Another Unwanted COVID Milestone in US

The big number in US headlines Monday: 6 million. As in 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the nation. The New York Times and NBC News separately say their databases show that the US already has reached the milestone. The tally from Johns Hopkins University had the US fewer than 3,000 away as of Monday morning, but given that the US is registering about 40,000 new cases a day, the Johns Hopkins total will clear the benchmark soon. One thing all three agree on: The US death toll is at 183,000.

That sentiment is not unanimous, however. On Sunday, President Trump retweeted views that the true death toll is far lower, reports Reason. For example, he plugged a story from the conservative website Gateway Pundit asserting that the figure is 9,000, because most of those who have died had underlying conditions. “So get this straight—based on the recommendation of doctors Fauci and Birx the US shut down the entire economy based on 9,000 American deaths to the China coronavirus,” said the summary of the story retweeted by Trump. Twitter has since blocked the original tweet, saying it violated the site's rules. (More coronavirus stories.)