Day 1,300: Trump: European nations (measuring COVID cases in hundreds) are doing worse than U.S. (measuring COVID cases in tens of thousands)

COVID-19 has decimated the U.S. to the tune of nearly 165,000 deaths and 5 million cases nationwide. Donald Trump and his administration have had little plan both before it entered the country and after. Instead, he has chosen to live in an alternate universe touting drugs that don’t work, claiming the virus wouldn’t suddenly disappear, casting doubt on the science, being a mask skeptic for months, and urging his supporters to “liberate” themselves from Democratic governors.

Now, with death and destruction all around, and Election Day lingering less than three months away, Trump is desperate to spin a narrative. One of his current strategies is pointing to other nations as having problems controlling the virus.

Tuesday, during a press briefing, Trump noted that European countries’ numbers are rising, while the U.S.’s numbers are falling. But that’s like saying that someone whose pay jumped from $9 an hour to $10 an hour is having a better financial year than someone whose salary fell from $10 million to $9 million.

U.S. numbers have been the highest in the world for months as it relates to deaths, active cases and total cases, and they have been among the highest in the world for deaths per million and total cases per million.

For perspective, the recent increases in Germany— whose citizens are more or less living normally — have barely registered a blip compared to the U.S.’s mountain, even on a per capita basis.

Trump and his team have handled the pandemic poorly in nearly every facet. The statistics show that his decisions have led to a catastrophic and sustained rise of cases in the U.S. As much as Trump tries to spin away the illness and deaths using cherry-picked examples of limited value, the long-term data don’t lie.

1,300 days in, 162 to go

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