‘Some wacko...’: Trump lashes out at Beijing again

WASHINGTON:US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ratcheted up his attacks on China, claiming that its “incompetence” caused the Covid-19 pandemic, describing the episode as a “mass worldwide killing”.

The US president has increasingly targeted China in an apparent bid to shift the blame for the high number of infections and fatalities in America, and the economic downturn triggered by coronavirus-related curbs.

Referring to a statement issued by what he called “some wacko in China”, Trump tweeted, “It was the ‘incompetence of China’, and nothing else, that did this mass worldwide killing!”

The US president has called for an independent investigation into the origin of the outbreak in Wuhan in China last December and Beijing’s attempts to downplay the exact extent of the crisis with the alleged complicity of the World Health Organization.

INCREASED TESTING IS A ‘BADGE OF HONOUR’

With all 50 states of the country set to reopen partially, Trump on Tuesday said that he considered it a “badge of honour” that the US has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world - at about 1.5 million - arguing that it was a testimony to increased testing.

Critics, however, pounced on the remark, interpreting that Trump was taking credit for the country recording the highest number of infections.

“So when we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing; I look at that, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better,” Trump said. “I view it as a badge of honour. Really, it’s a badge of honour.” The US, which recorded 1,574 deaths in the last 24 hours, has so far tested 12.6 million people.