Trump again claims New Zealand has ‘big outbreak’ of covid-19

Politicians react to US President Donald Trump’s earlier mocking of New Zealand. Video: RNZ News

US President Donald Trump has again called New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster a “big outbreak” after two days ago describing it as “a big surge”.

At a White House media conference today he said: “New Zealand, by the way, 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’ve done an incredible job.

“They’re having a lot of outbreaks but they’ve been able to put them out and we’ll put them out.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday she couldn’t see any real comparison with America’s tens of thousands of daily cases.

New Zealand reported five new cases today, while the US had close to 40,000 yesterday.

“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.

The US President’s comments fail to reflect that overall New Zealand has counted 1643 covid-19 cases and 22 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The US has documented more than 5.4 million covid-19 cases – more than entire population of New Zealand – and more than 171,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The mortality rate in New Zealand amounts to 0.45 deaths per 100,000 people, while in the US the rate reaches 52 deaths per 100,000 people.

Is your cap fitted? No: pic.twitter.com/MmRN5PMOaH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2020

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

All RNZ coverage of covid-19
If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.

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