President Donald Trump on Wednesday questioned Mayor Bill de Blasio’s revised coronavirus death toll — a day after New York City revised how it tracks fatalities by adding more than 3,700 victims who died of apparent coronavirus symptoms and were never tested.
“I see this morning where New York added 3,000 [sic] deaths because they died. Rather than [a] heart attack, they say heart attack caused by this,” he said during the daily briefing of the Coronavirus Task Force, referring to COVID-19.
Responding to a question about the staggering US death toll, which topped 27,000 Wednesday, the president suggested that the Big Apple added the new deaths to the tally “just in case” the victims had the virus.
“If you look at it, that is it. Everything we have is documented and reported great. What they are doing is just in case — that is OK. We have more cases because we do more reporting.”
Freddi Goldstein, a spokeswoman for de Blasio, ripped Trump’s remarks.
“These were people with names, hobbies, lives. They leave behind grieving loved ones. They deserve to be recognized, not minimized,” she said.
The city announced Tuesday that more than 10,000 people have died of coronavirus in New York City, including 3,778 cases in which someone never got tested for it, some of whom never made it to a hospital.
The update came after The Post reported last week that the city’s death tally was short by thousands of people due to a surge in New Yorkers who were dying at home.
Probable coronavirus deaths were more common than confirmed coronavirus deaths among victims age 75 and older, according to the city Health Department.
Probable COVID-19 fatalities were also more likely to occur in Manhattan and Brooklyn compared to the other boroughs, the data shows.
More than 90 percent of confirmed COVID-19 deaths happened at city hospitals while about 60 percent of probable coronavirus fatalities occurred in hospitals.
The other 40 percent of probable coronavirus victims died at their own homes or in nursing homes.
NY Post
