President Trump again points out New Zealand's fresh coronavirus outbreak
United States President Donald Trump highlighted New Zealand's fresh coronavirus outbreak for the second time this week, while claiming the US has done a good job of containing the virus.
"New Zealand had a big outbreak, and other countries that were held up to try and make us look not as good as we should look, because we have done an incredible job," Trump said at a news briefing on Wednesday.
"They’re having a lot of outbreaks, but they’ll be able to put them out, and we put them out."
New Zealand is currently grappling with a reemergence of cases, which came shortly after the country went more than 100 days with no local transmissions.
On Monday, Trump called New Zealand's surge in Covid-19 cases "terrible."
"Even New Zealand, did you see what's going on in New Zealand? 'They beat it, they beat it.' It was like front page, they beat it, because they wanted to show me something," he said.
In response, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she didn't see any real comparison between her country's current cluster and the tens of thousands of cases that are reported daily in the US.
"Obviously, every country is experiencing its own fight with Covid-19; it is a tricky virus, but not one where I would compare New Zealand's current status to the United States," she said.
"New Zealand's nine cases in a day does not compare to the United States' tens of thousands, and in fact does not compare to most countries in the world. I'm not concerned about people misinterpreting our status."
New cases: New Zealand recorded five new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said on Thursday.
That raises the country's total to 1,304 confirmed infections -- 101 of which remain active. New Zealand has also reported 22 coronavirus-related deaths.
The US has recorded at least 5,527,306 Covid-19 cases, including 173,114 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-08-19-20-intl/index.html
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