Donald Trump has claimed that 99% of coronavirus cases in the US are “totally harmless”.
He was speaking amid continuing record highs of the virus in a number of states.
Thursday saw the US reach 50,000 new daily cases for the first time, amid record number of new cases in the likes of California and Florida.
The US remains by far the country worst impacted by the pandemic, with more than 2.8 million confirmed cases and 129,000 deaths.
In a Fourth of July address at the White House last night, the US President insisted the country’s coronavirus strategy “is moving along well”.
Mr Trump said: “It goes out in one area and rears back its ugly face in another area.
“But we've learned a lot. We've learned how to put out the flame. We've made ventilators where there were none by the tens of thousands, to the point that we have far more than we need, and we are now distributing them to many foreign countries as a gesture of good-will.
“Now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless... results that no other country can show because no other country has testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of the quality.”
The Trump administration's response to the pandemic has been heavily criticised by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in recent days.
In prepared remarks, Mr Biden said: "We’re still in a deep, deep job hole because Donald Trump has so badly bungled the response to coronavirus... now he's basically given up on responding at all.
"President Trump has turned wearing a mask into a political statement. And yesterday he was once more claiming the coronavirus would, quote, just disappear, I hope."
