Fact Check: Sen. Elizabeth Warren Claims U.S. Has ‘Most COVID Deaths in the World’

CLAIM: “America has the most COVID deaths in the world,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) during Wednesday night’s Democratic National Convention.

VERDICT: Misleading.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), during the virtual Democrat National Convention Wednesday, alleged that the United States has more coronavirus fatalities than the rest of the world.

Other Democrats, including presidential nominee Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), have been pushing similar misleading claims as the coronavirus situation improves in America.

In sheer numbers, the United States leads the world in confirmed COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) deaths, with over 173,000 as of Wednesday night, according to Johns Hopkins University. However, the U.S. has the third-largest population in the world after China and India, respectively.

Per capita, there were at least nine other countries with a higher death toll per 100,000 residents than the United States as of Wednesday evening, including developed nations such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Chile, Johns Hopkins data revealed.

Among some prominent developed nations, the U.S. has one of the lowest death rates proportionally to its COVID-19 caseload — case-fatality ratio (CFR).

The CFR does not account for silent cases — asymptomatic and mild infections that do not require medical attention. It is merely the number of deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases. Health analysts have noted that CFR is significantly higher than the infection fatality rate (IFR), which accounts for people who do not exhibit symptoms.

The U.S. also has more confirmed infections than any other country in the world, in sheer numbers, suggesting that more people have contracted the virus without dying in American than in other countries. America also leads the world in recoveries, and only China has reported more tests than the United States.

However, Chinese data is considered untrustworthy by the international community. COVID-19 deaths in China, the virus’s birthplace, are suspiciously low (over 4,700 as of Wednesday), particularly given its status as the world’s most populous county and birthplace of the lethal and highly contagious virus.

Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is known to manipulate data for political gain.

In a new report, the U.S. intelligence community determined that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials hid the severity and dangers of the virus, even from their comrades, allowing it to spread to the world, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The findings validated assertions made by U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.

China has blocked U.S. scientists from entering the country to study the virus and investigate its origins. Beijing propaganda promoted by the Chinese-influenced World Health Organization (W.H.O.) has even suggested the coronavirus may not have originated in China.

Health systems in underdeveloped countries may not have the capacity to detect some of the fatalities with their borders.