If saying things 100 times could make them true, U.S. President Donald Trump‘s account of how the U.S. is doing with the coronavirus would be true.
COVID-19 testing would be the envy of the world, the economy would be on the cusp of roaring back, the threat would be receding in a pandemic that has sickened more than 3.1 million Americans and killed more than 133,000.
But repetition doesn’t make for reality. The U.S. is taking a disproportionate hit from the coronavirus globally and does not have it under control.
A look at how rhetoric from the past week compares with the facts on various fronts:
Virus
TRUMP: “For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!” — tweet Thursday.
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THE FACTS: His notion that infections are high only because the U.S. diagnostic testing has increased is false. His own top public health officials have shot down this line of thinking. Infections are rising because people are infecting each other more than they were when most everyone was hunkered down.
2:03 Trump calls Biden a ‘puppet’ of socialism
Trump calls Biden a ‘puppet’ of socialism
It’s true that increased testing also contributes to the higher numbers. When you look harder, you’re going to see more. But the testing has uncovered a worrisome trend: The percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus is on the rise across nearly the entire country.
That’s a clear demonstration that sickness is spreading and that the U.S. testing system is falling short.
“A high rate of positive tests indicates a government is only testing the sickest patients who seek out medical attention and is not casting a wide enough net,” says the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, a primary source of updated information on the pandemic.
Americans are being confronted with long lines at testing sites, often disqualified if they are not showing symptoms and, if tested, forced to wait many days for results.
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TRUMP on the coronavirus: “We have the lowest Mortality Rate in the World.” — tweet Tuesday.
THE FACTS: This statement is wholly unsupported.
An accurate death rate is impossible to know. Every country tests and counts people differently, and some are unreliable in reporting cases. Without knowing the true number of people who become infected, it cannot be determined what portion of them die.
Using a count kept by Johns Hopkins University, you can compare the number of recorded deaths with the number of reported cases. That count shows the U.S. experiencing more deaths as a percentage of cases than most other countries now being hit hard with the pandemic. The statistics look better for the U.S. when the list is expanded to include European countries that were slammed early on by the virus but now appear to have it under control. Even then, the U.S. is not shown to be among the best in avoiding death.
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Such calculations, though, do not provide a reliable measurement of actual death rates, because of the variations in testing and reporting, and the Johns Hopkins tally is not meant to be such a measure.
1:08 Coronavirus: Top health official in Tulsa says Trump rally likely ‘contributed’ to COVID-19 spike
Coronavirus: Top health official in Tulsa says Trump rally likely ‘contributed’ to COVID-19 spike
The only way to tell how many cases have gone uncounted, and therefore what percentage of infected people have died from the disease, is to do another kind of test comprehensively, of people’s blood, to find how many people bear immune system antibodies to the virus. Globally, that is only being done in select places.
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TRUMP: “Deaths in the U.S. are way down.” — tweet Monday, one of at least a half dozen heralding a drop in daily deaths from the virus.
THE FACTS: It’s true that deaths dipped even as infections spiked in many parts of the country. But deaths lag sickness and the spikes have not played out.
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“It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday. He advised Americans: “Don’t get yourself into false complacency.”
TRUMP: “Job growth is biggest in history.” — tweet Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Yes, but only because it is following the greatest job losses in history, by far.
The U.S. economy shed more than 22 million jobs in March and April, wiping out nearly a decade of job growth in just two months, as the viral outbreak intensified and nearly all states shut down nonessential businesses. Since then, 7.5 million, or about one-third, of those jobs have been recovered as businesses reopened. Even after those gains, the unemployment rate is 11.1%, down from April and May but otherwise higher than at any point since the Depression.
2:28 Trump pushes for U.S. schools to reopen this fall
Trump pushes for U.S. schools to reopen this fall
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TRUMP: “Economy and Jobs are growing MUCH faster than anyone (except me!) expected.” — tweet Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Not really. It’s true that May’s gain of 2.7 million jobs was unexpected. Economists had forecast another month of job losses. But most economists projected hiring would sharply rebound by June or at the latest July, once businesses began to reopen. The gains kicked in a month earlier than forecast.
Now, though, coronavirus cases are rising in most states, imperiling the climb back. In six states representing one-third of the economy — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, and Texas — governors are reversing their reopening plans, and the restart is on pause in 15 other states. Such reversals are keeping layoffs elevated and threatening to weaken hiring.
Trump on Biden
TRUMP campaign ad, playing out a scenario where a person needing help calls the police in a Biden presidency and gets a voice recording: “You have reached the 911 police emergency line. Due to defunding of the police department, we’re sorry but no one is here to take your call.” The ad closes with the message: “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”
THE FACTS: Biden has not joined the call of protesters who demanded “defund the police” after Floyd’s killing. He’s proposed more money for police, conditioned to improvements in their practices.
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“I don’t support defunding the police,“ Biden said last month in a CBS interview. But he said he would support tying federal aid to police based on whether “they meet certain basic standards of decency, honourableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community.”
1:02 Kudlow says Canada’s strict COVID-19 restrictions to blame for Trudeau not attending USMCA summit
Kudlow says Canada’s strict COVID-19 restrictions to blame for Trudeau not attending USMCA summit
Biden’s criminal justice agenda, released long before he became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, proposes more federal money for “training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths” and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve.
Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs.
That adds up to more money for police, not defunding law enforcement.
Biden also wants the federal government to spend more on education, social services and struggling areas of cities and rural America, to address root causes of crime.
Democrats, meanwhile, have pointed to Trump’s repeated proposals in the administration’s budget to cut community policing and mediation programs at the Justice Department. Congressional Republicans say the program can be effectively merged with other divisions, but Democrats have repeatedly blocked the effort. The program has been used to help provide federal oversight of local police departments.
Despite proposed cuts, Attorney General William Barr last month said that the department would use the COPS program funding to hire over 2,700 police officers at nearly 600 departments across the country.
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REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE email: “In the wake of rioting, looting, and tragic murders ripping apart communities across the country, Joe Biden said `Yes, absolutely’ he wants to defund the police.” — email Wednesday from Steve Guest, RNC’s rapid response director.
THE FACTS: That’s misleading, a selective use of Biden’s words on the subject.
2:16 Joe Biden attacks Trump’s COVID-19 remarks: ‘He’s worried about looking bad’
Joe Biden attacks Trump’s COVID-19 remarks: ‘He’s worried about looking bad’
The email links to an excerpted video clip of Biden’s conversation with liberal activist Ady Barkan, who endorsed Biden on Wednesday after supporting Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries. A full recording of that conversation, provided by the Biden campaign to The Associated Press, shows he again declined to support defunding police,
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Barkan raises the issue of police reform and asks whether Biden would funnel money into social services, mental health counselling and affordable housing to help reduce civilian interactions with police.
Biden responds that he is calling for increased funding for mental health providers but “that’s not the same as getting rid of or defunding all the police” and that both approaches are needed, including more money for community police.
Asked again by Barkan, “so we agree that we can redirect some of the funding,” Biden then answers “absolutely yes.”
Biden then gives the caveat that he means “not just redirect” federal money potentially but “condition” it on police improvements.
“If they don’t eliminate choke holds, they don’t get (federal) grants, if they don’t do the following, they don’t get any help,” Biden replied.
“The vast majority of all police departments are funded by the locality, funded by the municipality, funded by the state,” he added. “It’s only the federal government comes in on top of that, and so it says you want help, you have to do the following reforms,.”
Biden on Trump
BIDEN: “President Trump claimed to the American people that he was a wartime leader, but instead of taking responsibility, Trump has waved a white flag, revealing that he ordered the slowing of testing and having his administration tell Americans that they simply need to `live with it.” — statement Wednesday marking the rise in U.S. coronavirus infections to more than 3 million.
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THE FACTS: To be clear, the government did not slow testing on the orders of the president.
Trump at first denied he was joking when he told a Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally on June 20 that he said “to my people, `Slow the testing down, please”’ because “they test and they test.” Days later he said he didn’t really mean it.
In any event, a succession of his public-health officials testified to Congress that the president never asked them to slow testing and that they were doing all they could to increase it. But testing remains markedly insufficient.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
