Posted on 09/13/2018 10:44:29 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
George Washington University is standing behind a study produced by university researchers that determined Hurricane Maria led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Puerto Ricans.
The statement backing up GW's study comes hours after President Trump on Thursday morning called into question the death toll, claiming it was inflated by Democrats.
"We stand by the science underlying our study which found there were an estimated 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria," reads the statement from GW's Milken Institute School of Public Health, obtained by NBC. "We are confident that the number - 2,975 - is the most accurate and unbiased estimate of excess mortality to date."
GW's Milken Institute School of Public Health did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment.
The statement details how researchers came to the number, which has been accepted by the Puerto Rican government as the hurricane's official death toll.
Trump in a pair of tweets claimed 3,000 people did not die as a result of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, adding the revised death toll was "was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico."
Multiple lawmakers have come out strongly against Trump's denial, standing by the report's findings.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in a statement on Thursday said "it is a fact" that 2,975 people died following the devastating hurricane.
The GW report came to the 2,975 estimate by assessing how much "excess mortality" there was following the Category 5 hurricane, which devastated the island's infrastructure and resources in 2017.
The researchers assessed typical mortality rates from 2010 to 2017, then compared that figure to the number of deaths in the six months after Maria.
"Overall, we estimate that 40 percent of municipalities experienced significantly higher mortality in the study period than in the comparable period of the previous two years," the report says.
The study, commissioned by the government of Puerto Rico, found risk of death was 45 percent higher for "populations living in low socioeconomic development municipalities" and men 65 years or older.
"This study, commissioned by the Government of Puerto Rico, was carried out with complete independence and freedom from any kind of interference," the GW statement states. The study followed multiple other studies using different methods that also estimated the Puerto Rican death toll to be much higher than early estimates that put it at less than 100.
HAND OVER YOUR LIST OF DEAD NOW!
How many of the post-hurricane deaths resulted from Puerto Rican officials hoarding medical, nutritional, safety, sanitation, etc. supplies and never distributing them to the people in need?
Send us the names. We’ll wait patiently.
We need a list of names and cause and date of death
Maybe they can estimate their names.
18 DIED IN THE HURRICANE. 2982 DIED OF THIRST.
And so the appropriate place to “blame” if this is the underlying point of this, is Puerto Rico, nothing or nowhere else.
If PR folks cant plan and give a crap about themselves more than anyone else will, ....?
Sorry for the caps in the last post.
Why do you need to run a "typical morality rate"? Dead bodies should be pretty easy to count. They don't run away & hide. You don't need a Washington University degree - just get any 6 year-old kid, they can count.
-PJ
A lot of “excess deaths” were likely elderly people who died in the heat when the power for fans and air conditioning went out for months.
Has any other hurricane had its death count calculated in the same way that GW calculated the death count from Hurricane Maria?
Computer models.
Its called planning. These people,always expect others to plan for their disasters. They cant even execute plans others have mad and given supplies for. Supplies sat in warehouses and were stolen ,damaged, left to rot.
Infants. No ability to take care of themselves in major problems.
18 dead from the huricane, a miracle in itself. 2900 dead from heat and lack of electrical and water issues they were not able to deal with individually or as a group.
if they wait another 5 years or so- that number will increase to like a bazillion
If only those Hispanics would be viewed as white, then the loss of these men would present no concern whatsoever.
6 months after the hurricane?
2900 people did die after the hurricane because of PATHETIC DEMOCRAT INCOMPETENCE in GOVT. in PR!! Trump did EVERYTHINGbpossible that the FEDERAL GOVT. could do.....the DEMOCRATS in CHARGE OF PR LET THESE PEOPLE DIE!!
2900 people did die after the hurricane because of PATHETIC DEMOCRAT INCOMPETENCE in GOVT. in PR!! Trump did EVERYTHINGbpossible that the FEDERAL GOVT. could do.....the DEMOCRATS in CHARGE OF PR LET THESE PEOPLE DIE!!
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