Trump compares coronavirus death toll (over 98,000) to that of swine flu (under 20,000)

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

On a day when the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic neared 100,000, President Trump sought to direct the nation’s attention back to the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic as a way to smear the reputation of his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time.

Link to tweet

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In the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., Trump repeatedly sought to show that he was doing a good job dealing with the pandemic compared with how Biden and then-President Barack Obama had responded to the H1N1 pandemic.

Link to tweet

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Three days after his March 12 tweet, when just 676 Americans had died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Trump told his Twitter followers that 17,000 Americans had been killed (estimates range between 8,300 deaths and 18,300).

“Just look at the catastrophe of the H1N1 Swine Flu (Biden in charge, 17,000 people lost, very late response time),” Trump wrote.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-for-some-reason-compares-coronavirus-death-toll-over-98000-to-swine-flu-under-20000-214326646.html

[subterranean]

1. The twit managed to pack three untrue statements into that tweet.

Fact check:

1) Joe Biden was not in charge of handling the Swine Flu outbreak.
2) Most experts at the time gave the Obama administration's response high marks. The death toll was lower than initially expected.
3) A total lie, although it's impossible to fact-check because he's never specified what polls he is referring to (and never will).

[John Fante]

2. The swine flu killed 12,400 in the United States over a 12 month period.

Unfortunate, but hardly a disaster. Obama was largely praised for his handling of the pandemic, I remember.

COVID-19 has killed 100k people in 12 weeks, and the only reason this grim statistic isn't higher is because individual states (mostly blue) decided to implement stay-at-home ordinances.

Trump never recommended a national lockdown, and wanted to reopen the country as early as Easter. Just imagine what the death toll would have been had we followed his lead. Trump has spent the better part of 9 weeks undermining our efforts to contain the spread of the virus. Trump has been a DETRIMENT to the cause.

Trump is unquestionably the worst president in history. No amount of deflecting and whining on his part will change that.