President Donald Trump on Saturday railed against the “fake evening news” over reports on the rising COVID-19 case counts across the US.
In a pair of frantic tweets, the president also blamed the coronavirus surges on increased testing as both the U.S. and many states have reported new record totals in recent days.
“Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases,” the president tweeted. “If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News.”
He added that the media has an appetite for reporting on more cases but doesn’t report that “deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down.”
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COVID-19 spikes have popped up across states in recent days including Arizona, Texas and California, and this week, the U.S. reported its highest single-day new case total.
During a campaign rally in Oklahoma last month, Trump suggested that the country should test less so the number of cases wouldn’t increase, a statement his press secretary later said was a joke.
Trump, however, continues to blame testing for the new infections.
….In a certain way, our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. You don’t hear about that from the Fake News, and you never will. Anybody need any Ventilators???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2020
Experts have tied the recent dip in mortality to several causes, such as the fact that more young people are being infected now than at the start of the pandemic. But have warned that fatality surges are likely to follow the waves of new cases.
