United States (US) President Donald Trump on Saturday cast doubt on the accuracy ofChina’s official coronavirus death toll claiming that the actual figures are ‘way ahead’ of the US.
Speaking to the media at the White House, Trump said that the US is not the world’s ‘number one’ country in terms of COVID-19 deaths.
“We are not number one, China is number one just so you understand. They are way ahead of us in terms of death. It’s not even close,” he added.
According to Trump, when highly-developed healthcare systems of the UK, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain had high fatality rates, it was 0.33 in China.
The US president also termed the official coronavirus death toll in China as ‘unrealistic’ and added that the actual number of lives lost due to the deadly virus is much higher in China.
“You know it, I know it and they know it, but you don’t want to report it. Why? You will have to explain that. Someday I will explain it,” he said.
Trump also said that China could suffer consequences if it was ‘knowingly responsible’ for the coronavirus pandemic.
“If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake.But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, then there should be consequences,” Trump said.
Trump also said that the whole world is suffering due to coronavirus and it could have been stopped in China before it started.
The US president’s comments came just days after China’s Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, had increased its death toll by 50 per cent than that which was reported earlier.
Over 35,000 people have died in the US due to COVID-19, according to John Hopkins University tally.
The death toll in China is 4,632 with no fatalities reported on Saturday, according to China’s National Health Commission.