Donald Trump says he doesn't want the US to have a "big surge" in Covid-19 cases like in New Zealand.
The US President, whose administration has been battling the highest recorded coronavirus case numbers in the world, made the comments when addressing a crowd in Mankato, Minnesota.
"You see what's going on in New Zealand?" Trump said.
"They beat it they beat, it was like front page [news] they beat it because they wanted to show me something."
"The problem is [there is a] big surge in New Zealand, you know it's terrible - we don't want that.
"This is an invisible enemy, that should have never been let to come to this country, to Europe to the rest of the world by China, just remember it," he said.
New Zealand now has 78 active cases of Covid-19 after a resurgence of infections in the community last week. Prior to that, New Zealand had been trumpeted around the world after recording 100 days without Covid spreading inside our borders.
The new outbreak put Auckland - where the latest case cluster is centred - in alert level 3 lockdown. The rest of the country is in alert level 2. Five people are presently in hospital. Twenty-two people have died since the pandemic hit our shores.
The US has recorded more than 5,420,000 Covid cases. More than 170,000 people have died in the US from the virus.
Infections remain at high levels in many states of the US and deaths continue to average 1000 per day. More than 30 states have test positivity rates over 5% and Mississippi, Nevada, Florida and Idaho are over 16%.
- additional reporting Reuters
