Trump Jr says Covid deaths are down to ‘almost nothing’ on the day 1,000 people die

The president’s son cited CDC data for Covid deaths without realising that it was provisional and constantly being updated

Donald Trump Jr has claimed that the US death rate for Covid-19 is down to “almost nothing”, speaking on a day in which almost 1,000 people died.

The president’s son, 42, appeared on Fox News on Thursday night and told host Laura Ingraham that people worried about Covid were “morons”. 

He said: “These people are truly morons,” referencing Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s health correspondent, who told people they should not be attending Mr Trump’s mass rallies.

“I went through the CDC data, because I kept hearing about new infections, but I was like, ‘Why aren’t they talking about this?’ ” he said. 

“Oh, because the number is almost nothing. Because we’ve gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this.”

On Thursday the country reported 88,521 new confirmed cases and 971 deaths, according to John Hopkins University.

The number of new cases was up in all but six states; only in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Hawaii were the number of cases dropping. In Arkansas, Idaho and Missouri the case load remained stable. Texas, Illinois and Wisconsin were all showing worrying spikes.

Medical advances have meant that the death rate is lower than in the early days of the pandemic, but experts warn that the data is moving in the wrong directions. 

The United States, which has a significantly higher healthcare cost per capita than any other OECD country has the fifth worst mortality rate in the world - only Belgium, Spain, Brazil and Mexico are doing worse. 

“If you look at my Instagram,” he said, “it’s gone to almost nothing.”

His Instagram post, which he put online on Wednesday, shows the CDC’s provisional data rather than the full tallies.

He shows the deaths as of the week of 24 October to be 149; as of Friday, that total has risen to 842, and it will continue to rise as the data is fully inputted.

The CDC explained beneath their chart: "Number of deaths reported in this table are the total number of deaths received and coded as of the date of analysis and do not represent all deaths that occurred in that period. 

“Data during this period are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction and cause of death.”

Mr Trump Jr, one of the most passionate speakers on the Trump campaign trail, has, like his father, been at pains to insist that the country is turning a corner.

The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has disputed the president's assertion that the US is turning a corner, calling the latest statistics "disturbing".