Trump’s Boast About U.S., South Korea Coronavirus Testing Misses The Mark

https://khn.org/news/fact-check-trumps-boast-about-u-s-south-korea-coronavirus-testing-misses-the-mark/

Trump claimed that the United States has “done more tests in eight days than South Korea has done in eight weeks.”

The CDC has not put out comprehensive data on this. But independent work on the subject suggests the comparison is flawed. In eight days, the United States performed almost as many tests as South Korea did in eight weeks, but not necessarily more.

In addition, that statistic is relatively less important. The American rate of testing per capita is more than six times lower than South Korea’s. It’s certainly possible to catch up, but that hasn’t happened yet.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/trumps-boast-about-us-south-korea-coronavirus-test/

The president’s statement frames the data in a way that is misleading and doesn’t accurately represent the status of the American response to COVID-19. We rate it False.