Former President Donald Trump made several false claims at a rally, saying at one point, “if you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, or if you’re white, you don’t get therapeutics.”
During a rally in Arizona on Saturday, former President Donald Trump repeated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen and made other false claims about the pandemic and the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. Here’s a fact check.
WHAT TRUMP SAID: “The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating, white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, or if you’re white, you don’t get therapeutics.”
Trump referred to a Wall Street Journal opinion column criticizing New York state’s guidelines on two limited antiviral treatments that ask health providers to prioritize the therapies for immunocompromised patients and those with risk factors. The guidelines, which were released in late December, said, “Nonwhite race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor, as long-standing systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.”
State officials have defended their guidelines by citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which show that Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are about twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than white Americans. A spokesperson for New York state’s Department of Health told Fox News that race did not disqualify patients from treatment but that the guidelines instead considered race as one risk factor.
In New York, white residents are more likely to be vaccinated than Black residents, which is in line with most of the country.
