Washington: The United States is leading the world in terms of COVID-19 testing and India is second, President Donald Trump has said. Donald Trump made such a comment while warning Americans that the pandemic may ‘get worse before it gets better’.
Over 1,40,000 Americans have died due to the coronavirus and 3.8 million have tested positive in the US. While the US economy is slowly coming back to normal, the pandemic is now spreading in many Sun Belt states, including in Arizona, Florida, Texas and parts of California.
“As one family, we mourn every precious life that’s been lost. I pledge in their honour that we will develop a vaccine and we will defeat the virus. We’re doing very well with vaccine development and therapeutic development,” Trump said at a White House news conference Tuesday. This was his first presser on coronavirus after several weeks.
Trump’s daily news conferences ended soon after he suggested in April that the virus might be treated by injecting disinfectant into people. For this comment he was scorned by doctors, scientists and political rivals.
Trump insisted the American response to the pandemic was ‘much better’ than in other places. But he also warned that the disease could get worse in the coming days. “It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better,” he said.
Cases are surging in several US states, particularly in southern states that were initially reluctant to enforce lockdowns. Also these states were not ready mandate the wearing of masks.
Florida is currently the epicentre of the US epidemic. In recent weeks, hospitals across Florida warned that their ICUs were at capacity and that they were unable to accept any new patients. Trump said his administration will stop at nothing to save lives and shield the vulnerable. “We’ve learned so much about this disease. And we know who the vulnerable are, and we are going to indeed shield them,” he said.
Trump assured that the vaccines against the novel coronavirus will be coming a lot sooner than expected.
Replying to a question, Trump said the US is ‘leading the world’ in terms of COVID-19 testing. “We’re going to be over 50 million tests,” he asserted. “The second country is India with 12 million (tests). Then you have seven million, six million, and four million. I think that we are doing a tremendous amount of testing,” the US president added.
The ‘China virus’, Trump said, is a vicious and dangerous illness. “It’s a nasty, horrible disease that should have never been allowed to escape China, but it did. It infected the world, and the world is suffering. But we’re going to get it taken care of. We’re also helping lots of other countries,” the US president asserted.
On tackling the virus, Trump said his administration is developing a powerful strategy.
“We’ve learned a great deal about it (COVID-19) and who it targets. We are in the process of developing a strategy that’s going to be very, very powerful,” Trump informed. “Some areas of our country are doing very well; others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better,” Trump added.