Dr. Anthony Fauci swats conspiracy theory on CDC covid death data
White House coronavirus task force advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday debunked online theories retweeted by President Trump claiming that only 6% of covid-19 deaths are directly because of the virus.
Trump retweeted a post from a user “Mel Q,” who is supposedly a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy movement, claiming only about 9,000 people had “actually” died from coronavirus and suggesting that a Centers for Disease Control report means that the official coronavirus death toll is not factual.
The tweet, which has since been deleted, cited a post on the CDC website saying that “for 6% of the deaths, covid-19 was the only cause mentioned.” The post said the remaining 94 percent had other underlying health issues.
“There are 180,000-plus deaths … those are real deaths from covid-19. Let (there) not be any confusion about that,” Fauci said on “Good Morning America.”
“That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of covid didn’t die of covid-19. They did,” Fauci added.
FULL INTERVIEW: Dr. Fauci weighs in on 6M US coronavirus cases, deaths and comorbidity.@arobach https://t.co/Jmk8Ni1mQV pic.twitter.com/ELvo50X68N
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 1, 2020
At least 183,600 people have died from covid-19 in the United States as of Tuesday, accounting for just more than 21% of the world’s total reported deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Bret Gibson is a TribLive digital producer. A South Hills resident, he started working for the Trib in 1998. He can be reached at bgibson@triblive.com.
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