President Donald Trump, on Sunday, said the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States was exaggerated.
In a tweet, Trump blamed the alleged exaggeration on the “ridiculous method of determination” by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low.
“‘When in doubt, call it COVID.’ Fake News!”, the tweet reads.
But health experts, including the country’s top infectious disease professional, Dr Anthony Fauci, quickly countered the president’s claim.
“There’s no running away from the numbers”, Fauci said in an interview with ABC News shortly after Trump’s tweet.
“It’s something that we absolutely got to grasp and get our arms around and turn that inflexion down by very intensive adherence to the public health measures, uniformly, throughout the country, with no exception.
“The deaths are real deaths. All you need to do is go out into the trenches. Go to the hospitals and see what the health care workers are dealing with.
“They are under very stressful situations in many areas of the country. The hospital beds are stretched, people are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel, who are exhausted,” he said.
As of Saturday, the country’s COVID-19 cases had topped 20.4 million with 350,775 deaths, according to John Hopkins University.
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The country also set another daily record of 299,087 cases and 2,398 fatalities on Saturday.
Also, reacting to Trump’s claim, U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, said he had no reason to doubt the country’s Covid-19 fatality data.
Meanwhile, Trump in another tweet on Sunday, complained that the U.S. media was not giving him credit for his work on the pandemic.
“Somehow Dr Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job.
“Yet, he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?”, he said.