Trump redoubles his denial of Hurricane Maria's death toll

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

last updated 16 September 2018

President Trump on Twitter Friday night redoubled his Thursday denial of the estimated 2,975 deaths in Puerto Rico attributable to Hurricane Maria. He quoted a Washington Post story — an article declaring his initial claim false — to note that officials told him the death toll was just 16 when he visited the island territory last year:

Contrary to the suggestion of the president's second post, the research method that produced the larger figure is not novel. The study counts "excess mortality" during the storm and in its aftermath, tallying deaths that would not have occurred under normal conditions. Many of these deaths were due to secondary effects of the hurricane (like power outages or medicine shortages) rather than direct effects (like flooding or building collapse).

The "researchers did not, contrary to [the president's] claim, attribute any specific individual’s death to Maria," the Post story Trump referenced explained. "Given the methodology, there was not an opportunity to misclassify someone who died of old age, as Trump suggested" Thursday. Indeed, "[h]ad the GWU researchers done what Trump claimed they did — attributing any death to Maria — the six-month death toll from the hurricane would have been 16,608."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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