Trump again criticizes WHO as 400,000 cases confirmed in America – as it happened

Bernie Sanders, who has dropped out of the presidential race today, wrote an op-ed about the US coronavirus response for The Guardian.

In this unprecedented moment in American history, we need an unprecedented legislative response. President Trump is incapable of providing leadership, and instead continues to mislead the public and act out of political self-interest. So it is Congress that must lead, and it must do so now.

With anxiety growing, everyone in our country needs to know that, in the midst of this horrific pandemic and economic meltdown, their government is doing everything possible to keep them healthy and financially secure.

In other words, we need to build upon and expand the recent stimulus package with new and bolder emergency legislation which must be passed as soon as possible.

Read the full piece:

Fact check: Voting fraud

Donald Trump is again spreading misinformation about voting by mail. After alleging during the coronavirus task force briefing, without any evidence, that there is rampant voter fraud, he’s now repeating the claim in a tweet.

Absentee ballots and vote-by-mail ballots are essentially the same, despite Trump’s claim that they are “very different”.

And experts say that voter fraud is incredibly rare. In North Carolina, an election was overturned in 2018 after a Republican political operative was alleged to have directed workers to collect and mail in other people’s absentee ballots during the 2018 Republican congressional primary and during the 2016 general election.

But states can avoid that sort of fraud by implementing ballot tracking, providing prepaid postage and setting ballot boxes and drop-off sites. Five states already conduct their elections entirely by mail, and have found ways to ensure the integrity of ballots.

There is no evidence of widespread voting fraud. The Brennan Center for Justice found in 2017 that the risk of voting fraud is 0.00004% to 0.0009%. Moreover, Trump’s own voting integrity commission found no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud found.

The task force has wrapped up its briefing for today.

Dr Birx mentioned that though there are now 18,000 Abbott machines to run coronavirus tests at labs around the country, many are not being used. She said she will be having a conference call with labs tonight to find out the status of the machines and how they’re being used.

Responding to a question about whether the death toll for coronavirus is being inflated, Dr Fauci noted, “You will always have conspiracy theories…They are nothing but distractions.”

Dr Birx said that in some cases, there may be several reasons for death. “The number of Italians who succumbed had three or more comorbidities,” she said. The virus is considered the acute reason for death.

“We will be attending church in the living room of the vice-president’s residence,” said Mike Pence. He’ll watch an Easter service from his home church in Indiana.

He encouraged all Americans to stay home. “Avoid gatherings of more than 10 people, avoid unnecessary travel,” he said.

Several churches around the country have flouted regulations and held services.

Marianne Williamson endorsed Biden and condemned DNC chair Tom Perez in one very efficient tweet.

After dropping out of the 2020 race, Williamson had endorsed Bernie Sanders.

Distancing is “the best tool”, Dr Anthony Fauci said. “We know that this is something that is a strain on the American public,” he added, but it works to stop the spread of disease.

He also addressed the health disparities for African Americans. “We are not going to solve the issues of health disparities this month, or next month,” he said – so it’s doubly important for “people in that community to please try as best as you can to protect yourself… and people who are susceptible”, including the elderly.

“What we can do now, today, is to prevent people who are put at higher risk because of their demographic group from getting into a situation that is much, much more deleterious,” Fauci said. Going forward, the US will have to make a concerted effort to eliminate racial health disparities.

Fact check: voter fraud

Donald Trump has left the briefing room, but we want to circle back to his earlier comments alleging rampant voter fraud. The president referenced a settlement in California, “where they admitted a million people should not have voted”. In doing so, he grossly misstated what that settlement entailed.

In January, the conservative group Judicial Watch announced that it had settled a 2017 lawsuit against the state of California. The settlement required LA county to remove inactive voters from its voter lists, and required California to direct other counties to do the same. All parties to the settlement agreed there was no admission of liability or wrongdoing by LA or California.

Judicial Watch estimated that as many as 1.5 million people would have been removed from voter lists in LA county. But, there’s no evidence than any of those people voted illegally. Judicial Watch said most of that 1.5 million would have ben “voters who have moved to another county or state or have passed away”.

At the time of the settlement, Paul Mitchell of the nonpartisan research firm Political Data Inc told the AP that the case was insignificant because it pertains to inactive voters who “are not getting voting materials, they are not casting ballots, they are not showing up in precincts”.

In other words, the settlement got LA county to update old records.

Fact check: ventilators

“It looks like we’re in great shape from the bed standpoint. It looks like we’re in great shape from the ventilators standpoint,” Trump said.

However, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine published on Wednesday 25 March categorically concluded that the US does not have enough ventilators to treat patients with Covid-19 in the coming months.

The authors, American public health experts, wrote: ‘There is a broad range of estimates of the number of ventilators we will need to care for US patients with Covid-19, from several hundred thousand to as many as a million. The estimates vary depending on the number, speed, and severity of infections, of course, but even the availability of testing affects the number of ventilators needed…. current estimates of the number of ventilators in the United States range from 60,000 to 160,000, depending on whether those that have only partial functionality are included. The national strategic reserve of ventilators is small and far from sufficient for the projected gap. No matter which estimate we use, there are not enough ventilators for patients with Covid-19 in the upcoming months.”

Donald Trump appealed to Sanders voters. “Bernie and I agree on trade,” he said – though he’s better, Trump said.

The Vermont senator’s trade platform does prioritize protecting American jobs, a goal that Trump has also said he has.

“I got a lot of them in the last election,” Trump said of Sanders supporters. “They’re great people.”

Asked what evidence there is of widespread voting fraud, Trump said, “I’ll provide you with some.”

“We’re going to find out about the proof,” he said. “You’re going to see what’s going on.