Please remember that the New York Times reported *months ago* that the official COVID-19 death toll in the United States represents an undercount of somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000. So every time you see or hear the nation's COVID-19 death toll, the number is off. By a *lot*.
The way to think of it as we had toward election day is this: there's no question more than a quarter of a million Americans have died in just 7 months from contracting COVID-19—the only question we don't have an answer to is how *many* more than a quarter of a million have died.
Every time media refuses to acknowledge the very undercount that *it itself* reported, it benefits the Trump administration by severely understating the toll of its malfeasance and incompetence.
It also provides an opening for Trumpists to lie about the severity of the pandemic.
It also provides an opening for Trumpists to lie about the severity of the pandemic.
It also messes up modeling. When we're told that 400,000 Americans will be dead of COVID-19 by around the time a new president is inaugurated (or, God forbid, Trump begins his second term), that again excludes an undercount that by that time will almost certainly be over 100,000.
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