With the election close at hand, CNN Newsroom was so desperate on Monday to paint the Trump Administration as a failure that medical correspondent Dr. Seema Yasmin claimed that if the U.S. had just done what other countries had done, it is possible that nearly 90 percent of those who died from COVID-19 would still be alive.
Host Poppy Harlow began by leading Yasmin with a contradictory statement, "If we could begin with the comparison between the United States, I mean Mark Meadows says it's like the flu so you can't get rid of it. You just have to look at South Korea for example, as evidence that you can control it."
Of course, controlling it and getting rid of it are two different things, but Yasmin led off with her own statement, at best, showed selection bias, "Absolutely, Poppy. We have the worst epidemic in the world, and sadly, the U.S. has the highest COVID death rate of any developed nation on the planet."
The E.U. replaced the U.S. in cases per capita last week and as the media is always reminding us, deaths are a lagging indicator.
Yasmin, who previously declared that reopening the economy was "political posturing and about science denialism, then suggested:
There was even this really damning study out of Columbia University tied toward 130,000 to 210,000 avoidable COVID deaths in the U.S., and counting. It's all in the title, and they compare what's happened in the U.S. With other countries like France, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and show if we'd been a bit on track with those countries, about 100,000 or 200,000 Americans who have died from COVID might still be alive today."
According to CNN's on-screen graphic 225,239 Americans have died from COVID, meaning Yasmin is suggesting 44-89% of those could still be live if the administration hadn't botched the response. She also declared, "This response has been an absolute failure and it really shows when you compare the numbers in the U.S. with other developed nations."
Speaking of comparisons, taking the high end of Yasmin's estimate that would give the U.S. about 25,000 COVID deaths which is lower than Yasmin's French data point even with France having a population nearly one-fifth that of the U.S.
While CNN tried to blame the administration for not preventing people from dying from a virus, absent from this segment and the study Yasmin cited was any talk of New York nursing homes. After the segment concluded, Yasmin would continue her politicized analysis on Twitter.
This segment was sponsored by E-Trade.
Here is a transcript for the October 26 show:
CNN
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
9:08 AM ET
POPPY HARLOW: If we could begin with the comparison between the United States, I mean Mark Meadows says it's like the flu so you can't get rid of it. You just have to look at South Korea for example, as evidence that you can control it.
SEEMA YASMIN: Absolutely, Poppy. We have the worst epidemic in the world, and sadly, the U.S. has the highest COVID death rate of any developed nation on the planet. There was even this really damning study out of Columbia University tied toward 130,000 to 210,000 avoidable COVID deaths in the U.S., and counting. It's all in the title, and they compare what's happened in the U.S. With other countries like France, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and show if we'd been a bit on track with those countries, about 100,000 or 200,000 Americans who have died from COVID might still be alive today. This response has been an absolute failure and it really shows when you compare the numbers in the U.S. With other developed nations.
