President Trump denied the death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria because he did not adequately understand the nature of the report before he decided to make his position on the issue.
On Sept. 11, Trump came out and said FEMA and law enforcement efforts in Puerto Rico was an “unsung success.” The response was immediate and very dramatic. Most of the media criticized what they saw with 3,000 deaths as a horrific number in the aftermath of the disaster.
In response, the governor of Puerto Rico said, “No relationship between a colony and the federal government can ever be called ‘successful’ because Puerto Ricans lack certain inalienable rights enjoyed by our fellow Americans in the states.”
The official death toll has reached about 2,975 revised from 64 after a Georgetown University Public Health report came out. Trump tweeted his response on Sept. 13, saying “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000 … “
The report showed that more deaths occurred due to lack of access to health care, electricity and basic necessities after the hurricane struck. Issuing accurate death certificates was a problem that originally concealed the true scale of deaths.
The direct amount of deaths from the hurricane is more in line with what Trump was thinking, but the real number is much larger because of the hurricane’s lasting effects.
Trump was not informed on this report as he stated clearly in his defense, thinking the death toll was much smaller than 3,000. Upon learning of the official report he denies that such a large difference could have happened. The jump from 64 deaths to upwards of 3,000 seemed bogus to him.
It seems like Trump did not consult with experts on this issue before making comments about the relief efforts as a success. Outright denying without conducting adequate research on the nature of the toll is not a wise thing to do, but some of Trump’s most loyal allies surely came to his defense.
Rush Limbaugh criticized the research done by Georgetown University based on the fact that none of the researchers were there to count the bodies and that they used a computer model to come up with the death toll.
This is a gross oversimplification of the methodology employed by the researchers.
Limbaugh did not mention that they used and analyzed official death certificates. They also interviewed those responsible for creating the death certificates as well as the key leaders in the community during the crisis and aftermath of the hurricane in Puerto Rico.
The report analyzed several key components on a government scale to be prepared for natural disasters and noticed how many of the death certificates from physicians were poor in quality. The level of research was deep, thorough and advanced. No known attempt to demean the credibility of this report has been made successfully.
Trump needs to learn from his mistakes and have the humility to do so. A leader must admit he is wrong, take responsibility and work with everyone to make sure a mistake like this does not happen again.
