Other countries are covering up deaths: Donald Trump

Washington: President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused other countries of lying about the number of coronavirus deaths after the United States became the country with the most coronavirus deaths in the world.

'To think you're getting honest numbers from some of these countries,' the president said in response to a question from DailyMail.com. 'Does anybody really believe the numbers of some of these countries,' he said during his press briefing in the White House Rose Garden.

The United States contains 20 percent of all global coronavirus deaths despite being only four per cent of the world's population. The coronavirus pandemic hit a new mark on Wednesday when passed 2 million confirmed infections and 130,000 deaths worldwide.

President Trump specifically pointed to China, a country he has attacked repeatedly as not being transparent enough about the outbreak there, which originated in the providence of Wuhan, as one country whose numbers he questions. 'Do you think the numbers in this vast country called China -- they have a certain number of cases -- is anybody really believe that?' Trump said.

China has imposed restrictions on the publication of academic research on the origins of the virus, CNN reported. China said it has 82,295 cases of the disease and 3,342 deaths but those figures have been called questionable and Beijing has been accused of downplaying the pandemic's reach.

The president argued that the United States reports all of its deaths from the coronavirus. 'We report everything, we report the cases and our reporting is good, we are reporting every death,' he said. On Saturday, the United States surpassed Italy's death rate from the coronavirus, making it the top country in the world for deaths. There have been more than 27,000 deaths from the virus in the United States.

The president specifically cited China's numbers as questionable but others have also questioned numbers out of Iran, North Korea and Russia. 'Some countries that are in big trouble and they are not reporting the facts. All I know is we report the facts and we are a country that's getting better,' President Trump said. Additionally the president claimed on Wednesday the U.S. has 'passed the peak' of new coronavirus cases.

He argued the country's governors are eager to relax social distancing measures and open back up the American economy. 'You already know we'll be opening up some states, some states much sooner than others and we think that some states can actually open up before the deadline May 1,' Trump said in the White House's Rose Garden.

The governors, who Trump said he'd talk to on Thursday, are 'chomping at the bit to get going,' the president claimed. But just hours before, members of the president's newly formed business council reiterated what governors and his public health experts have been saying for weeks - that widespread testing would need to be implemented before Americans would feel safe to leave their homes, CNN reported.