US President Donald Trump on Thursday called coronavirus “a very bad ‘gift’ from China, as he marked the milestone of 1 lakh US deaths from the pandemic with Twitter posts, each day after the edge was reached and his silence noted.
“We have just reached a really sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000. to all or any of the families & friends of these who have passed, i would like to increase my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!” Mr Trump said.
In a second tweet, he said:
The expression of sympathy came after the voluble Republican president drew criticism in media and on Twitter for his failure to notice the grim milestone that had dominated US news reports on Wednesday.
He also threatened to pack up social media platforms he accused of stifling conservative voices. Twitter on Tuesday had prompted readers to see the facts in tweets sent by Mr Trump, warning that his claims about mail-in ballots were false.
Former vice chairman Joe Biden, Mr Trump’s likely Democratic opponent within the November presidential election, released a video message on Wednesday after tallies showed the novel coronavirus has killed quite 100,000 people.
“There are moments in our history so grim, so heart-rending, that they are forever fixed in each of our hearts as shared grief. Today is one among those moments,” Mr Biden said. “To those hurting, I’m so pitying your loss.”
The ny Times said that the price exceeds the amount folks military combat fatalities in every conflict since the Korean War .
It matches the toll within the US of the 1968 flu pandemic, and it’s approaching the 116,000 killed in another flu outbreak a decade before that, it said.
Donald Trump has repeatedly deflected the blame for the disastrous US response to the crisis, making various accusations against China and therefore the World Health Organization (WHO) including that it tried to dam evidence the virus might be transmitted between people.
