Daily Mail UK|The head of a top Chinese state-run newspaper ridiculed President Trump for suggesting the U.S. now tops the world in coronavirus cases because it’s testing so many people.
‘Don’t you feel embarrassed talking about testing? The US just tested 300,000 people by March 24, while China has tested millions, at least 10 times that of the US or more,’ wrote Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin on Twitter Friday. ‘Your bragging needs treatment.’
Xijin then shared some of Trump’s quotes from his White House press briefing Thursday, in which the president called it a ‘tribute to testing’ when asked to comment on the milestone that the U.S. now had the most coronavirus cases in the world.
‘I think it’s a tribute to the testing,’ Trump told reporters. ‘I’m sure you’re not able to tell what China is testing or not testing, I think that’s a little hard.’
The COVID Tracking Project currently puts the numbers of Americans tested at 540,252 with 82,234 positive results nationally. State data currently has the positives at 86,038.
In an earlier tweet Friday, Xijin placed the blame on Trump and his administration for the surge in American cases.
‘The US quickly became the country with the largest number of infection cases, indicating that many people will die later,’ Xijin wrote. ‘It is unfortunate.’
‘Trump [government] failed to draw lessons from other countries, leading to this situation,’ he continued. ‘They should feel guilty toward Americans and humankind.’
So far, Trump has praised his administration’s response to combatting the virus and pointed fingers at an antiquated system for getting medical testing up to scale. ‘
The president spent weeks calling the coronavirus the ‘Chinese virus’ though has pumped the brakes on that language in recent days, mentioning Monday that Chinese-Americans needed the American people’s respect.
‘It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world,’ Trump tweeted. ‘They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus is NOT their fault in any way, shape or form. They are working closely with us to get rid of it. WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!’
At his press conference Monday he added that, ‘It seems that there could be a little bit of nasty langauge toward the Asian Americans in our country, and I don’t like that at all,’ the president said.
And while the president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have squabbled with Chinese officials over propaganda spreading in China that the virus came from the U.S. Army, Trump praised China’s president in a tweet posted in the early hours of Friday morning.
‘Just fininshed a very good conversation with President Xi of China. Discussed in great detail the CoronaVirus that is ravaging large parts of our planet,’ Trump wrote. ‘China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!’ the president said.