During his interview with Axios that aired last night, Jonathan Swan called out President Trump for focusing on the death rate per cases in the U.S. rather than the death rate per capita, which makes the U.S. look much worse when compared to countries like Germany or South Korea:
.@jonathanvswan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.”@realdonaldtrump: “You can’t do that.”
Swan: “Why can’t I do that?” pic.twitter.com/MStySfkV39
— Axios (@axios) August 4, 2020
And the WaPo’s fact-checker jumped in, saying Trump manipulates the stats “to assert he’s right”:
There has never been a better example of how Trump does not use data to inform decision-making but to simply to spin existing beliefs. The numbers are merely tools to assert he’s right. https://t.co/pvmeO4kzmS
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) August 4, 2020
OH REALLY? So now the death rate per capita is important? Someone should alert the media of this as they continue to praise NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis:
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you see, deaths per capita is important except if we're comparing NY and FL. Then, you see, it's a meaningless statistic bc everyone knows Cuomo did a better job than DeSantis. https://t.co/iRv7Xk5fc1
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) August 4, 2020
If it makes a Republican look bad, use the total number of cases?
Both Texas & Florida each have more total cases of Covid – as counted from beginning of Covid – than New York. In other words, the outbreak is worse in Texas & Florida than it ever was in NY. But unlike NY, governors of those states are doing next to nothing to stop the spread.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) August 1, 2020
Right now, the media is focusing on case numbers in Florida and not per capita deaths. PICK ONE PLEASE:
One key point:
If we are using deaths per population…the worst states in the US, even today, are:
NJ
NY
MA
CT
RI
LA
DC
MI
IL
DEI wish journalists would focus on deaths per million when talking about US states too…instead of cases, like Trump does here.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) August 4, 2020
And President Trump should have used the per capita numbers from these countries:
One other key point:
If we are using deaths per population…the worst countries in the world are:
Belgium
UK
Spain
Peru
Italy
Sweden
Chile
USThat assumes other countries like Mexico are being accurate (they are not).
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) August 4, 2020
As for the WaPo, they really have it in for Gov. DeSantis:
Here's WaPo admitting that many of the people it interviewed for this story were "political operatives."
Yah, seriously they did that. pic.twitter.com/6jaSZxv9Mz
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) July 26, 2020
CNN’s Jim Sciutto agreed with Kessler as well:
100%
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) August 4, 2020
And CNN can just go jump in a lake with the way they’ve interviewed Gov. Cuomo:
CNN's Chris Cuomo pummeled after saying Florida Gov. DeSantis 'mishandled' pandemic | Fox News https://t.co/w1SaT7N2uY
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) July 29, 2020
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