Published 02:05 IST, July 2nd 2020
Elon Musk questions COVID-19 numbers, reiterates misleading theories with brother Kimbal
Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk have doubled down on misleading theories around COVID-19 and US' handling of the pandemic as cases continue to soar
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk have doubled down on misleading theories around COVID-19 and the US government's handling of the pandemic as the virus continues to disrupt lives across the world. Its currently the worst affected nation in the world with over 2,658,324 positive cases of COVID-19 with a total of 127, 681 deaths as per the latest John Hopkins University tally.
'False positives'
Elon Musk, on July 1, questioned the COVID-19 testing system in the country, raising concerns over “false positives” which according to him are meddling with the number of cases reported. He theorised that even five percent false positive rate would show up as 17 million false cases. Musk’s tweet came in reply to his brother who posted a graph showing deaths in the US dropping despite a spike in cases.
There are a lot of C19 false positives messing up the numbers. Even tests with 5% false positive rate (in *field*, not lab) would show up as ~17 million fake C19 cases even if there were actually none.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 30, 2020
Later, Kimbal Musk also repeated Elon’s claim and claimed that he had tested positive for COVID-19 in April. However, when he got himself tested for the second time, he tested negative.
In a sperate tweet, the Tesla CEO also said that there was a difference between 'died because of' COVID-19 and 'died with' COVID-19, question symptoms of the disease.
Exactly right. False positives are a big part of the fear machine. I got tested positive in April. Then asked to do the test again and it was negative. Checked again. Still negative. people are unlikely asking for a second test and false positives are huge part of these numbers
— Kimbal Musk (@kimbal) June 30, 2020
Extremely big difference between died because of or died with. Also, did the person actually have C19 or did they just have C19 symptoms? It’s almost impossible to die without feeling weakness, shortness of breath or other C19 symptoms, unless you were crushed by a falling piano.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 30, 2020
COVID-19 in United States
The United States has reported at least 30,542 new coronavirus cases and 324 COVID related fatalities on July 1, according to the official tally. According to the reports, the health authorities have warned that there has been an increase in average daily new cases in the country along with a spike in hospitalisations.
With the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in the country, several states in the southern part of the country have recorded a huge surge in the coronavirus infections.
02:05 IST, July 2nd 2020