Jacinda Ardern hits back at Trump over COVID remark, calls his statement 'patently wrong'

After the United States President Donald Trump claimed that New Zealand is seeing a "surge" in COVID-19 cases, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hit back by calling him “patently wrong”. Reports suggest that Trump enraged the people of New Zealand when he told people in Minnesota that the South Pacific country of 5 million people which had earlier succeeded in battling the virus, is now in the grip of a "terrible" upsurge in COVID-19 cases. On August 18, New Zealand reported 13 new infections, taking the toll to 1,293, with 22 deaths. However, the US has more than 5.2 million cases with 170,000 deaths. 

Read: New Zealand Authorities Say New COVID-19 Wave Did Not Come From Frozen Food Items

NZ PM hits back at Trump

According to reports, while addressing the crowd at Minnesota, Trump asked the people if they knew what was happening in New Zealand. He said that a few days back they were on the front page of newspapers for battling the virus because they wanted to show him something. He added that the situation is now terrible and nobody wants that.

Hitting back at Trump, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that there is no comparison between a few new cases in New Zealand and the "tens of thousands" in the United States. She said, people who are following the transmission of coronavirus know that one cannot compare nine cases a day to thousands of cases in a day. He called Trump “patently wrong”. Prime Minister Ardern called New Zealand as one of the best-performing countries in fighting the virus. 

Read: New Zealand PM Jacinda Arden Suggests Shorter Working Week Post-lockdown

According to reports, New Zealand`s death rate stands one of the lowest in the world at about 0.44 per 100,000 people. Even though New Zealand has set a benchmark in fighting the pandemic, it recently reported a surge in cases. New Zealand's health authorities reported 13 new coronavirus cases on August 18, including a maintenance worker at a hotel quarantine facility in Auckland. Although the origin of the new cluster still remains unknown, the initial investigation pointed out frozen food arriving in the country. However, in the aftermath of investigations, authorities revealed that the virus had not come through chilled services or material arriving from overseas at an Auckland facility. 

Read: US: Whitmer Touts Biden, Rips Trump On Virus Response

Also Read: New Zealand Director-General Of Health Reports 9 News Virus Cases

(Image Credits: AP/Unsplash)