The ChiComs are very powerful, but even they can’t do all the heavy lifting themselves when it comes to making the USA look like the bad guy. Good thing they’ve got CNN to lend a hand:

Why does U.S. with 4.25% of world population, have 17% of coronavirus deaths? @drsanjaygupta reports pic.twitter.com/qF3W4wXLeI — The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 9, 2020

Wow, great question, Jake! Except no it isn’t.

This tweet treats it as fact that the U.S. has 17% of coronavirus deaths, rather than 17% of ***reported*** deaths. China and Iran, for instance, are very likely lying about their death tolls, and numerous other countries are likely doing a bad job reporting their figures too. https://t.co/iopWzXGbEH — JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) April 10, 2020

This is infuriatingly stupid and dishonest. The answer is because we don't, and media outlets that suggest otherwise cannot be trusted to cover this topic. Several large countries are clearly lying and undercounting. https://t.co/xhgLNRVcdX — (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) April 10, 2020

Because we're being quite liberal with our classification of covid-19 deaths, New York is a densely populated city run by an incompetent mayor, and China is lying, but you're gullible enough to believe them in spite of 40,000 urns. — Harold Stickeehans (@StickeeNotes) April 10, 2020

Tapper throwing in a side comment about how there are some questions about the numbers doesn't change that this is clearly wrong and actively misinforms the audience. Western Europe is ~ same size and they have a much higher % of deaths. Several other countries are just lying. — (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) April 10, 2020

Italy has 0.8% of the world population, 19% of the deaths. Spain has 0.6% of the world population, 16% of the deaths. France has 0.8% of the world population, 12% of the deaths All of them combined are less than half the US population — PoliMath (@politicalmath) April 10, 2020

Because China is lying, mostly. — Charles Repine (@DistrictDawg) April 9, 2020

1) Because China is still lying about their actual numbers. 2) Because of how deaths are counted varies from country to country. — A Bear (@Bearocalypse) April 9, 2020

This is extremely disingenuous.@drsanjaygupta

And @jaketapper Need to do far better. The data does not prove that we have more disease. We have no idea, for example, if China data is independently verifiable. This is a unscientific piece all around. H/T @AGHamilton29 https://t.co/6QHu3yEdps — Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) April 10, 2020

What is the intent here? Tapper knows the population of "France, Italy, and Spain combined" are half the population of the US. They know what ratios are. They know China's numbers are fake. So why are they asking questions like this?https://t.co/qaEfMDK8X1 — PoliMath (@politicalmath) April 10, 2020

Simple, really:

CNN can’t tell the truth about the COVID19 crisis, but they remain transparent in their awfulness, at least.

I'm serious. This was bad a few weeks ago, but journalists and outlets still doing this are intentionally lying to their audiences at this point and should lose all credibility covering this topic. — (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) April 10, 2020