US Covid-19 toll crossed 200,000 as Trump says 'herd mentality' will end pandemic

WASHINGTON: The United States death toll from the coronavirus pandemic ticked over 200,000 – highest in the world – on Wednesday even as the country’s President and his cohorts continued to dispense a blizzard of lies, denying well-established, evidence-based facts about the pandemic.
Worldometer, an independent website that tracks coronavirus pandemic data from official reports and government channels, reported 200,286 Covid-19 related deaths in the US on Wednesday morning even as other data sources were still shy of the mark.The grim milestone came even as President Trump insisted that he has done a great job of handling the pandemic, that masks were not necessarily good, that "herd mentality" would bring the pandemic under control, and the virus would eventually go away.
In a disastrous ABC News townhall meeting in which he was repeatedly fact-checked for lying and dissembling, Trump insisted he did not downplay the virus despite being on record in interviews to Bob Woodward saying he did downplay and would continue to do exactly that. "I didn't downplay it. I, actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action. My action was very strong," he told a former supporter who asked him why he threw "people like me under the bus."
Trump also maintained the virus would go away even without a vaccine partly because of "herd mentality." The President likely meant "herd immunity," but the comment, along with many other ludicrous lies and misstatements, resulted in withering derision from critics and commentators even as Trump supporters and his cult rallied around him. One Fox News commentator complained that the President was "ambushed" in the townhall simply because he was questioned in an open forum and not by simpering anchors.
"Thank you for the great reviews of the @ABC News show last night!" Trump tweeted later without a trace of irony even though the townhall attracted widespread ridicule.
Trump was also hauled up on social media after political discourse in the country plunged to dismal depths. The US President retweeted a photo that referred to his Democratic challenger as a “pedophile” after trolls deluged Twitter with pictures showing Trump partying with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and cavorting with under-aged girls.
The US President also tweeted out a manipulated video of Biden edited to make it look like he was dancing to a rap song titled "F*** tha Police," resulting in Twitter flagging he post as "manipulated media." Trump then went on to support a CNBC anchor Jim Cramer who addressed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "Crazy Nancy," (and apologized for it saying he was imitating he President), telling him "Jim, you didn’t make a mistake. It’s true, and that’s why you said it. No pandering!"
The US President, widely seen as intellectually challenged and unhinged by the liberal commentariat, habitually uses derisive, insulting nicknames for his critics. Social media trolls are now deploying the same tactic against him, trending hashtags such as #TrumpThePedophile and #PedoTrump on Twitter.
Political discourse in the US has sunk so low that the President and his administration barely got any appreciation for the landmark "Abraham Accord" that brought Israel, UAE, and Bahrain together.
Latest surveys show Biden still leading Trump by 5 per cent even in the most conservative polls. But in many battleground states that is close to the margin of error. Besides, reports suggest Trump voters are either underpolled or underrepresented in polling samples, and even when they are polled, they are reticent in acknowledging their support for the President.