Trump claims other countries are hiding COVID-19 deaths even as US accounts for 22% of global toll
With the US having raced to the top in terms of people affected and dead from the coronavirus, President Donald Trump has come up with a bizarre theory. According to the 73-year-old, other countries were hiding their actual number of deaths as the situation in the US continued to head south.
With over 637,000 people on its soil getting infected and more than 30,000 dead, the US is leading every other nation. The US now has 31 percent of the total affected globally (over two million now) and over 22 percent of the total fatalities (almost 137,000). The US is home to only 4.25 percent of the world population.
When a reporter from Daily Mail asked the president about the US’ shocking figures at the press briefing at the White House on Wednesday, April 15, the latter retorted saying: “Do you think you're getting honest numbers from some of these countries? Do you really believe the numbers of some of these countries?”
Trump was particularly critical of China, which he has been attacking consistently for having allowed the virus to spread around the world. “Do you think the numbers in this vast country called China - they have a certain number of cases - does anybody really believe that?” Trump asked.
While the coronavirus reportedly originated from a wet market in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province of China, the Asian powerhouse has been accused of not being transparent enough to alert the world about the impending danger. China officially checked the spread as over 83,000 people have been hit there with just around 3,300 deaths after an initial surge but those figures have come under questioning and Beijing has been accused of covering up the real spread of the pandemic.
'US reporting every fact'
Trump said the US was reporting all facts on its coronavirus scenario. “We report everything, we report the cases and our reporting is good, we are reporting every death,” he said.
“Some countries that are in big trouble and they are not reporting the facts. All I know is we report the facts and we are a country that's getting better,” he added, claiming that the US has now gone past its peak in the coronavirus cases.
The US saw a massive surge in the outbreak last month and overtook Italy last weekend to have the highest death toll from coronavirus. Italy now has over 21,000 deaths while Spain is next with its tally nearing 19,000.
On the question of reopening the country which is witnessing an unprecedented slump in its economy, Trump said the governors of various states were eager to soften social distancing measures. His relation with the state leaderships came under focus recently after he said it was the president’s authority to decide when to reopen the country. “You already know we'll be opening up some states, some states much sooner than others and we think that some states can actually open up before the deadline May 1,” he said.
On Tuesday, April 14, however, Dr Anthony Fauci, a key member of Trump’s coronavirus task force but not too popular with the right-wing, said that the May 1 deadline was “a bit overly optimistic” and that the US was “not there yet”.