You can tell that the charges that Trump has been utterly incompetent in the way that he has handled the pandemic leading to far more people dying than necessary, is getting under his skin by the way that he gloated yesterday when New Zealand reported a cluster of new cases. That country and its leader Jacinda Ardern had been widely praised for their vigorous and decisive science-based response that resulted in a period of over 100 days with no new cases. To be compared unfavorably to the leader of another country, and a woman at that, must have really stung.
Donald Trump has called out New Zealand for its recent Covid-19 outbreak, saying the places the world hailed as a success story is now facing a “big surge” in cases.
“The places they were using to hold up now they’re having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops!.
“Do you see what’s happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something,” the US president said at a campaign rally in Mankato, Minnesota.
“Big surge in New Zealand, you know it’s terrible, we don’t want that, but this is an invisible enemy that should never have been let to come to Europe and the rest of the world by China.”
The ‘big surge’ that Trump is talking about consisted of nine cases on Monday and 13 on Tuesday in Auckland with no deaths, while the US has been having around 50,000 cases and 1,000 deaths per day.
Ardern was not putting up with this.
“I think anyone who’s following Covid and its transmission globally will quite easily see that New Zealand’s nine cases in a day does not compare to the United States’ tens of thousands, and in fact does not compare to most countries in the world,” she told reporters.
“Obviously it’s patently wrong,” she said of Trump’s comments.
“We are still one of the best-performing countries in the world when it comes to COVID … our workers are focused on keeping it that way.”
New Zealand’s death rate per 100,000 people, at about 0.45 (according to Johns Hopkins data), is one of the lowest in the world thanks to strict lockdowns enforced early in the pandemic. The United States has a death rate of 51.98 per 100,000, one of the highest in the world.
The nerve of Ardern! Who is she, a mere woman, to say that Trump is wrong? She is clearly an angry, nasty, mean person, like we have never seen before.
It should never have been allowed to leave China?? Does he think the coronavirus is like a person who can just be stopped at the border? And didn’t he put NZ on a travel list last week, BEFORE the nine cases? So petty, and so ignorant.
I’m a tad surprised Cheetolini didn’t bring up Taiwan’s exponential growth of cases. It increased by ten times in a few weeks. From three to thirty.
@2 Mr Xi won’t let him speak the name of that country that doesn’t really exist anyway.
Maybe his staff gave him some graphs and charts to prove how awful New Zealand is doing and how great the US is doing. And of course, when Ardern pointed out the death rates as a fraction of the total population, The Orange Toddler-Tyrant was heard screaming “You can’t do that!”
@2 and @4 both assume hair furor can distinguish the difference between 2 and 22 or 0.1% and 5%, or or that 100 ≠ 0. Stop assuming any compentence whatsoever, please!
(The values used are for illustration, and are not specific differences between USAlienistani and anyplace else.)
New Zealand can kick Trump’s ass. I’m rooting for NZ!
And yet NZ is postponing its elections by 2 months.
Should the USA do the same?
And yet NZ is postponing its elections by 2 months.
Should the USA do the same?
Well, we’re doing it because our largest city has had to lockdown to contain the cluster of cases that has sprouted, stopping political canvassing there just before our election, out of fairness to all candidates (otherwise the governments advantages would only be exacerbated).
Is being fair something the U.S is likely to do?
Curses! He’s rumbled us!!
We deliberately eliminated Covid 19, and all held our breaths for 102 days just to make Trump look bad.
But he found us out. Can you believe it. What a genius!!!
P.S. Our election has been delayed been delayed by four weeks, not 2 months, from Sept 19th to Oct 17th. Technically, it could be further delayed. Once Parliament is dissolved, authourity over the election passes to the Electoral Commission which has the power to alter the date, or delay in certain areas, if it considers that circumstances meant that an election could not be fairly conducted.
And yet NZ is postponing its elections by 2 months.
Should the USA do the same?
If and when the US finally admits that fixed-to-a-calendar-date elections are a stupid idea, then maybe postponing elections one or two months might be doable. But as long as that’s considered sacred, no dice.
blf @5: Perhaps you did not see the Axios interview of The Orange Toddler-Tyrant conducted by Jonathan Swan? I only saw brief snippets of it, but that is what I was parodying. I would never assume, presume, or speculate that the White House occupant exudes any intelligence or competence at all.