President Donald Trump has lashed out at countries experiencing an uptick in coronavirus cases across the world, only a day after the US death toll from the disease surpassed 150,000.
The president took to Twitter to criticise countries that are experiencing a renewed surge in infections and hit out at the media’s global coverage of the disease.
“Major China Virus flare-ups in many of the countries that the Fake News was touting as doing so well. Some of these countries are now a disaster,” the president tweeted on Thursday.
“Also, highly inaccurate numbers being reported by many other countries!!!,” he added.
Mr Trump’s complaint comes only a day after the US surpassed 150,000 deaths due to the coronavirus, having amassed almost 4.5 million confirmed cases, accounting for more than a quarter of all global infections.
The total death rate in the country has doubled within three months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Within the first two weeks of July, the US recorded nearly one million new cases, more than were identified in the entire month of June.
The bleak milestone comes as the administration struggle with record rates of unemployment and the ongoing national civil unrest following the death of George Floyd.
Many social media users hit out at the president’s tweet suggesting that he was deflecting from the country’s own surging infection rates and state of national crises.
“The biggest disaster is the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Look at the numbers. So many other countries are doing so much better than us,” one user said.
Others were critical of the presidents’ use of language surrounding the virus. Mr Trump has persistently referred to the pandemic as the “China Virus” since the outbreak began, a label that many say is offensive and rooted in racism.
The president has previously defended the phrase saying: “It’s not racist at all.”
“Stop calling Covid-19 the China Virus. It subjects Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans to hate crimes and brutal acts of violence in this country,” one user commented.
Mr Trump’s comments seemingly refer to the increase in cases being seen in some European countries that initially appeared to have the virus under control.
New daily cases in Spain have risen more than five-fold since the start of July while in France new daily cases have roughly doubled since late June.
Globally cases of the virus are still rising, with countries such as India yet to see the end of its first wave.
The head of the World Health Organisation warned on Monday that the pandemic is “easily the most severe health emergency” the organisation has ever faced.
“The pandemic continues to accelerate,” said Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus. “In the past six weeks the total number of cases has roughly doubled.”
