Minutes after acknowledging that the United States has reached a "sad milestone" of 100,000 deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump has called coronavirus "a very bad gift" from China.
Taking to Twitter, Trump said, "All over the World the CoronaVirus, a very bad “gift” from China, marches on. Not good!"
Earlier, Trump extended his sympathies to families and friends those who lost their loved ones. "We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000. To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!" he tweeted.
Earlier, Trump had urged China to be transparent about the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak. “We want them to be transparent. We want to find out what happened so it never happens again,” he said.
He had also speculated that China could have unleashed the coronavirus on the world due to some kind of horrible “mistake". He also blamed China for its handling of the outbreak, criticizing the country for restricting domestic travel to slow the virus but not international travel to keep it from spreading abroad. “Certainly it could have been stopped," Trump said. "They either couldn’t do it from a competence standpoint, or they let it spread. It got loose, let's say, and they could have capped it," he added.
Meanwhile, the US death toll stands at 100,276, according to Johns Hopkins University. Globally there have been 5.6 million people recorded as infected and 354,983 deaths since the virus emerged.
