Donald Trump’s Racism Has Material Consequences
“If you look at the — every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds of people that died and what happened here with [Hurricane Maria] that was just totally overbearing. No one has ever seen anything like that. What is your death count?” — Donald Trump
An estimated 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico in the five months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island last September, a far higher number than the government’s official death toll count of 64.
The new findings are from an independent study conducted by George Washington University’s Milken Institute of Public Health, which was commissioned by island officials for more than $300,000.
During a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló announced that his administration is updating its death toll count of 64 to match GWU’s 2, 975, “keeping in mind that it’s still an estimate.””The number of excess deaths is still very big and now, as a society, we need to come together and look forward to the future,” said Rosselló.