‘Who believes these numbers?’ Trump claims China MUST

be hiding its true Covid-19 death toll, because ‘everybody

knows it’

18 Apr, 2020 21:47 / Updated 1 hour ago

"President Donald Trump opened up his daily Covid-19 task force press conference by blasting the media for reporting official data that makes the US look bad, instead of pursuing allegations of a Chinese conspiracy.

“When the fake news gets out there and they start talking about the United States is number one… China’s number one by a lot. It’s not even close. They’re way ahead of us in terms of death,” Trump said just minutes into his daily briefing.

China could not have possibly done better than the “highly developed healthcare delivery systems of the United Kingdom, in France in Belgium, in Italy, in Spain, with extraordinary doctors and nurses and equipment,” argued White House Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator Deborah Birx, who was trying to back Trump’s statements with a chart of death rates per capita around the world.

“Who believes these numbers?” Trump interrupted, pointing at China and Iran, and arguing that "we saw more [body] bags on television than that.""

moar:

https://www.rt.com/usa/486234-trump-china-covid-19-death-toll/

Conspiracies Are Thriving on Anti-Lockdown Protest

Facebook Pages

By Jordan Pearson

18 April 2020, 10:23pm

"Update: Immediately after this story's publication, Facebook removed the "American Revolution 2.0" page. Many other similar pages and groups remain.

In the face of lockdowns, business closures, and shelter-in-place orders designed to slow the spread of Covid-19 and save lives, some Americans are protesting for their right to spread a deadly virus in order to keep the economy moving.

These protests—in Michigan and Idaho this week, with more planned in the coming weeks—are being led by a mix of rightwing non-profits and far-right groups as well as conspiracy theorists, so it's not surprising that many protests are being organized on Facebook. These movements also got tacit endorsement from President Trump Friday, who tweeted that states under lockdown are "under siege" and should "LIBERATE" themselves. Now, misinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus are thriving in the groups and pages where protests are being organized and promoted on the social network.

In the 5,580 member strong private Facebook group "Reopen Illinois: American Revolution 2.0," numerous posts contain misinformation and conspiracies.

One recent post features an image with the text: "The whole virus is a joke. Government control, h1n1 was worse." Another echoes the conspiracy theory that death tolls are being inflated in order to scare the public, stating, "Miraculously since Covid-19 no one dies of cancer, heart attacks, drug overdose, suicice, car accidents etc. anymore," adding the monocle and chin-scratching emojis. Another post declares, "they are lying to us to keep us locked up.""

moar:

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/884yea/conspiracies-are-thriving-on-anti-lockdown-protest-facebook-pages

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