America's attitude towards China has "changed greatly" since the coronavirus pandemic hit the country, US President Donald Trump has said, asserting that the Chinese government should have stopped the deadly contagion in Wuhan.
Trump, who has in the past upped the ante against Beijing over its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that the coronavirus should not have hit the world.
"I think our attitude on China has changed greatly since the China virus hit us. I think it changed greatly. They should have been able to stop it. So, we feel differently.," he said.
Last month, Trump said that China must be held fully accountable for its "secrecy, deception and cover-up" that allowed the coronavirus to spread all over the world. China has denied the allegations.
According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the contagion has infected over 18 million people and killed more than 700,000 across the world.
The US is the worst affected country with over 4.7 million cases and more than 1,56,000 deaths.
The COVID-19, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has also battered the world economy with the International Monetary Fund saying that the global economy is bound to suffer a "severe recession".
Trump told reporters that cases are declining in 70 per cent of the jurisdictions, compared to 36 per cent last Monday.
"That's a big, big number. Eleven out of 13 states with the positive rate above 10 per cent have seen a decline in daily cases since mid-July.
"In other states, the data suggests that the need for continuing vigilance always is strong, even though the numbers are getting very good -- states that have a test positivity rate between five and 10 per cent. In the states with the lowest positivity rates, we also see slight increases in daily cases in a couple of them," he said.
Trump said that fatalities nationwide are at roughly half the level of the April peak.
