President Trump repeated a lie that the United States has the lowest death rate in the world from the coronavirus, a claimed debunked by numbers and statistics, while adding another claim about a rebounding economy, also undermined by data.
BREAKING NEWS: The Mortality Rate for the China Virus in the U.S. is just about the LOWEST IN THE WORLD! Also, Deaths in the U.S. are way down, a tenfold decrease since the Pandemic height (and, our Economy is coming back strong!).
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2020
The claim–that the US mortality rate from coronavirus is one of the lowest in the world–is factual untrue. According to worldometers.com, the US has the ninth highest per capita fatality rate among all nations, with 400 deaths per million population.
If you include only nations with 100,000 or more in population, the United States would rank seventh.
It is unclear if Trump doesn’t know the actual numbers, if he is unfamiliar with how statistics work, or if he’s just outright lying.
Additionally, Trump’s claim that the US “economy is coming back strong” does not hold up to economists’ analytics. The Congressional Budget Office released information in April forecasting a $3.7 trillion annual deficit and unemployment about 9.0% through 2021.
Kiplinger’s forecasts a Q2 2020 GDP loss of 5.8%, with GDP models from various Fed offices offering a significantly less optimistic view.