The battle over the virus dead opens a tough front in elections

This claim was made specifically for President Trump’s most solid supporters. Federal guidelines have instructed physicians to mark Covid-19 as a cause of death, even if it is not the cause of death, increasing the death toll of pandemics.

The claim that the claim came from Scott Jensen, who is also a Republican Senator in Minnesota, made it more attractive to the president’s allies. Don’t mind the expert who said it The death toll was significantly underestimated..

The “Shock” tweeted last month after interviewing Dr. Jensen, to Krisberg, the host of the conservative TV show on the Fox series KX4 in Fargo. Shortly thereafter, Fox News organizer Lauren Graham Invited Dr. Jensen to her show.. His claim was picked up by Infowars, a conspiracy-oriented website founded by Alex Jones. They were shared by followers of Canon who subscribe to the web of vague groundless theory that a secret society of governments is trying to defeat the president.

“Mas Histeria re: What are the main benefits of keeping public at Covid-19? Think about the vote. Already happening?” A Canon believer known as John the White said a pandemic I wrote on Twitter that it was being used to control voters.

People like John the White may see the world through the most intriguing lenses, but they’re not the only ones weighing the political impact of virus deaths. The battle to shape official records, affecting the time it takes for companies and their employees to return to normal, is adding a tough front to the presidential election.

Since the outbreak of the crisis, the element of rights has sought to strengthen the political position of the president and justify resuming the economy by questioning the death toll. Climate change skeptics have adopted technology perfected in the fight against global warming to raise doubts about the deadline of the virus. Others, including Mr. Trump’s media allies and some of the anti-vaccine movements, divert marginal theories about “deep state” bureaucrats who delve into the president to argue that official figures should not be trusted. did.

They found Trump himself a receptive audience and boosters for their ideas. For the President, death toll has been as important a political indicator to his reelection outlook as his approval rating and his position with the former Vice President. Joseph R. Biden Jr. By swinging vote.

According to figures compiled by the New York Times, the number of deaths in the United States was close to 75,000 at the end of last month, and the forecast predicts another sharp increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths due to looser rules of social distance it was done. One of the draft government reports was expected to kill as many as 3,000 people a day by the end of May. But officials said Trump personally began to question model and official mortality statistics.

His skepticism is shared by others in the regime who regularly ignore the advice of scientists. On Tuesday, the White House Economic Advisory Council Showed that the dead will be zero By mid-May. The council’s prediction of “informing policy makers” appears to ignore the conventions used by epidemiologists and has been dismissed entirely by experts. However, it provided a useful counterpoint to those who claimed it was too early to reopen the economy.

At the same time, the President increasingly picked up stories from the political margins of inflated deaths and conspiracy to ensure his defeat in November.

At the end of April, when tolls approached 60,000, Mr. Trump retweeted a post by a former New York City police officer who claimed the number Was inflated by the same people Behind the Trump’s impeachment of the “failed coup attempt” of the Muller investigation.

“Do you really think these fanatics don’t increase mortality by underreporting infection rates in an attempt to steal elections?” Post said.

Familiar playbook

To question the definitive finding that humans contribute to global warming, we have long used the imperfections of scientific research: statistical margins of error, subjective elements of projection modeling. Many climate skeptics are at the forefront of the battle.

Stephen J. Milois, Ardent denialists of the scientific consensus were quick to downplay the threat of coronaviruses. He compared it with the flu public health Staff He says he underestimates how deadly the virus is at risk.

The Heartland Institute, one of the skeptics on climate change, pointed out the widely used forecast of 60,000 deaths, before the prediction of up to 2 million deaths. I attacked the model. The criticism posted on the website on April 17 states that the lower estimates took into account social distance measurements, and the higher estimates Others close to it It is presented as the worst scenario when no measures have been taken to mitigate the spread of the virus. (13 days after the death toll exceeded that estimate, the death toll of 60,000 was invalidated.)

Most of the people who took up the Covid-19 denial from climate skepticism do not have true expertise in tracking the pandemic. But funding is coming from industries that have long questioned the work of scientists, such as major oil companies like Exxon Mobil and tobacco companies like Philip Morris. They are also backed by a conservative group such as the Mercer Family Fund, which has significant influence within the Trump White House and is deeply invested in the president’s political future.

“It’s the same person, it’s the same way, the same organization, the same backers,” said Michael E. Mann, head of the Earth Systems Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The conservative interests of the right, who benefit from President Trump, clearly want to see him continue.”

The source of the attack on the conclusions of medical professionals is often the one who studied the climate change denial movement, which has long relied on what Harvard science historian Naomi Oresquez called “motivated reasoning.” is known.

“It doesn’t like what this means, so I deny evidence, ask models, and motivate people to do it,” said Oresquez.

Todd Stearns, for example,Tooth Fairy, He sometimes gave the virus “truer” movement Insisted He said the crisis was exaggerated because he didn’t see the crowd outside the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York. This was the same pandemic era that pointed to snowstorms as evidence that the earth was not warming. A few days later, according to a report from the hospital, Staff overwhelmed by Covid’s serious case..

In an interview, James Lander, who wrote the Hartland criticism, draws a direct line between the problems seen in Covid-19’s mortality modeling and climate science, and in both cases “no complete information”. Insisted. Do the projection. “If we were told to blindly accept a particular climate model, it would be beneficial for the coronavirus model to be unpredictable up to this point,” he said.

Mr. Trump has also sought to harness the uncertainty in his advantage. Last month, after Trump’s most ardent supporters attacked the worst death estimates for weeks as evidence of hysteria, Mr. Trump began to turn his attention to the two million figure as a criterion for determining the treatment of the crisis. It was

Then he went further and pointed out 100,000 deaths to the number judging him.

“We will be less than that,” Mr. Trump told reporters, as Johns Hopkins University’s death toll was approaching 38,000. “But I really believe there would have been millions of people if we didn’t do what we did.”

But last Sunday, Mr. Trump confirmed that tolls could reach 100,000. Still, it said it could be much worse if his administration did not act. “If we didn’t do that, the minimum we would have lost is 1 million 244 million, and that’s the minimum. Maybe it was higher. Higher than 2.2 There is a possibility.”

Limited data

Modeling how a pandemic proceeds, such as modeling the pace and impact of climate change, even under the best of circumstances, is an imperfect science. Also, given the limited data on the new coronaviruses and the various counting methods used by the jurisdictions, there is considerable uncertainty about the current death toll and its future.

“Statistics is a real challenge, let’s make it clear,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel of the University of Pennsylvania who helped design Obamacare.

However, his estimate is that conservatives questioning official statistics look for little evidence of exaggerated numbers. “They aren’t looking at the full range of data, they’re underestimated rather than overestimated,” he said.

Many of these conservatives are focusing on recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add Covid-19 as a “probable” cause of death, even if the diagnosis is not confirmed by testing. Recommendations were needed in part due to delays in national testing. Public health authorities across the country say that the actual toll is probably much higher, even if the “estimated” classification of death certificates is added.

It was their recommendation when Minnesota senator Dr. Jensen questioned the death toll in a series of social media posts. He also has Medicare Higher payments for treatment of patients with coronavirus..

Minnesota State Health Commissioner, Yan Malcom, Calling Dr. Jensen’s claim “misinformation.” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a leading federal infectious disease specialist, called this a conspiracy theory.

Dr. Jensen continues to question the death toll. In a recent interview, he got angry at being called a conspiracy theorist. “I was furious and frightened,” he said.

Still, Dr. Jensen chose to broadcast his concerns at a partisan venue where little was known about the measured thoughtful debate. The first TV star, Mr. Berg, said on Twitter, “Why is #MN increasing the number of Covid-19 deaths?”

Ms Ingraham invited Dr. Jensen on Fox News to repeat his allegations and deal with Dr. Forch’s charges, “Conspiracy theory, PhD, so are you engaged in conspiracy theory?”

Fox News’ prime-time lineup questioned the severity of the pandemic and the credibility of national health care professionals.

Ms. Ingraham goes beyond her segment with Dr. Jensen and misleads the false thesis by television therapist Dr. Phil McGraw that Covid-19 poses fewer public health threats than the pool. Provided the platform to. While demanding a resumption of the economy, she seized a disagreement in her predictions and claimed that measuring social distance was overkill.

Others at Fox, such as Brit Hume, point to New York as proof that the numbers are swelling, citing the city’s decision to add an estimated number to that number.

Mr. Trump has proved that he accepts such discussions, but it seems to have little impact on public opinion. The majority of Americans-Republicans and Democrats alike-follow social distance guidelines and, in a recent poll, Broad support for restrictions To businesses imposed by the state government.

To Dr. Mann, the fact that Covid’s skeptics can’t question the public is a source of optimism. “This is a kind of test case to combat and expose the dangers of denialism,” he said.

However, Dr. Jensen remained true to his skepticism in his own life. Last week he plugged into a remote state Senate hearing about relaxing restrictions on telemedicine for addiction disorders while playing a round of golf, Without mask..

“I just want to ask the senator-how did he beat them there?” Democratic senator Jeff Haden broke in to ask him.