Trump's Tuesday Coronavirus Briefing Features More Dishonesty on Pandemic

President Donald Trump's Tuesday coronavirus briefing continued his pattern of making false claims about the pandemic, implying that the explosion in Beirut was an attack without any public evidence to support it, and misrepresenting the US's experience with the virus. The President claimed that the US is "at the bottom of the list" in terms of the mortality rate, which is not accurate, and implied that the surge of cases and deaths in New York was responsible for the country's poor performance.

Key Takeaways:

• Trump's claim that the explosion in Beirut was an attack is not supported by public evidence, and the US military had not publicly stated anything of the sort at the time of the briefing.
• The US is not at the bottom of the list in terms of the mortality rate, and the country's experience with the virus is more complex than Trump's claim suggests.
• The President's claim about the number of coronavirus tests conducted in India is false, with the country having conducted over 20 million tests, more than four times the population of the US.
• Trump's statement that the US has a good performance in managing the pandemic because New York is excluded from the numbers is misleading, as the virus is currently causing spikes in cases and deaths at or above New York's initial level in other states.
• The US mortality rate is still relatively high when adjusted for population and compared to other countries, with 47.5 deaths per 100,000 people, among the five highest based on the Johns Hopkins University rankings.
• The election results in New York's Democratic congressional primary have been slow due to administrative problems, but there has been no evidence of fraudulent voting.

Statistics:

• The number of confirmed deaths per day in the US roughly doubled between early July and early August, from about 544 deaths per day as of July 3 to about 1,056 new deaths per day as of August 3, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
• The US mortality rate declined from about 4.6% on July 3 to about 3.3% on August 3, according to Johns Hopkins.
• India has conducted more than 20 million tests, far exceeding the 61 million tests conducted by the US.
• The US has 39.7 deaths per 100,000 people without New York's cases and deaths removed, which is still high when compared to other countries.
• As of Tuesday evening, at least 15 of the most affected 20 countries have lower mortality rates than the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

Sources:

• [T]he explosion in Beirut Trump began the briefing by offering sympathies to Lebanon for the massive explosion in Beirut that has killed at least dozens of people and wounded thousands more.
• Facts First: While Trump has access to classified intelligence that we do not, there was no public evidence at the time he spoke that the explosion was an "attack" or a "bomb," and the US military had not publicly said anything of the sort.
• [P]rime Minister Hassan Diab said that a massive quantity of ammonium nitrate had been left in a warehouse for years without adequate safety measures.
• An early report from a Lebanese state news agency raised the possibility of a major warehouse fire before the explosion.
• Initial conclusions on such incidents should be treated with caution, and we aren't declaring Trump's claim false; it's possible he will be proven right.
• A Pentagon spokesman referred CNN to the White House on the matter.
• Three Defense Department officials, who requested anonymity so they could speak freely, told CNN that as of Tuesday night there was no indication that the incident was an "attack."
• CNN, citing Johns Hopkins University data, reported that the number of confirmed deaths per day in the US roughly doubled between early July and early August.
• CNN reported that the US mortality rate declined from about 4.6% on July 3 to about 3.3% on August 3, according to Johns Hopkins.
• India has conducted more than 20 million tests, according to the Hindustan Times.