Adding to his seemingly unending stream of self-serving lies and distortions, the current president this weekend claimed that since doctors and hospitals “get more money” if they report a death as COVID-related, they are inflating COVID-related numbers, and he continued to claim that the pandemic “is going away.” The recent spikes in reported cases and ensuing deaths (as predicted by the same scientists the president has disparaged) make the latter claim ridiculous on its face. In a statement issued Sunday, the American College of Emergency Physicians  called the president’s assertions “reckless and false.” The American College of Physicians, which represents internal medicine doctors, denounced the president’s allegations as “a reprehensible attack on physicians’ ethics and professionalism.” The Council of Medical Specialty Societies said Trump’s claims “promulgate misinformation that hinders our nation’s efforts to get the Covid-19 pandemic under control.”  The number of excess deaths in the US has to be attributed to something, and it’s not traffic deaths.