窪蹋勛圖厙

Skip to main content

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.

Subscribe Follow Us
  • Trump 2.0

    Trump 2.0

    • Agency Watch
    • State Watch
    • Medicaid Watch
    • Rural Health Payout
  • Public Health

    Public Health

    • Vaccines
    • CDC & Disease
    • Environmental Health
  • Audio Reports

    Audio Reports

    • What the Health?
    • Health Care Helpline
    • 窪蹋勛圖厙 News Minute
    • An Arm and a Leg
    • Health Hub
    • HealthQ
    • Silence in Sikeston
    • Epidemic
    • See All Audio
  • Special Reports

    Special Reports

    • Bill Of The Month
    • The Body Shops
    • Broken Rehab
    • Deadly Denials
    • Priced Out
    • Dead Zone
    • Diagnosis: Debt
    • Overpayment Outrage
    • Opioid Settlement Tracking
    • See All Special Reports
  • More Topics

    More Topics

    • Elections
    • Health Care Costs
    • Insurance
    • Prescription Drugs
    • Health Industry
    • Immigration
    • Reproductive Health
    • Technology
    • Rural Health
    • Race and Health
    • Aging
    • Mental Health
    • Affordable Care Act
    • Medicare
    • Medicaid
    • Children’s Health

  • Medical Marijuana
  • Medigap Premiums
  • Food Stamp Work Rules
  • Patients in ICE Custody
  • RFK Jr. vs. Congress

TRENDING TOPICS:

  • Medical Marijuana
  • Medigap Premiums
  • Food Stamp Work Rules
  • Patients in ICE Custody
  • RFK Jr. vs. Congress

Morning Briefing

Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

  • Email

Tuesday, Sep 1 2020

Full Issue

Trump Retweets False CDC Death Count Claim, Twitter Deletes It

A QAnon-driven conspiracy that baselessly questions the official U.S. coronavirus death count is circulating on social media, including by President Donald Trump. Twitter removed his retweet. Its just the latest example of the uphill climb the company faces in battling dangerous misinformation.

After President Trump retweeted a claim that discounted the coronavirus death toll in the United States over the weekend, Twitter took down the post that spread false information. The tweet was originally posted by Mel Q, a follower of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon, which posits that the president is battling a cabal of Satan-worshiping child sex traffickers. It was copied from a Facebook post and claimed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of reported deaths or about 9,000 actually died from Covid. (Shammas and Kornfield, 8/31)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not backpedal on the number of deaths caused by COVID-19, reducing the figure from nearly 154,000 to just over 9,000, as social media posts claimed.The term Only 6% trended widely on Twitter over the weekend as supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory promoted tweets that falsely suggested the CDC had updated its records to show that only 6% of U.S. deaths tied to COVID-19 were legitimate. President Donald Trump was among those who tweeted the information, which was later taken down by Twitter for violating platform rules. (Dupuy, 8/31)

Health departments were trying Monday to clarify the facts after President Donald Trump retweeted a QAnon conspiracy theorist who falsely claimed only 6 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the United States were actually because of COVID-19. The tweet, which has since been deleted by Twitter for spreading misinformation, claimed the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention quietly updated its data to show that only 6 percent of people who were counted as COVID-19 deaths actually died from COVID. (Chisenhall, 8/31)

Twitter said Monday it will begin displaying warning labels on shared posts that contain misleading or doctored videos after facing complaints that it failed to do enough to limit the spread of deceptive clips targeting Joe Biden's campaign. (Lima, 8/31)

In other Twitter news

The late Herman Cains Twitter account, now supervised by family and friends, tweeted Sunday that the coronavirus which killed Cain in July is not as deadly as the mainstream media made it out to be.The tweet was later deleted, but the account tweeted other messages questioning the risk of the coronavirus which has infected more than 6 million people in the U.S. and killed more than 182,000, including Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate. (Klar, 8/31)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
Newsletter icon

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Stay informed by signing up for the Morning Briefing and other emails:

Recent Morning Briefings

  • Today, April 23
  • Wednesday, April 22
  • Tuesday, April 21
  • Monday, April 20
  • Friday, April 17
  • Thursday, April 16
More Morning Briefings
RSS Feeds
  • Podcasts
  • Special Reports
  • Morning Briefing
  • 窪蹋勛圖厙
  • Republish Our Content
  • Contact Us

Follow Us

  • RSS

Sign up for emails

Join our email list for regular updates based on your personal preferences.

Sign up
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy

穢 2026 KFF