US election 2020: Fact-checking Trump and Biden on the campaign trail

On the latest stage of the campaign trail Donald Trump has been addressing a rally in Pennsylvania, whilst Joe Biden has been reaching out to older voters in Florida.

We fact-checked some of the most recent claims from the rival candidates.

Verdict: The WHO did not say "Trump was right" and has not singled out the United States for praise in its handling of the pandemic.

President Trump appears to be referring to comments made by Dr David Nabarro, special envoy to the World Health Organisation, about lockdown measures.

Mr Trump said in August that the imposition of lockdowns "would ultimately inflict more harm than it would prevent".

Dr Nabarro said lockdowns should be the last resort for controlling the spread of the virus. "We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus," he said.

However, he added that lockdowns are justified for buying time to "reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted".

Dr Nabarro did not refer to Mr Trump or to his handling of the pandemic in the US.

Verdict: Prescription drug prices did jump following the Trump administration's tax cut in 2017, but they have since dropped.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI) - which measures the cost of household items in the US - the average cost of prescription drugs grew in 2017 and 2018, the year to September.

But the average annual drug costs fell by 1% in the year to September 2019. This was the first price decrease over the 12-month period since 1973.

While average drug prices rose by around 1.5% over the following year, under President Trump the average rises have been lower than under President Obama.

The CPI is not necessarily the most reliable way to measure drug prices - as it mainly includes widely-used drugs, which are usually cheaper.

Verdict: The WHO says there's insufficient evidence to know whether you get immunity after having Covid-19, nor for how long.

After being treated for coronavirus, President Trump left hospital and his doctor has since said he's "no longer considered a transmission risk to others".

Since then the president has claimed on a number of occasions that he's immune from getting the virus again or passing it on.

However, the World Health Organization says there is currently insufficient data to know whether the antibodies produced by the body to fight off the virus offer protection against being re-infected, nor how long such protection might last.

Some studies have shown that the antibodies may disappear after three months.

Patients who have had mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic with Covid-19 also tend to have low levels of antibodies. For some people, the antibodies are at undetectable levels.

A recent study showing a man from Nevada caught Covid-19 twice has raised questions about how much immunity can be built up against the virus.

The BBC's health and science correspondent, James Gallagher, has written more about coronavirus immunity here.

Verdict: We don't have complete data for race-related mortality, but independent research does support his claim.

Mr Biden appears to be quoting a statistic from the APM Research Lab, which tracks the impact of Covid-19 on minorities using official data and modelling.

They found that 1 in 1,020 Black Americans had died from the virus.

That would put the number of deaths at around 48,000.

The APM research indicates that African-Americans are considerably more at risk from dying of Covid-19 than other groups. For Latino Americans the figure 1 in 1,540, for White Americans it's 1 in 2,150, and for Asian Americans, 1 in 2,470.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) gives similar ratios. It says that from the available data African-Americans are just over twice as likely to die than white people from coronavirus.

The current total number of reported US deaths is just under 216,000.

Verdict: The president is right on the number of factories but his figure on manufacturing jobs is exaggerated. These are peak figures that have fallen since the onset of the pandemic.

It's true there were just under 15,000 more manufacturing establishments (factories) in the first three months of this year compared to the first quarter of 2017 when President Trump moved into the White House.

The is part of a longer term trend, and the number of factories had been steadily increasing since 2013.

On manufacturing jobs, the president somewhat exaggerates the figures. There were just under 500,000 more jobs in this sector in February, before the pandemic struck, compared with when he took office.

According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics for September, there are now 164,000 fewer manufacturing jobs compared to the start of the Trump administration.

Verdict: Experts say it's true this group would not face income tax rises, but they also say some wages could fall under Mr Biden's plan.

According to assessments by tax specialists collected by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRFB), it's true this group of earners - making up about 98.5% of Americans - will not be taxed more under Mr Biden's plan.

However, these specialists also suggest that over time, wages could be supressed as a result of the higher rates of corporation tax that Mr Biden is proposing.

The CFRFB estimates that factoring this in could lead to lower income earners being slightly worse off in the longer run.

The Tax Policy Foundation says middle income earners (between $53,000 and $92,000) could be poorer on average by $230 in 2021.

Those in the top 1% would see tax go up by an average of $299,000.

The Tax Policy Foundation estimates that 93% of the tax increases would fall on the top 20% of earners under Mr Biden's plan.

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