Donald Trump's claim only dozens of people died after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico last year, rather than thousands, has been rejected by academics, the media and politicians on both sides of the political divide.
The US President took to Twitter to claim the new estimate of almost 3000 deaths was "done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible", without providing any evidence.
"If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list," he claimed, either misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting how the new figure was calculated.
The initial death count was 64, despite anecdotal evidence on the ground and investigations by reputable news outlets that hundreds, possibly thousands more were killed during the September 2017 storm and the following months. The Caribbean island's electrical grid was largely wiped out, and the federal Government was widely criticised for its slow response by San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, and even prompted a rare intervention on US soil by aid group Oxfam.
The new figure of 2975 deaths came from a study commissioned by Puerto Rican officials and carried out by George Washington University's Milken Institute of Public Health.
How the figure was calculated
For six months, researchers looked at death certificates, spoke to funeral home directors and interviewed doctors who'd seen the devastation first-hand.
They calculated how many people died between Maria's landfall in September 2017 and February 2018, and compared that to death rates from years gone by. After taking the island's shrinking population into account - a trend accelerated by Maria - they found there were 2975 more deaths in that period than normal. While there would have been 13,633 deaths between September and February, they found evidence for 16,608.
That correlated with previous investigations on the ground. NBC reported in June that local morgues were still "overflowing with unclaimed bodies". As early as November, CNN said it had uncovered 499 hurricane-related deaths just by talking to funeral home directors on the island - one of whom died of a stress-induced heart attack, unable to deal with biblical proportions of the tragedy.
The result didn't surprise Puerto Rican officials, who immediately adopted 2975 as the new official death toll. The low figure of 64 has been determined as the number who died as a direct result of drowning or blunt force trauma as the hurricane hit, leaving out the thousands who likely died in the aftermath.
"Most physicians have no formal training in completing a death certificate and thus are not aware of appropriate death certification practices, especially in a disaster setting," the George Washington University report states. Many offices and hospitals were operating without electricity, further hampering their ability to record deaths properly.
Mr Trump's claim they attributed people dying "for any reason, like old age" to Maria is false. If the researchers had attributed all deaths to Maria, as Mr Trump implies, the death toll would have been the aforementioned 16,608.
The elevated death rate between September and February also appeared to hit harder in poorer areas, consistent with previous deadly disasters.
Condemnation from all sides
Mr Trump, who described his administration's efforts as an "incredible, unsung success", appears to be the only leading US Republican politician who isn't accepting the new death toll. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he had "no reason to dispute" the figure. Florida Governor Rick Scott, also a Republican, said he disagreed with Mr Trump too.
"I've been to Puerto Rico seven times and saw devastation firsthand."
Florida representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called Mr Trump "self-centred".
"What kind of mind twists that statistic into 'Oh, fake news is trying to hurt my image?'" she said. "How can you be so self-centered and try to distort the truth so much? It's mind boggling... It might be a new low."
Even Fox News has blasted Mr Trump, with a panel describing his comments as "incredibly distasteful".
University not backing down
George Washington University backed its study, calling it the "most accurate and unbiased estimate of excess mortality to date".
"We stand by the science underlying our study. It is rigorous. It's state-of-the-art. We collected the data from the official sources. Everything can be validated," principal investigator Carlos Santos-Burgoa told The Washington Post.
"We didn't receive any pressure from anybody to go this way or that way. We wouldn't do it. We are professionals of public health."
They say a door-knocking study, while pricy, would result in an even more accurate figure - but for now, 2975 is the best estimate available.
It's not clear what Mr Trump is referring to when he says he raised "billions of dollars" for Puerto Rico's recovery. Island officials asked for US$94 billion in funds to rebuild, which about matches what the US National Hurricane Centre estimated was the damage.
Six months after the hurricane hit, the Associated Press (AP) reported only $23 billion had been allocated by the federal government, Puerto Rico lawmakers saying the Trump administration was neglecting the territory because it doesn't get a vote in presidential elections. Only $1.27 billion had actually been delivered, an official told AP.
In contrast, it was revealed earlier this week Mr Trump had diverted millions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the United States' controversial immigration enforcement agency ICE - just as Hurricane Florence arrived.
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