In an analysis for the Washington Post this Tuesday, Philip Bump says that President Trump's recent downplaying of the coronavirus' effects on young people is "both dangerously misleading and aggressively hypocritical."
“You know, in some states thousands of people, nobody young — below the age of 18, like nobody — they have a strong immune system. Who knows. You look — take your hat off to the young because they have a hell of an immune system, but it affects virtually nobody," Trump said at a rally in Ohio on Monday.
Bump points out that as Trump spoke, the death toll from the virus approached 200,000 -- a boundary that Trump repeatedly insisted this spring and summer that we probably wouldn’t near. While it's true that the virus affects primarily older people, the notion that “virtually nobody” who is younger has been affected simply isn't true.
"About 400 people under the age of 25 have succumbed to the virus, making up more than 1 out of every 100 deaths in that age group since February," Bump writes. "Among those aged 25 to 64, 8 percent of all deaths in that period were due to covid-19. Among those 65 and older, 9.8 percent of deaths since February were linked to the virus."
According to Bump, those 400 people under 25 wouldn't have been shrugged off by Trump had they been victims of a terror attack or immigrants.
Read the full analysis over at The Washington Post.