Coronavirus: US passes China with the most COVID-19 cases in the world
The United States has passed Italy and China and now has the most coronavirus cases in the world.
The United States now has the most confirmed cases of coronavirus in the world.
The New York Times revealed the shift on Thursday (local time), citing a tally based on its own data gathering.
With at least 81,321 cases of infection, the country of 330 million people passed the virus hot spots of China – where the outbreak began in the city of Wuhan – and Italy to reach the grim milestone.
More than 1000 people have also died in the US.
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The US is also now leading the tally on the map of the world’s cases created by John Hopkins University in Maryland, which reports 82,404 cases, ahead of China on 81,782 and Italy on 80,589.
However, President Donald Trump cast doubt on this, saying “you don’t know what the numbers are in China.”
He said he will speak by phone with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later on Thursday night. Mr Trump said the two leaders would be discussing the global pandemic and insisted they have a “very good relationship.”
But he also touched on a nasty row that has erupted in both countries over blame for the disease.
Mr Trump has made a point of repeatedly calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” because it first blew up in the city of Wuhan, angering some in China and sparking accusations of race-baiting at home.
The president said he is pushing back because a Chinese foreign ministry official had led a conspiracy theory that US soldiers brought the virus to China.
“No it came from China,” he underlined Thursday, although adding, “if they feel so strongly about it, we’ll see.”
Aside from coronavirus and the massive economic fallout resulting from mass social distancing strategies around the world, Mr Trump and Mr Xi are likely to discuss plans to negotiate a new trade agreement between the world’s two biggest economies.
Mr Trump suggested the possibility that Mr Xi may “want to wait” until after the US presidential election in November “to see if Trump gets beaten.”
According to Mr Trump, his likely Democratic opponent Joe Biden would be Beijing’s “best dream in the world” when it comes to negotiating.
Earlier, he joined other G20 leaders via video link to hear from the World Health Organisation’s Director-General.
“You have come together to confront the defining health crisis of our time,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“We are at war with a virus that threatens to tear us apart - if we let it.“
On Tuesday, Mr Trump astonished American doctors when he said he said he wanted to reopen the US in a matter of weeks.
“I would love to have it open by Easter. I would love to have that. It’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’d love to make it an important day for this,” he said on Fox News.
More than 510,000 people have been infected with COVID-19 across the globe.
With wires
Breaking News: The U.S. now has the world’s most reported coronavirus cases with 81,321, according to New York Times data. Over 1,000 deaths in the country have been linked to the virus.https://t.co/cDKChtKUvu
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 26, 2020
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