Donald Trump has claimed the number of Covid-19 casualties in America is “far exaggerated” as the US coronavirus death toll passed 350,000.
He wrote: "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!"
He also said vaccines are being delivered to individual states by the federal Government “far faster than they can be administered!”
President Trump’s claims were disputed by Anthony Fauci who said: “The deaths are real deaths.”
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases added that jam-packed hospitals and stressed-out healthcare workers are “not fake. That’s real.”
He also commented on the vaccine roll-out, saying: “We wanted to get to 20 million, but some glimmer of hope is that in the last 72 hours, they’ve gotten 1.2 million doses into peoples’ arms, which is an average of about 500,000 a day.“
We are not where we want to be. There’s no doubt about that. But I think we can get there.”
Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows the US passed the 350,000 deaths threshold early on Sunday morning.
More than 20 million people in the country have reported to have been infected, double the number of cases in the second worst affected country, India.
The US has begun using two coronavirus vaccines to protect health care workers and nursing home residents and staff but the rollout of the inoculation programme has been criticised as being slow and chaotic.
Multiple states have reported a record number of cases over the past few days, including North Carolina and Arizona. Mortuary owners in hard-hit Southern California say they’re being inundated with bodies.
