initially limited to the San Francisco Bay Area.