Chip Somodevilla / Getty
President Donald Trump on Monday called New Zealand’s new COVID-19 outbreak “terrible”, and insisted the country was fighting on a day that saw nine new cases compared to nearly 42,000 new US cases.
Trump made the remarks during a campaign stop in Mankato, Minnesota. He noted that some of the countries that were used as examples of the successful containment of the virus are now experiencing new outbreaks. He suggested that New Zealand’s previous success, as reports on its success, had somehow focused on him.
“Places they used to stop, they have a big turnout, and I do not want that. I do not want that, but they keep names of countries,” Trump said. “And now they say ‘whoops!’ In fact, even New Zealand, do you see what’s going on in New Zealand? They beat it, they defeated it, it was like news on the front page because they want to see me something. a great foundation in New Zealand. “
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“That, you know, it’s terrible,” he added. “We do not want that, but this is an invisible enemy who should never have left to come to this country, to Europe or the rest of the world through China. Just remember that.”
From May to last week, New Zealand went more than 100 days without a single new case of COVID-19 spreading in the community than from an unknown source. There are now 90 active cases, including nine cases reported on Monday and another 13 cases on Tuesday.
New Zealand health authorities are unsure of the origin of the new outbreak, although several possibilities are being investigated. Strict preventive measures have been in place in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.
Even if the responsibility is for the large difference in population, about 5 million in New Zealand against about 330 million in the US, the outbreak of New Zealand is infinite compared to the American outbreak.
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There were 41,893 new cases reported in the U.S. on Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The running total of cases is now more than 5.3 million, including about 170.00 deaths. In New Zealand, there have been 1,643 total cases and only 22 deaths.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday that she’s delaying the country’s parliamentary elections in response to the recent outbreak, from mid-September to mid-October.
Late last month, Trump also pushed for the idea of delaying the November election, although he later backed down after bipartisan rejection of the idea and he does not appear to have any constitutional authority that would allow him to do so unilaterally.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
