The shocking report last week that the true death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria last September exceeded that of Hurricane Katrina or 9/11 is something America is no longer being silent on, and if Democrats have any heart, they absolutely need to pound the Trump regime on its devastating failure that cost thousands of American lives.
Days after a new study from researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health estimated that the death toll from Hurricane Maria may be as high as 4,645 people, mainly because of delayed medical care, hundreds of protesters gathered on Saturday in the shadow of the United Nations to demand that the international organization audit the number of casualties.
The Puerto Rican government is reviewing its official death toll from the storm, which it said in December was 64.
“If it were 5,000 kittens, there would be outrage,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of Uprose, a Latino organization in Brooklyn. “If it was 5,000 dogs, there would be outrage. If it was 5,000 blonde-haired, blue-eyed women, there would be outrage.”
The protest was organized by the Collective Action for Puerto Rico, a coalition of faith-based and labor organizations. Protesters held signs saying “Puerto Rican lives matter” and “If you are not angry you are not paying attention.”
They took off their shoes as a symbol of the people who died as a result of the storm but who were not immediately counted, and called for more attention to be paid to the hurricane’s aftermath in the form of more assistance for people still struggling on the island as hurricane season begins.
“Sisters and brothers in this country forget that the people of Puerto Rico are our fellow Americans,” said Linda Sarsour, who was one of the lead organizers of the Women’s March in Washington. “They deserve to be treated just like any American in any part of this country.”
United Nations officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump failed Puerto Rico, and thousands died as a result. Period. And there's every reason to believe that the actual death toll could be higher.
Researchers behind the study, which was published on Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, visited close to 3,300 randomly selected households across Puerto Rico. They found that 38 people from those households died in the months after the storm.
Using their independent estimate of the number of deaths, researchers calculated the mortality rate after the hurricane and compared it with mortality rates from 2016. Researchers found a 62 percent increase in the mortality rate from Sept. 20, 2017, when the hurricane hit, through Dec. 31, 2017, compared with the same time period in 2016.
The study found that the official death toll of 64 was a “substantial underestimate of the true burden of mortality after Hurricane Maria,” and that the estimated 4,645-person death toll could exceed 5,000.
Puerto Rican officials said in December that they planned to revise the official death toll, counting direct and indirect storm deaths. The commonwealth commissioned a study on Hurricane Maria deaths from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, which is expected to release the first part of its review this summer.
No matter how you estimate it, the reality is that the "official" death toll of 64 is one of most mendacious government lies in existence. Los Olvidados Muertos, the Forgotten Dead, will not be forgotten any longer.
Especially in November.
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