With over one million tests in just a few months, the United States has of the virus that's caused the current global pandemic than any country in the world.
A lot of this is due to President Donald Trump's repeated dismissals of the threat posed by the virus in its crucial beginning stages, when it could have most easily been contained. The President repeatedly dismissed the need for a national testing apparatus and promised that the virus would disappear "like a miracle."
Nearly 100 thousand Americans have died since then and there's still no national testing apparatus.
Determined as ever to turn a catastrophe into a chance to boast, the President insisted on Tuesday that it's actually good that there are so many documented cases of the virus.
Watch below.
The President insisted that the United States having more cases than anyone in the world just meant that its testing was superior to any country in the world. This is false. The United States has tested the most people in the world, but not the most people per capita. The per capita testing rate is not yet enough to glean an accurate determination of the spread of the virus.
The Trump administration claims that per-capita testing is at a healthy rate compared to other countries, but doesn't point out that those countries haven't needed as much testing because they began implementing a nationwide testing apparatus early on.
Nevertheless, Trump said:
"When we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing. I look at that, in a certain respect, as being a good thing. Because it means our testing is much better....I view it as a badge of honor. Really, it's a badge of honor."
The idiocy left people flummoxed.
In what world is this a badge of honor?
And we still aren't performing enough tests.
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@BillAckman/Twitter