Trump's remarks 'extremely disrespectful' to China's efforts against pandemic

BEIJING, June 1 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's recent remarks on China's COVID-19 prevention and control were totally unfounded and were extremely disrespectful of the great efforts and sacrifices made by the Chinese people, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a news briefing while answering a relevant question.

Since the outbreak, the Chinese government has adopted the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough measures in a timely manner to fully prevent the spread of the virus. These measures effectively broke the chain of transmission, made a tremendous contribution in maintaining global public health security and has been widely praised by the international community, said Zhao.

The actions of the Chinese government had directly led to a reduction of more than 700,000 potential infections, according to a research report by Science Magazine, Zhao said.

The confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States have exceeded 1.8 million with the death toll surpassing 100,000, which is about 22 times that of China's, said the spokesperson.

"The statistics can prove that who is incompetent and inadequate in coping with the pandemic," said Zhao.

Noting that the current domestic pandemic situation in the United States remains serious, Zhao said shifting blame to China can not get rid of the virus, nor can it save patients.

"We advise those in the United States who still attempt to pin labels and politicize the virus to focus on fighting their domestic pandemic," said the spokesperson.