Fauci shoots down false claim only 6 percent of coronavirus deaths are legitimate: 'They are real deaths from COVID-19'

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shared data showing that about 140,000 people who died of COVID-19 had a second cause of death listed, while just six percent of those causes of deaths were listed as coronavirus alone. But it didn't change the fact that all 180,000-plus coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are "real deaths from COVID-19," Dr. Anthony Fauci told Good Morning America on Tuesday.

The CDC's new data broke down a death count of 153,504 from a few weeks ago, saying just 9,210 people had only COVID-19 listed as their only cause of death. The revelation sparked false claims the CDC had revised its coronavirus death count and that the very deadly disease wasn't as fatal as it seemed. President Trump even spread the misinformation before Twitter took it down.

Fauci made it clear Tuesday morning that the information Trump was touting wasn't exactly accurate. "The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage" of people who died "had nothing else but just COVID," the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease said. "That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn't die of COVID-19. They did," he continued. "So the numbers you've been hearing, the 180,000-plus deaths, are real deaths from COVID-19," Fauci decisively said. "Let there not be any confusion about that." Kathryn Krawczyk

The Week

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