President Trump has repeated his false claim that the United States is handling the coronavirus crisis better than European countries.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Mr Trump incorrectly stated that his administration’s Covid-19 figures compared favourably with those currently being recorded by governments across the Atlantic.
“Now they’re having a big outbreak in Europe. They just had a big outbreak in all different parts of Europe. Everyone said what a great job they did, and they had a great outbreak. Our numbers are much better than Europe,” he claimed.
Whilst coronavirus cases have seen a resurgence in most European countries, the number of cases and deaths per day and the transmission rate is currently far higher in the United States, when adjusted to account for population size.
Mr Trump has often countered questioning over his handling of the pandemic at home by criticising other countries, most notably China. On the campaign trail ahead of the November presidential election, however, the president has taken to amplifying fears of a possible second wave in Europe.
“Other countries are doing terribly. Did you see the statistics of us compared to other countries? Compared to Europe?” he asked his supporters in Nevada.
In fact, the United States has reported an average of 120 daily cases per million people over the past week, more than double the average in Europe. Spain and France, with respective rates of 209 and 128 daily cases per million people, are the only European countries large enough for comparison which are faring worse than the United States. France’s rate is only slightly higher, undermining Mr Trump’s pretensions to be performing “much better”.
As far as mortality is concerned, the United States reported 27 daily deaths per 10 million people over the past week, whereas the Europe-wide figure is six, four and a half times fewer, according to the University of Oxford’s comparisons.
