- President Donald Trump highlighted Germany’s spike in Covid-19 deaths in a Wednesday tweet claiming that Germany’s pandemic response isn’t a model for the US.
- Germany’s Covid-19 death rate and deaths per capita is still much lower than the US’s.
- The US has had 87.49 deaths per 100,000, while Germany has had 24.12 deaths per 100,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
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President Donald Trump pointed to Germany’s spike in Covid-19 deaths in a Wednesday tweet claiming that his “obnoxious critics” wrongly held up Germany’s pandemic response as a model for the US.
“Germany has consistently been used by my obnoxious critics as the country that we should follow on the way to handle the China Virus,” Trump tweeted, sharing an AP story about Germany’s surge in virus deaths. “So much for that argument. I love Germany – Vaccines on the way!!!”
On Wednesday, Germany reported 590 deaths from the virus over the last 24 hours – the country’s highest death count in a single day since the pandemic hit. The European country is seeing a spike in Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations after maintaining one of the lowest death rates in Europe.
But Germany’s Covid-19 death rate and deaths per capita is still much lower than the US’s. The US has had 87.49 deaths per 100,000, while Germany has had 24.12 deaths per 100,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. And the US death rate from Covid-19 is 1.9%, while Germany’s is 1.6%.
Trump has previously falsely claimed that the US’s Covid-19 death rate is comparable to Germany’s. In May, Trump claimed that the US death rate, which at the time was 24.66 per 100,000, and Germany’s death rate, which then was 9.24, were the best in the world. In fact, a slew of other countries had a lower Covid-19 death rate than the US at the time.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2020
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to abide by stricter virus-related regulations and called the numbers "very alarming." But Merkel doesn't have the power to issue national restrictions, as each of the country's 16 state governments are responsible for issuing and implementing their own lockdown policies.