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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWashPost: Misunderstanding the math, Trump embraced a coronavirus death toll we'll soon surpass
When the White House announced its recommendation last month that Americans refrain from meeting in groups and take other steps to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it presented a chart suggesting that doing so could avoid the worst-case scenario of infections. Without mitigation efforts, models of the spread of the disease estimated that as many as 2.2 million Americans could die of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. With mitigation? A more modest 100,000 to 220,000 deaths. Still a lot, but obviously far better.
It was a hard message for President Trump, for a variety of reasons. No president wants to tell the public that the best-case scenario from a crisis is that hundreds of thousands of people would die. But thats what the data showed, and so thats what was presented in defense of urging people to stay home.
As time passed, the models were revised with new information. One leading model used by the White House, created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, used new information about distancing measures in Europe and the United States to shift its downward estimate for the death toll from 90,000 to a little over 60,000.
Trump relished the change.
With 60,000 deaths, you can never be happy, Trump said at a briefing on April 10, shortly after the model revision. But thats a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking. So they said between [100,000] and 220,000 lives on the minimum side, and then up to 2.2 million lives if we didnt do anything. But it showed a just tremendous resolve by the people of this country. So well see what it ends up being, but it looks like were headed to a number substantially below the 100,000. That would be the low mark. And I hope that bears out.
More at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/23/misunderstanding-math-trump-embraced-coronavirus-death-toll-well-soon-surpass/
SoonerPride
(12,286 posts)He is failure and a fraud
sfstaxprep
(9,998 posts)Doreen
(11,686 posts)Why, would we try to explain that anymore because he just does not get it.
If the schools are opened in September it is going to be extremely nasty.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)One theory was that the first wave involved the virus mostly spreading. There was a down tick after the first wave and people relaxed their guard, setting up the second wave for maximum damage.