Logo

Logo

‘We are not, China is number one:’ Trump calls Beijing’s revised death toll figures ‘unrealistic’

Trump’s comments come two days after Wuhan city, which remained the epicentre of Coronavirus outbreak for a long time, on Friday abruptly raised its death toll by 50 per cent, admitting that many fatal cases were “mistakenly reported” or missed entirely, bringing the total number of deaths in the city to 3,869.

‘We are not, China is number one:’ Trump calls Beijing’s revised death toll figures ‘unrealistic’

US President Donald Trump asserted that the actual number was much more than the official Chinese death toll figures, which he said were "unrealistic". (Photo: Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images/AFP)

The President of United States (US) Donald Trump has expressed his doubts over the official Chinese figures on the number of deaths in their country due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, claiming that the fatalities were way ahead of America,  he said, “We are not number one; China is number one just so you understand.”

Trump’s comments come two days after Wuhan city, which remained the epicentre of Coronavirus outbreak for a long time, on Friday abruptly raised its death toll by 50 per cent, admitting that many fatal cases were “mistakenly reported” or missed entirely, bringing the total number of deaths in the city to 3,869.

The Wuhan administration took to social media and posted that it had added 1,290 deaths to the tally in the city.

Advertisement

This change has raised the nationwide death toll up by nearly 39 per cent to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier on Friday.

“We are not number one; China is number one just so you understand,” Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Saturday. “They are way ahead of us in terms of death. It”s not even close,” Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Saturday.

According to Trump, when highly-developed healthcare systems of the UK, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain had high fatality rates, it was O.33 in China.

US President asserted that the actual number was much more than the official Chinese death toll figures, which he said were “unrealistic”.

“You know it, I know it and they know it, but you don”t want to report it. Why?” he asked. “You will have to explain that. Someday I will explain it.”

He also highlighted that on a per-capita basis, the mortality rate in the US was far lower than other nations of Western Europe.

Earlier, Trump on Friday claimed that the actual number of fatalities from Coronavirus in the city was “far higher” and that it was “not even close”.

“China has just announced a doubling in the number of their deaths from the Invisible Enemy. It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!” Trump had tweeted.

Advertisement