US President Donald Trump called out New Zealand for its latest COVID-19 outbreak during his campaign rally in Mankato, Minnesota, reported Guardian. 

He said, “The places they were using to hold up now they’re having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops!”

Referring to New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic, Trump said, “Do you see what’s happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something.”

As New Zealand is witnessing an outbreak following 102 days of no community infections, Auckland recorded nine new cases on Monday while on the same day, the US recorded just under 42,000 cases. Trump in his campaign speech said, “Big surge in New Zealand, you know it’s terrible, we don’t want that, but this is an invisible enemy that should never have been let to come to Europe and the rest of the world by China.”

According to Guardian, the Jacinda Ardern led government the recent outbreak is currently limited to a single cluster of related cases, which as of Monday stood at 58. The outbreak prompted Ardern to place Auckland under stage three lockdown. 

When compared to New Zealand’s total of 22 fatalities till date due to the virus, the US stands at over 170,000 deaths.