Coronavirus Covid-19: Donald Trump affirms that the virus ‘affects practically no one’ as the death toll exceeds 200,000

Donald Trump has downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic as the death toll in the United States surpasses the 200,000 mark.

“It affects practically no one, it’s amazing,” the US president told supporters at a rally in Swanton, Ohio, on Monday night.

The official death toll from Covid-19 reached the grim milestone the next morning.

More than 6.8 million cases have been reported in the country out of 328 million since the start of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Brazil has the second highest death toll with over 137,000, followed by India with almost 89,000.

The Vox news site noted that the 200,000 figure was “more than the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Afghanistan War and Iraq War Combined “.

By way of more accurate comparison, Covid-19 has already killed about four times as many people as one flu season in the US.

In the past decade, 2017-18 was the worst flu season with 61,000 deaths, followed by 2014-15 with 51,000 deaths.

The 2009 swine flu (H1N1) pandemic infected approximately 60.8 million people in the US and killed more than 12,000.

The CDC estimated that the global death toll was between 151,700 and 575,400 in the first year of the H1N1 virus.

Trump’s comments, which have been harshly criticized, addressed the fact that the virus is far more deadly for the elderly and people with comorbidities.

“It affects older people, older people with heart problems and other problems,” he said.

“If they have other problems, that’s what really affects them. That’s it. You know, in some states, thousands of people, no one young (dies). Under 18, like, no one. They have a strong immune system. Who knows. Look, take your hat off to young people, because they have incredible immune systems. But it doesn’t affect practically anyone. It’s amazing. “

He added, “By the way, open your schools, everyone. Open your schools.”

It comes after Trump was accused last month of downplaying the death toll, sharing what fact-checkers said was a misleading statistic from the CDC.

“This week, the CDC quietly updated the (Covid-19) number to admit that only 6 percent of the 153,504 recorded deaths actually died from (Covid-19),” said the post retweeted by Trump.

“That’s 9,210 deaths. The other 94 percent had two or three other serious illnesses and the vast majority were very old.”

Twitter later deleted the original user’s tweet, saying he violated its rules.

“When you see that ‘only 6 percent’ of people had Covid-19 as the only reason listed on their death forms, what it means is that only a small fraction of the people who died from the disease did not they had any other underlying or immediate cause noted by medical certifiers, “Australian epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz explained in a Medium post.

“This is not at all surprising, since it is quite rare that someone does not have at least one problem caused by the coronavirus before their death, and all it means is that in 94 percent of the cases people who had Covid- 19 also developed other problems. ” , or has had other problems at the same time. “

CDC data shows that 58 percent of all COVID-19 victims are 75 or older, and 37 percent are between 50 and 74 years old.

The death rate drops sharply below 50, but that does not mean that young people are not affected.

There have been 754 deaths in the 18-29 age group and 89 in those under 17, including 34 children under the age of four.

Doctors have also expressed concern about so-called “long-standing” cases, in which symptoms persist for months and sometimes worsen over time, The Wall Street Journal recently reported.

About 40 percent of all deaths in the US are related to nursing homes, according to an analysis by the New York Times.

New York, the state with the highest death toll at 23,780, was heavily criticized for a March 25 order that required nursing homes to admit Covid-19 patients to hospitals.

At least 6,500 people died when the virus swept through New York nursing homes in March and April.

An Associated Press analysis found that the actual number could be as high as 11,000.

New Jersey and California, the second and third most affected states with 16,069 and 15,018 deaths respectively, had similar policies, as did Pennsylvania and Michigan, which had 8,84 and 6,981 deaths.

The issue has turned into political football, with the US Justice Department writing last month to four of the Democratic-ruled states – New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan – demanding data from nursing homes.

The DOJ said it could investigate whether states had violated older people’s civil rights with the policies.

In a joint statement, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer rejected the request as a “clearly partisan deviation.”