Jacinda Ardern hits back as Trump slams New Zealand‘s ’big surge’ in COVID-19 cases
NZ PM Jacinda Ardern has two words for US President Trump after he slammed the country’s “terrible” surge in COVID-19 cases.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has hit back at President Trump’s comments that the country was seeing a “surge” in COVID-19 cases, calling it “patently wrong.”
“Obviously it’s patently wrong,” she said about the US leader’s statement, defending New Zealand’s record as one of the best in the world at tackling the virus.
It comes after National leader Judith Collins pressed the Labour leader in parliament, with Ardern admitting authorities had not yet established the source of the new outbreak, despite ruling out it being transported by freight from Australia.
US President Donald Trump said he doesn’t want to see a “big surge” of COVID-19 cases like “what’s going on in New Zealand” where nine new infections were recorded on Monday.
The United States recorded 41,893 new coronavirus cases and 654 new deaths on August 17 compared to the previous day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The US has also recorded more cases of coronavirus than the entire population of New Zealand since the pandemic began.
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Mr Trump made the remarks while speaking to a throng of supporters at a rally in Mankato, Minnesota.
He claimed his presidential election opponent Joe Biden “wants to lock all Americans in their basement for months on end”.
“By contrast my administration is following data-driven and science-based approaches that apply to common sense mitigation, aggressively sheltering those at greatest risk, our seniors, we have to shelter them, and deliver effective medical treatments to save thousands and thousands of lives,” he said.
“And when you look at the rest of the world, you know they were trying to say, ‘Oh, we weren’t doing that.’
“The places that they were using to hold up, they’re having a big surge, and I don’t want that, I don’t want that.
“But they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops’.
"All of a sudden a lot of the places they were using to hold up, they are having a big surge ... New Zealand, you see what's going on in New Zealand" -- New Zealand had nine (9!) new Covid cases today. The US had more than 42,000.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2020
The outbreaks are not comparable. pic.twitter.com/T8ugmKK6aa
“In fact even New Zealand, do you see what’s going on in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front page, they beat it, because they wanted to show me something.
“The problem is, big surge in New Zealand so you know, it’s terrible, we don’t want that.
“But this is an invisible enemy that should have never been let to come to this country, to Europe or the rest of the world by China. Just remember it, just remember it.”
The were 13 new cases announced in New Zealand on Tuesday – hours after Mr Trump’s comments.
Earlier this year, the country initiated a hard lockdown under level-four restrictions for a month and the World Health Organisation hailed it as an example to others for having “successfully eliminated community transmission”.
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The Ministry of Health on Tuesday reported there are 90 active cases in New Zealand, 69 of which are from the recent community outbreak and 20 are imported cases in managed isolation and quarantine facilities.
The Auckland cluster was first reported by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last Tuesday, who reinstated restrictions after the country went 102 days with no known local transmission.
She has since extended them until August 26 with a review to take place later this week.
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Twelve of the 13 new cases reported on Tuesday are linked to previous cases in the cluster, and the outstanding case is under investigation, with 98 people including the 44 who have tested positive and their household contacts moved into a quarantine facility in Auckland.
There are six people receiving hospital care in New Zealand for COVID-19.
New Zealand, with an estimated population of about 5.03 million people, has reported 1293 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.
The United States, with a population of more than 330 million people, has recorded more than 5.3 million cases of coronavirus.
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