The COVID Diaries – 128 4th August
Donald Trump has given a car crash interview to Axios correspondent Jonathan Swift during which he claimed the United States has the coronavirus pandemic “under control”.
He denied that the US was dealing poorly with Covid-19, despite averaging around 60,000 new cases and more than 1,000 deaths per day.
“Take a look at some of these charts,” Trump said, pulling out a stack of papers. “Here’s one, right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories. We’re lower than the world.”
The chart Trump was referring to was deaths as a proportion of cases, rather than the more relevant statistic of deaths as a proportion of population which shows the US as the ninth worst-performing country in the world, ahead of other countries with high numbers of total deaths like Brazil, Russia and India.