The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake notes that President Trump’s estimate for the coronavirus death toll has changed over time, has been too optimistic, and differs from the estimate given by one of his chief medical advisers, Deborah Birx, M.D.
Another instance of Trump ignoring the medical and scientific experts because he doesn’t want to hear bad and politically inconvenient truths?
That, of course, is what “progressive” journalists would have us believe. However, the facts in this particular case don’t support the left-wing narrative.
As Blake reports, in recent weeks, Trump has said there would be between 50,000 and 60,000 deaths. Yet, yesterday (May 3, 2020), on Fox News Sunday, Birx “told Chris Wallace:
“Our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 America lives lost, and that’s with full mitigation and us learning from each other of how to social distance.”
“That contradicts what Trump said,” Blake notes—“and even what he went on to say later in the day.
“The president hasn’t just offered a more optimistic tone on the death toll; on April 20, he suggested 50,000 to 60,000 deaths had actually replaced the previous 100,000-to-240,000 goal that he had said would constitute a successful response.”
“We are at over 66,000 deaths, with little sign in recent weeks of any significant downturn,” Blake notes.
Fauci’s Estimate. OK, but here’s the problem with Blake’s (left-wing) narrative: Trump didn’t just pull his estimate of 50,000 to 60,000 coronavirus deaths out of thin air.
Instead, he was given that estimate from another prominent medical adviser, one Anthony Fucci, who heads up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
How do I know this? Because I reported it here at ResCon1 back on April 9 when referencing an April 9, 2020, report by National Public Radio.
The title of that NPR report: “Fauci Says U.S. Coronavirus Deaths May ‘Be More Like 60,000’; Antibody Tests on Way.”
National Public Radio, I wrote,
reports that, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “the final toll currently ‘looks more like 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000’ that U.S. officials previously estimated.”
NPR’s Bill Chappell:
Fauci, America’s leading expert on infectious diseases and a key member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, also said that antibody tests have been developed and will be available “very soon.”
[…]
The new projection sharply undercuts an estimate Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made just 11 days ago. In late March, he said “between 100,000 and 200,000” people in the U.S. could die from COVID-19.
The 60,000 figure is reflected in a new projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, or IHME, a research center at the University of Washington.
The estimate predicts the U.S. death toll through early August; it also predicts that COVID-19 deaths will peak in this country on April 11.
Dr. Birx may believe that “our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost” to the coronavirus; but that’s not what her Trump administration colleague, Dr. Fauci, told the president.
Unfair Criticism. It is fair and reasonable to hold Trump accountable for his erratic and undisciplined remarks. However, it is unfair and unreasonable to blame him for relying on information given to him by one medical adviser (Dr. Fauci) that contradicts the information given to him by another medical adviser (Dr. Birx).
Moreover, while Trump’s estimate for the coronavirus death toll has changed over time, this is more a reflection of changing circumstances than deliberate or willful lying, distortion, and exaggeration.
Scientists and researchers, in fact, have revised, and continue to revise, their estimates as they learn more about the coronavirus. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
Facts are stubborn things. They don’t always comport with left-wing journalists’ prefabricated, anti-Trump narrative. Give the president his due—and hold his medical advisers, Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci, to account.
Feature photo credit: Internewscast.
