As the death toll from COVID-19 in the United States went past 350,000, outgoing President Donald Trump, who has time and again downplayed the threat of coronavirus, accused his own administration of inflating the number of infections in the country. 

The lame-duck president hit out at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for having a “ridiculous method” for counting the number of coronavirus cases and deaths due to the COVID-19 disease. 

“When in doubt, call it Covid,” Trump tweeted, referring to the statistics of COVID-19 being recorded by the CDC and further marked it as “Fake News!”

The condemnation by Trump was, however, said to be not true by some public health experts as they say the number the coronavirus infections in the US is likely underreported as many people may be asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms, who do not seek treatment. 

The number of COVID-19 cases in the US as of late September was likely more than seven times higher than it was reported officially, a study, done by nine CDC scientists who conducted the research on personal capacities, finds. 

Replying to Trump’s claim, Jereme Adams, US Surgeon General told CNN that the president has “no reason to doubt” the official death toll from COVID-19. 

Adams was quoted by CNN as saying, “One of the most challenging things about this entire pandemic … has been trying to get health information to the American people in the midst of politics. I’m focused on making sure people can get the information they need.”

Agreeing with Adams, the US’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci said in an interview with the ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday said, “The deaths are real deaths.”

“All you need to do is to go out into the trenches, go to the hospitals, see what the health care workers are dealing with. They are under very stressed situations,” Fauci said while talking about Trump’s accusation of fake COVID-19 death numbers. 

“In many areas of the country, the hospital beds are stretched,” Fauci told ABC.

“People are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel. … That’s real. That’s not fake.”