Conspiracy backed by Sen. Ernst is wrong, doctors are not inflating America’s COVID-19 death toll for cash

Earlier this week, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst became the first member of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” to embrace an online conspiracy theory that seeks to minimize the danger of COVID-19 by claiming only a few thousand Americans have died from the virus — not the 185,000 reported by state and local health agencies and hospitals.