MISSING CONTEXT: U.S. expected 2.2M COVID-19 deaths – Trump

Claim:

Doctors said that the United States was expected to lose 2.2 million people due to the coronavirus.

US President Donald Trump made this claim during the town hall meeting on Friday, October 16, Manila time.

During this event, Trump was asked if he supports herd immunity as a strategy for COVID-19. In response, Trump said, “The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. We did the right thing. We were expected to lose 2,200,000 people, and maybe more than that. We’re at 210,000 people. One person is too much, it should’ve never happened because of China… But we were expected to lose, if you look at the original charts from original doctors who were respected by everybody, 2,200,000 people.”

Rating: MISSING CONTEXT

The facts:

The 2.2 million figure represented the predicted number of American deaths if no control measures were implemented, as reported by the Imperial College London. The White House coronavirus response coordinator also said that if measures were done together, the fatalities would then range from 100,000 to 200,000.

In March, the Imperial College London published a report assessing the potential role of certain public health measures in reducing virus transmission. It considered interventions such as physical distancing, case isolation at home, voluntary home quarantine, and closure of schools and universities.

“In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB (Great Britain) and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality,” the report read.

In addition, White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx also mentioned a projection of 1.6 million to 2.2 million deaths if no action is taken. In a March interview with NBC’s TODAY, she said, “[In] a flu model, the worst case scenario is between 1.6 million and 2.2 million deaths. That’s the projection if you do nothing… We do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities.”

Trump’s claim was also fact-checked by CNN and NBC News.

As of October 17, the coronavirus has killed at least 217,000 Americans. However, during the town hall, Trump claimed that the US was “rounding the corner.” – Loreben Tuquero/Rappler.com

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