IA-SEN: Iowa senator appears to backtrack on suggestion Covid-19 deaths are overcounted
(CNN)Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst appears to have backtracked on her suggestion that fewer people have died of Covid-19 than official health reports suggest, following criticism of her remarks.
Ernst, a Republican facing a tough reelection this year, baselessly raised skepticism that US coronavirus deaths are being overcounted, peddling a false conspiracy theory that's been refuted by health officials, as cases of coronavirus climb in Iowa.
She made the comments at a campaign event Monday in Waterloo, Iowa, when she told a crowd she is "so skeptical" of official Covid-19 data. She was responding to a man in the crowd who said he believed the theory that coronavirus cases and deaths had been overcounted, according to an account of the exchange by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
The assertion that Covid-19 cases are overcounted has been debunked by US health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"The numbers that you've been hearing, the 180,000-plus deaths, are real deaths from Covid-19," Fauci told ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday. Many medical experts have insisted the Covid-19 death toll is actually being undercounted.
When CNN asked Ernst's staff Wednesday to clarify the senator's views, Ernst issued a statement that did not specifically retract her comments from Monday but that did acknowledge the latest coronavirus death toll as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and US health officials.
"Over 180,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19," Ernst said. "What matters is that we are getting the resources to Iowa that are needed to fight this virus and continuing to support our health care workers on the front lines, and that's what I'm focused on."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/joni-ernst-covid-comments/index.html
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