Trump has a 'hunch' WHO report of 3.4% coronavirus death rate is false

Stephen Proctor
Updated ·2 min read

On Hannity Wednesday night, President Donald Trump discounted the new report from the World Health Organization saying the global mortality rate of the coronavirus has jumped to 3.4 percent. Trump’s reason for doing so is that we don’t actually know how many people have it.

“Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number,” Trump said. “Now, this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.”

The number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. continues to grow as does the death toll, causing California and Washington to declare states of emergency. As of Wednesday night, there were 150 confirmed cases with 11 deaths, which puts the mortality rate in the U.S. at 7.3 percent. But the U.S. is also dangerously behind some other countries when it comes to testing for the virus, which lends credence to Trump’s speculation that there could be thousands of undiagnosed cases not only here in the U.S., but also around the world.

“If, you know, we have thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by sitting around, or even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better,” Trump said. “And then when you do have a death … you know, all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4 percent.”

And, as he’s done all along, Trump continued to downplay the seriousness of the virus, along with the report from the World Health Organization. Epidemiologists and other professional health-care experts recommend people who suspect they have the virus get tested immediately and avoid contact with other people.

“So I think that number is very high,” Trump said. “Personally, I’d say the number is way under 1 percent.”

Hannity airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on Fox News Channel.

Watch John Oliver rip Trump for downplaying the coronavirus: ‘You can’t just ignore real numbers’:

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