US has biggest testing plan in the world: Trump

New York: The United States has the biggest COVID-19 testing programme in the world, better than big countries like Russia, China, India and Brazil, President Donald Trump said on Monday, asserting that America has "just about the lowest mortality rate" due to the disease in the world.

"We have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere," Trump said at a White House roundtable. More than 34 lakh Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 so far and over 1,37,000 have died due to the disease, both of which are the largest numbers among all the countries.

The huge number of positive cases, the president said, is due to the massive testing efforts undertaken by his administration, more extensive than any other country.

"We test more than anybody by far. And when you test, you create cases. So we have created cases. I can tell you that some countries, they test when somebody walks into a hospital sick or walks into maybe a doctor's office, but usually a hospital.

That is the testing they do, so they do not have cases, whereas we have all these cases. So, it is a double-edged sword," he said. At the same time, the United States has the lowest mortality rate or just about the lowest mortality rate due to the disease in the world, Trump added.

"We are doing a great job. We are doing very well with vaccines and we are doing very, very well with therapeutics. I think we are going to have some very good information coming out soon," he said in response to a question.