US President Donald Trump has taken a dig at the low COVID-19 tests done by India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking in Morrisville in North Carolina, Trump said that his administration had carried out more COVID-19 tests with a lesser population than what India has done during the ongoing global pandemic.
Trump said, “Over the next three weeks, 1,700 nursing homes will receive an additional 800,000 point-of-care tests. Think of that. The United States has conducted over 52 million tests. That’s more than all of Europe put together, times two. Nobody is even close. And as countries go, it is — as an example, India is up to 11 million tests. We’re going to be very shortly at 55 million tests. India has 1.4 billion people.”
#Trump in Morrisville, #NorthCarolina says with 1.4 billion people, #India tested only 11 million people for #coronavirus… pic.twitter.com/EZZKDcMhjD
— Parthiban Shanmugam (@hollywoodcurry) July 27, 2020
Trump’s potshot at the Indian government came on a day India recorded a record single-day jump of 49,931 COVID-19 cases, taking the country’s positive cases to 14,35,453. Ironically, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded his own government in tackling the global pandemic saying that India was ‘in a much better position than other countries in the fight against COVID-19.’
He said, “India is in a much better position than other countries in the fight against the pandemic due to the right decisions taken at the right time in the country. The world is praising us because of the efforts of the foot soldiers. Our country has come to a point where it does not lack in awareness.”
Launching high-throughput COVID-19 testing facilities. https://t.co/vYSPLHebcD
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 27, 2020
With India recording nearly 50,000 positive cases every day, the country is set to surpass Brazil to become the second worst-hit country by the pandemic in the world. The total number of positive cases recorded in Brazil stands at 2,442,375. The US continues to remain the worst-hit country with 4,287,974 positive cases.
