Herman Cain Twitter account downplays COVID-19 deadliness month after he died from it
Former U.S. presidential candidate Herman Cain’s Twitter account tweeted, then deleted, an article downplaying the deadliness of COVID-19 a month after the account’s namesake died from it.
Cain’s account tweeted on Sunday that “it looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be,” according to screenshots. The tweet linked to an article about a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showing 94 percent of people who died from the coronavirus had other health conditions.
The tweet questioning the seriousness of the virus came after Cain died on July 30 following a month-long battle with COVID-19, McClatchy News previously reported. His Twitter account has remained active after his death and is now managed by “his team and family.”
The 2012 Republican presidential hopeful tested positive on June 29 and was admitted to an Atlanta hospital on July 1, a statement read. On June 20, Cain attended President Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and tweeted a photo of himself surrounded by people not wearing masks.
It’s not clear how or where Cain contracted the virus.
Trump shared a tweet about the same study referenced by Cain’s account.
Twitter removed the tweet with a false claim retweeted by Trump on Sunday. The tweet said that the CDC “quietly” updated its information “to admit that only 6 percent” of people “actually died from COVID” and “the other 94 percent had 2-3 other serious illnesses,” CNN reported.
“When you see that ‘only 6%’ of people had COVID-19 as the sole reason listed on their death forms, what it means is that there were only a small fraction of people who died of the disease who didn’t have any other underlying or immediate causes noted by the medical certifiers,” epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz wrote in a blog post. “This is completely unsurprising, as it’s pretty rare that someone wouldn’t have at least one issue caused by coronavirus prior to their death, and all it means is that in 94% of cases people who had COVID-19 also developed other issues, or had other problems at the same time.”
People with underlying medical conditions, including cancer, have a higher risk for severe illness from the coronavirus, according to the CDC. Cain had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006, and some falsely said after his death that it was cancer, not coronavirus, that lead to his death. Cain completed his cancer treatment in 2007, according to FactCheck.org.
The CDC estimates the coronavirus was the underlying cause of 95 percent of deaths linked to the virus and in five percent of cases, it was a contributing cause.
Cain’s death didn’t have that much impact on people who don’t want to wear masks or follow other social distancing guidelines, William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, told Healthline.
About 1,500 people — most not wearing masks or socially distancing — gathered at the White House to watch Trump’s speech at the last night of the Republican National Convention.
“So there was no lesson there,” Schaffner said. “People mourned his passing quickly but drew no lessons from the hazard he had exposed himself to. I just found that sobering and saddening.”
Since Cain’s passing, his Twitter account was renamed “The Cain Gang” and has continued to post. His family vowed “to share the information and idea he believed in.”
More than 6 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed and more than 183,000 people have died in the U.S. as of Aug. 31, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Herman Cain Twitter account downplays COVID-19 deadliness month after he died from it."