Coronavirus: India doesn’t ‘exactly give a straight count’ on Covid-19 deaths, says Donald Trump

Coronavirus update: US President Donald Trump has claimed that India, China, and Russia “did not exactly give a straight count” on deaths due to the deadly Coronavirus. President Trump made this allegation during the first of three traditional US Presidential debates with Democratic nominee Joe Biden. ”When you talk about [deaths linked to COVID-19] numbers, you don’t know how many people died in China. You don’t know the deaths in Russia or in India… they don’t exactly give you a straight count, just so you understand,” Trump said while retorting to Biden who underlined that the United States has more than 70 lakh COVID-19 cases and over 200,000 deaths so far, as per The Indian Express report.

This is not the first time that the US President has taken a jibe at India pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic. “We have tested close to 65 million people and no country is even close to that number. India would be second at 11 million (tests) and they have 1.5 billion people. We have the number one testing in the world by far and also the highest quality tests,” Trump was quoted as saying by ANI in a report in August. In April, President Trump said, “We have done more testing than all of these countries combined –France, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Austria, Australia, Sweden, and Canada.” In June, President Trump had claimed that countries like India and China would have much more Coronavirus cases than America if they conducted more tests. Trump had also said that the US has conducted 40 million more tests than the next closest nation which is India, according to a PTI report.

In India, the total Coronavirus case tally stood at 62,25,764 including 9,40,441 active cases, 51,87,826 cured, discharged, migrated and 97,497 deaths, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on September 30. The Case Fatality Rate stood at 1.57 per cent. Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has stated that a total of 7,41,96,729 samples have been tested for COVID19, up to September 29. Of these, 10,86,688 samples were tested on September 30.

In the global coronavirus case tally, the US is leading the chart with 71,91,061 COVID-19 cases followed by India. In the global deaths, the US has 2,05,998 deaths, followed by Brazil (1,42,921) and India, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.