TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph and a claim, classify it this way: If the claim contradicts the evidence present in the paragraph, classify the claim as '0'. If the claim has multiple supporting *AND* contradicting evidences, classify the claim as '1'. If the claim has supporting evidence and the paragraph is in overall favor of the claim, then classify the claim as '2'.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Local and state governments are expected to have budget shortfalls as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. And, according to the Democrat in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, the Republican incumbent thinks struggling communities should go bankrupt. That’s what Cal Cunningham said about Sen. Thom Tillis. ""Mitch McConnell said he wanted states to go bankrupt instead of the federal government providing relief. Today, Thom Tillis agreed,"" Cunningham tweeted April 24, linking to a Politico story. Is that true? There’s a lot of context being left out. Yes, Tillis did say he is ""more or less aligned"" with what McConnell, the U.S. Senate majority leader, said about not giving more federal dollars to states that had pre-existing budget problems. McConnell proposed allowing them to file for bankruptcy, which states are not currently permitted to do. But Cunningham exaggerated what we know about Tillis’ position. Tillis’ comments clearly show he doesn’t want the federal government to pay for state debt that wasn’t incurred during the coronavirus outbreak. What’s less clear is whether he wants those states to go the bankruptcy route. So what did McConnell say about bankruptcy? In a radio interview on April 22, McConnell said states with pre-existing problems might be better off declaring bankruptcy than by expecting additional funding from the federal government. But he didn’t specifically say he ""wanted"" states to declare bankruptcy, only that he supports it as an option. ""I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route. It saves some cities. And there’s no good reason for it not to be available,"" McConnell said. ""My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don’t have to do that. That’s not something I’m going to be in favor of."" As The Atlantic reported, McConnell expanded on his bankruptcy comments in another radio interview that day: ""We’re not interested in solving their pension problems for them. We’re not interested in rescuing them from bad decisions they've made in the past, we’re not going to let them take advantage of this pandemic to solve a lot of problems that they created themselves (with) bad decisions in the past."" That brings us to Tillis and how closely he has ""agreed"" with McConnell. Audio of the April 24 town hall shows a constituent named Charles saying he has a question about the future: ""Will the Senate vote to bail out poorly-run states that were near bankrupt before COVID-19 hit?"" Tillis wasn’t asked about states in general. He was asked specifically about ""poorly-run states that were near bankrupt"" prior to the pandemic. Tillis said he doesn’t think those states should be bailed out. ""Well, Charles, that's a great question and personally I don't think we should, and I don't think that we can,"" Tillis said. He then said the $2 trillion economic stimulus gave him ""pause,"" but was worth it. Then he used North Carolina’s state government as an example of good financial stewardship: ""I'm not so sure that taxpayer dollars for North Carolina should go to a state, a county, or a city that, like you said, was in poor economic shape before we ever had the virus. We need to take care of first responders. We need to take care of law enforcement. And we will do that. But I don't believe that I can support any measure that is effectively a bailout for poorly run state and local governments. ""We can look at things on a case-by-case basis where it's very clear that the damage is done because of the virus impact. But a broad-based bailout is not something I'd be prepared to support."" That’s when Tillis brought up McConnell’s comments. ""You probably heard Leader McConnell's comments about it, I'm more or less aligned with Leader McConnell on the issue,"" Tillis said, a few seconds later adding: ""I think we need to work on executing (plans already signed into law) and not really entertain a discussion of trillions more going into jurisdictions that really need to get their financial houses in order."" Cunningham spokeswoman Rachel Petri said Tillis’s comments about McConnell show he’s in lockstep with the Senate leader, who said ""I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route."" Tillis elaborated on his position in an interview with Fox News radio's Guy Benson on April 29. Benson asked him about McConnell’s comments that money should not cover pre-pandemic budget holes (without mentioning the bankruptcy idea). Tillis said the Senate ""will go back and take a look at well-documented cases for the costs of the response, potentially the cause of some of the revenues in this year based on closures."" When PolitiFact asked about Tillis’ position on the bankruptcy option, Tillis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said: ""Sen. Tillis has never advocated for any state or municipality to go bankrupt as a result of COVID-19, has already delivered billions of dollars in relief to North Carolina, and has consistently said that he supports providing targeted assistance for communities that have been impacted by the virus."" Cunningham tweeted, ""Mitch McConnell said he wanted states to go bankrupt instead of the federal government providing relief. Today, Thom Tillis agreed."" The tweet lacks so much context that it’s several degrees removed from what’s actually been said. McConnell wasn’t talking about just any states, he was talking about states that were in poor financial shape before the coronavirus outbreak. Additionally, McConnell said he supported bankruptcy as a novel option for states, particularly for those with pre-existing pension liabilities. Tillis said he agreed with McConnell ""more or less."" He agreed that Congress shouldn’t pay for revenue losses that aren’t related to the coronavirus outbreak. But Tillis never actually said he wanted states to go bankrupt. And he said he will consider federal aid for smaller governments on a case-by-case basis. Cunningham’s tweet exaggerates what McConnell said and misrepresents what Tilils has said about federal coronavirus aid. It contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression." Claim: Mitch McConnell said he wanted states to go bankrupt instead of the federal government providing relief. Today, Thom Tillis agreed.

SOLUTION: 0

PROBLEM: Paragraph: Officials discovered that there were 182 intravenous drug users who were affected in Lowell and Lawrence between 2015 and 2019, The Boston Globe reported. The number of cases dropped after the summer of 2018 after a campaign to increase access to treatment. There were six new cases diagnosed in Boston in December 2018 before a similar campaign was launched, and cases dropped down until fall of 2019. “We do seem to see a growing number of very, very vulnerable people with substance use disorder, with injection drug use, in great need for care,” said Dr. Jennifer K. Brody, director of HIV services at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. The state has increased the number of needle exchanges from five in 2015 to 33, in an attempt to provide clean injection supplies and training, the paper reported. Infections among people who inject drugs declined 91% between 2000 and 2014. “What we’re seeing is the need for much more aggressive street outreach,” said Carl Sciortino, vice president of government relations for Fenway Health. Claim: Officials alert health care providers of HIV surge.

SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "During a Senate appropriations Feb. 25 subcommittee hearing, Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, said the U.S. flu mortality rate was about the same as the current estimated global mortality rate of the coronavirus outbreak. He made this statement during an exchange with Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) regarding what the acting secretary knew about the coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19. This C-SPAN video shows the full discussion between the two. Kennedy first asked what the worldwide mortality rate for coronavirus is, to which Wolf responded, that it was ""under 2%"" but that he would need to check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get the actual figure and that ""it changes daily."" The Louisiana senator then asked, ""What’s the mortality rate for influenza over, say, the last 10 years in America?"" Wolf answered: ""It’s also right around that percentage as well. I don’t have that offhand, but it’s right around 2% as well."" We asked the Department of Homeland Security where Wolf’s figure came from. A DHS spokesperson said in an email, ""As the acting secretary said in his hearing, he did not have that information on hand and refers to Health and Human Services -- the federal agency in charge of the federal government’s coronavirus response."" The comparison of coronavirus to flu in terms of mortality rates seemed like an important mechanism to understanding the growing concern about the reach of coronavirus, so we decided to dig deeper to find out if these statistics hold up. We also asked experts to explain what the numbers mean in terms of risk. Digging into mortality rate numbers The CDC directed us to its online influenza resources and referred us to the World Health Organization for more information on coronavirus. Christopher Mores, a global health professor at George Washington University, helped make sense of some of the figures. He calculated the average, 10-year mortality rate for flu using CDC data and found it was 0.1%. That 0.1% rate is frequently cited among experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, called it ""sort of the canonical seasonal influenza mortality figure."" It’s important to note, that although this percentage seems like a small number, influenza is responsible for an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 deaths annually. Now, for coronavirus. According to statistics released Feb. 17 by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the mortality rate for coronavirus was 2.3%. That’s based on cases reported through Feb. 11 and calculated by dividing the numbers of coronavirus-related deaths at the time (1,023) by the number of the confirmed cases (44,672) of the coronavirus. (These numbers reflect the information available at the time of the secretary’s testimony.) But this report has limitations, Mores said, including the vague way Chinese officials are defining who has been infected by the coronavirus. ""We have not been able to understand what precisely has gone on there,"" said Mores. ""They have changed their case definitions multiple times. It’s murky what has gone into the case count and who has gone into being counted on cases."" The WHO said in a press conference Monday that in Wuhan, China, the city where the virus first hit, the mortality rate ranged from 2% to 4%. Officials said that in the rest of China, outside of Wuhan, the mortality rate of coronavirus is 0.7%. Mike Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the mortality rate in China has since risen to 0.9%. Right now he doesn’t see a similarity in the flu mortality rate and the coronavirus mortality rate. ""We don’t have any evidence to that being the case,"" said Osterholm. Mores said U.S. health officials just don’t have enough information to know whether the two mortality rates are similar. Understanding this comparison would offer a means to better understand the severity of the coronavirus. It could also help in educating the public about the novel illness. ""Until we can gain our own experience with this virus, it’s going to be pretty squishy. So, all the numbers that you have come across here are within the range of possibility,"" he said. ""Absolutely, the hope is we will end up with something similar to the flu, but we just don’t know yet."" Multiple experts told us that the number of coronavirus cases not just in China but worldwide has probably been undercounted because many people with the infection do not suffer serious symptoms and may not seek medical treatment. It is possible that only those who have tested positive are being counted as ""confirmed cases."" Until the case definition is expanded, they said, to include people clinicians think may have COVID-19 but who were not tested for it, then the total estimated number of cases will remain lower than the likely reality. But, if the number of cases widens to include those with mild symptoms who have not been tested, then the mortality rate will go down. This is the way mortality rates are calculated for the flu, said Mores. The numbers of flu illnesses and deaths are estimates based not only on positive flu tests, but also on doctors’ suspicions and symptomatic diagnosis. One key difference between the flu and the coronavirus illness, Osterholm cautioned, is that, with the flu, the population has a partially built up immunity, whether through receiving flu shots or already having been exposed to the illness. Mores concurred. ""You know, the risk is this: We have a brand-new virus in a completely naive population on Earth, we’re all susceptible to it. Everyone is potentially infectable with this virus,"" he said. ""Even with a high transmission rate and the low case fatality rate, that still becomes a massive number of ill and fatal cases."" Our ruling There are two ways to parse out this claim: First, is it true that the average U.S. mortality rate for flu is 2%? That’s not true, according to data from the CDC and exchanges with multiple global health experts. On average, the flu mortality rate during the past 10 years has been 0.1%. In addition, Wolf and a DHS spokesperson admitted that the acting secretary did not have the statistics in front of him when he answered questions at the hearing about the mortality rates. Second, is it true the COVID-19 mortality rate is similar to the flu mortality rate? Wolf is also wrong on that account, based on the limited information currently known about the coronavirus. Recent data from the Chinese government set the COVID-19 mortality rate at 2.3%. That’s vastly different from the flu’s mortality rate of 0.1%. Experts also said that while it’s possible the mortality rate from the new virus could come close to the flu’s mortality rate eventually ― if the case definition of coronavirus is expanded -- it’s too soon to make that assumption with the limited information available." Claim: The mortality rate for the flu is “right around” that of the new coronavirus: “It’s right around 2%.”

SOLUTION:
0