Despite surge in COVID-19 cases, US president Donald Trump says 'tremendous victory' nearby in fight against pandemic

US President Donald Trump claimed "tremendous victory" was at hand against the pandemic on the Fourth of July national holiday, despite a surge in coronavirus cases across the United States. A date before the national holiday, the country witnessed over 50,000 cases with Florida and Texas reporting most of the cases. 

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“It’s going to happen and it’s going to happen big,” the president said in a message to the nation. “Our country will be greater than ever before.”

The United States is the worst-hit country in terms of coronavirus pandemic with over 2.8 million cases and 130,000 deaths. 

However, Trump claimed: “We were doing better than any country had done in history ... and then we got hit with this terrible plague from China and now we’re getting closer to fighting our way out of it.”

“Our country is coming back, our jobs numbers are spectacular, a lot of things are happening that people don’t quite see yet. We’re on our way to a tremendous victory. It’s going to happen and it’s going to happen big. Our country will be greater than ever before,” he added. 

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The Federal jobs did show an increase in numbers, however, experts say that these figures were drawn out from the beginning of economic reopening, before a consequent surge in cases.

Trump took to social media platform Twitter to reassert his claim and wrote: “if we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases”, and said: “In the meantime, deaths and the all important mortality rate goes down.”

According to the health experts, the US mortality rate has fallen due to testing, treatment and the age and health profile of those now being infected. Any increase in mortality would be expected to lag behind a rise in diagnoses.