Trump, Biden clash in final debate on COVID-19 response, health care, race

There were supposed to be three.

Thursday night's debate was only the second this cycle after the town hall was canceled when President Donald Trump and nearly two-dozen of his associates contracted COVID-19 and he refused to debate his Democratic opponent Joe Biden virtually.

The president’s personal experience battling the coronavirus may have changed the schedule, but it had little impact on the substance of the debate or how the president talked about the novel coronavirus in the end.

Read more of ABC News Deputy Political Director MaryAlice Parks' analysis here.

20:42

Trump shares how he will lead the country through COVID-19 if reelected

President Donald Trump claims a vaccine will be available very soon. Joe Biden says, “Anyone responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”

ABCNews.com

TRUMP'S CLAIM: Trump said that "the mortality rate is down 85%" for COVID-19 in the United States, and that "the excess mortality rate is way down, and much lower than almost any other country."

FACT CHECK: Although Trump was correct to assert that death rates have fallen significantly since the spring, they are not down by 85%, but rather 62% -- and they are currently trending up again nationwide.

According to public health experts, much of that decline can be attributed to greater testing, better treatment protocols and to a larger number of younger people -- rather than older people -- becoming infected with COVID-19.

Meanwhile, "excess mortality" is an estimate of how many more people are dying than during a normal year, or other time period. It is incorrect to refer to the rate as "way down," since it is estimated that in the United States, there have been many more excess deaths compared to last year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday 299,028 more people had died in the United States from late January to early October than would be expected in a typical year. It attributed 66% of those excess deaths, or 198,081, to COVID-19.

According to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "The US has experienced more deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) than any other country and has one of the highest cumulative per capita death rates."

Analyzing the number of deaths per 100,000 people attributed to the pandemic, the U.S. had 60.3 deaths per 100,000 people. That was higher than Germany (11.3), Canada (24.6) and France (46.6), but lower than Belgium (86.8) and the United Kingdom (62.6), according to the report.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "So as you know, 2.2 million people modelled out were expected to die."

FACT CHECK: It is true that, in the spring, one early model predicted more than 2 million deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, although the model said the death toll would only be that high no attempts were made to control the pandemic. 

During a March 29 White House coronavirus task force press briefing, Trump and White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said that models showed up to 2.2 million people could die from COVID-19 in the United States "if we did nothing," as the president put it.

This was an estimate of potential deaths if neither the government, nor individuals, choose to alter their behavior, despite the pandemic.

The prediction may have been drawn from a model by Neil Ferguson, an epidemiology professor at Imperial College London, which found that an "unmitigated epidemic," could result in "2.2 million (deaths) in the US."

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

After over 90 minutes on the final presidential debate stage, below is ABC’s calculation of the candidates' approximate speaking times:

Trump: 40:36
Biden: 39:24

Here's the time spent on each individual topic including moderator speaking time:

COVID-19: 20:32
National security: 19:55
American families: 21:12
Race in America: 14:02
Climate change: 11:28
Leadership: 4:49

-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh