Brit Hume: COVID-19 pandemic is not impervious to American political division

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Brit Hume: Americans haven't been able to take politics out of the COVID-19 pandemic

Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume told 'Fox News @ Night' partisan division is influencing both media coverage of coronavirus and scientists' findings

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Partisan politics during the coronavirus pandemic continue to influence America's efforts to fight the disease, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume said Monday evening.

Appearing on "Fox News @ Night" with host Shannon Bream, Hume said that the country has not yet been able to separate personal beliefs from acting for the good of the many, sparking an "intriguing debate."

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His example? The number of cases.

"One side says, 'Look, there are lots of people who are sick that we don't know about. There are lots of people who are undiagnosed. No symptoms. So, the number of cases and the number of deaths is almost certainly underestimated because people die from this and we think they die from something else and we're not testing enough and so the death rate is almost certainly too low,'" Hume pointed out.

"And, there are people on the other side who say, 'Oh no, that's not the problem. The problem is that we are counting as casualties of COVID-19 people who die with it but not necessarily of it,'" he added.

"And so, that is where the debate is. And, my guess, Shannon, is that this debate is going to be going on for a long time," he mused.

"And, there are people who don't like Trump very much who kind of seem to argue that the death rate is higher than we think and there are people who are more disposed toward Trump who would prefer to take the view that the death rate is lower than we think," Hume remarked. "We've got a long way to go here but I think that argument is very much out there and I don't think there's any way to tell, based on current data, who's right."

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As of Tuesday morning, there were over 368,000 confirmed cases with over 10,000 deaths reported. New York State -- the virus's epicenter -- is on track to surpass Italy and Spain in the total number of cases by the end of the week.