US President Donald Trump on Saturday tweeted a defence of his administration's coronavirus response, comparing the pandemic in the United States to that in other countries, particularly in the United Kingdom.
"The entire WORLD is being badly hurt by the China Virus, but if you listen to the Fake News Lamestream Media, and Big Tech, you would think that we are the only one", Trump wrote, touting US achievements in fighting COVID-19. "No, but we are the Country that developed vaccines, and years ahead of schedule!"
In a follow-up tweet, Trump asserted that "we don't want to have lockdowns" in an apparent denouncement of the UK's recent implementation of stricter coronavirus tiers up to Christmas day.
"We don’t want to have lockdowns. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself!", the president said.
The POTUS tweets came shortly after UK PM Boris Johnson announced from Downing Street that areas across southeast and eastern England, London included, will be plunged into new Tier Four coronavirus restrictions, adding that "We cannot continue with Christmas as planned".
Earlier in the week, the UK was rocked with the news of a new mutated novel coronavirus strain discovered across the country, predominantly in southern England and in the British capital city.
Along with apparent new developments of COVID-19, vaccines continue to arrive, with the US Food and Drug Administration issuing an emergency use authorisation for the second vaccine in the country, Moderna, after approving a Pfizer BioNTech vaccine earlier in December.
The pandemic continues to rage across the world, as the United States continues to top the list of those countries worst affected by the disease, with over 17 million registered cases and more than 314,000 related deaths. In the UK, there are over 2 million cases with about 67,000 fatalities.