Trump says India 2nd largest country to conduct COVID-19 tests after US

President Donald Trump has said that the US has conducted the highest number of COVID-19 tests, much more than any other country with India being the second largest. Trump, in his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention which re-nominated him as the Republican Party's presidential candidate, said that the US has conducted 40 million more tests than the next closest nation which is India.

“We developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful antibody treatment known as convalescent plasma,” he said on Thursday night.

“You saw that on Sunday night when we announced that we'll save thousands and thousands of lives. Thanks to advances, we have pioneered the fatality rate. And you look at it and you look at the numbers, it has been reduced by 80 per cent since April,” Trump said.

Trump delivered his speech to a group of over 1,000 supporters on the South Lawn of the White House. Many did not wear face masks and were seated close together. The US is among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world, Trump said.

“The European Union's case fatality rate is nearly three times higher than ours, but you don't hear that. They don't write about that. They don't want to write about that. They don't want you to know those things.

“Altogether, the nations of Europe have experienced a 30 per cent greater increase and excess mortality than the United States,” said the president.

In recent months, the United States and the world has been hit by the once-in-a-century pandemic that China allowed to spread around the globe.

“They could have stopped it but they allowed it to come out. We are grateful to be joined tonight by several of our incredible nurses and first responders. Please stand and accept our profound thanks and gratitude,” he said.

Criticising his Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, Trump said unlike the former vice president, his administration focuses “on the science, the facts and the data” to handle the coronavirus pandemic. “If we had listened to Joe, hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died.,,,," Trump, who had earlier dismissed the pandemic as not a major health issue for the country, said. Many Americans, including him, sadly lost friends and cherished loved ones to this horrible disease, Trump said.

“As one nation, we mourn, we grieve, and we hold in our hearts forever the memories of all of those lives that had been so tragically taken. So unnecessary.

“In their honour, we will unite. In their memory, we will overcome. And when the China virus hit, we launched the largest national mobilisation since World War II. Invoking the Defence Production Act, we produced the world's largest supply of ventilators. Not a single American who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator which is a miracle,” Trump added.

More than 180,000 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic since the start of the outbreak in the US, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 5.8 million cases have also been confirmed nationwide, making America the worst-hit country in the world after the disease emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last year. Trump repeatedly claimed there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, and also implied it could be available sooner.

“We are delivering life-saving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner,” Trump said at one point.

“We will defeat the virus, end the pandemic, and emerge stronger than ever before.

“Nobody thought it could ever be done this fast. We are producing them in advance, so that hundreds of millions of doses will be quickly available," Trump said.

“We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year,” Trump assured, “and together we will crush the virus.” "Unfortunately, from the beginning, our opponents have shown themselves capable of nothing but a partisan ability to criticise," Trump said.

"When I took bold action to issue a travel ban on China, Joe Biden called it hysterical and xenophobic. If we had listened to Joe, hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died," he said.

According to the India’s Union Health Ministry data, India's COVID-19 tally stands at 33,87,500 while the death toll at 61,529. A cumulative total of 3,94,77,848 samples have been tested up to August 27 with 9,01,338 samples being tested on Thursday in India, according to the ministry's data.