Data on coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, shows it has been linked to at least 159,510 deaths globally and infected over 2.3 million people as of Saturday night, according to official government data collated by Johns Hopkins University.
The numbers are considered inaccurate by most because of a lag in data collection by governments as well as significant underreporting of known cases and deaths by the regime ruling mainland China.
There are over 732,000 confirmed cases and 38,664 deaths in the United States, the data shows.
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During the Task Force press briefing on Friday, a top doctor debunked the Chinese regime’s data on the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House pandemic response coordinator who specializes in immunology, global health, and vaccine research, showed a slide with mortality rates for several countries.
According to the data, Belgium and Spain have reported the highest mortality rates, with 45.2 and 42.81 persons dying per 100,000 population respectively. The mortality rate for Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands are 37.64, 27.92, 21.97, and 20.14 respectively.
The mortality rate for the United States and Germany — 11.24 and 5.25 respectively — fall at the lower end of reports.
However, China’s reported mortality rate, which was singled out with an asterisk, is suspiciously low at 0.33.
“I put China data there so you can see basically how unrealistic this could be,” Birx said.
The data included for China includes the Communist Chinese government’s recently released data that was revised for Wuhan.
On Friday, Wuhan authorities increased their death toll reports by 1,290 to 3,869 cases. The authorities explained that the newly-added virus victims included some who died at home. Experts believe the number could be in the hundreds of thousands.
However, even with the revisions, Birx said she doubts that China could have a mortality rate magnitudes lower than the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, given that they also have highly developed healthcare delivery systems, extraordinary doctors, nurses, and equipment.
Trump added that he believes the death toll in China should be much higher and the highest in the world: “China is number one by a lot. They are way ahead of us in terms of death.”
“It is not even close,” he added.
–wire services