Washington (AFP)

US President Donald Trump travels to Florida, one of the current hotbeds of the Covid-19 epidemic on Friday, before a new election rally on Saturday in New Hampshire, ignoring health warnings and falsely attributing current contamination records better screening.

"We have tested 40 or 45 million people, it's a record, and our tests are the best," said Donald Trump on Fox News Thursday. "Most of these cases improve immediately. They are young, they have a runny nose and two days later they are better."

"When you turn on the television, they always speak of the worst cases. They do not speak of deaths, because deaths are falling sharply," he added.

The national death toll from Covid-19 has dropped since the peaks in April on the back of improving conditions in New York, but the toll has started to rise again, with numerous infections of the month of June gradually turning into death.

On Thursday, Texas and Florida each reported their record number of deaths since the start of the pandemic, 98 and 120 respectively.

"The tsunami is here," said the chief executive of Hidalgo County, South Texas. 1,274 new cases were confirmed in 24 hours in this jurisdiction of less than 900,000 inhabitants. By comparison, the Australian city of Melbourne, 5 million inhabitants, was reconfigured this week after the detection of 191 cases in 24 hours.

Nationally, in the past month, the number of tests performed daily has increased by 33%, but the number of cases detected by 167%, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

"As a country, when we compare ourselves to other countries, I don't think you can say that we were doing well. It just isn't," said Anthony Fauci, above. US government infectious disease expert at the FiveThirtyEight site.

It was he who warned last week, when the country was recording 40,000 cases a day, that the 100,000 mark could be reached; Thursday's balance sheet was 65,000.

"Doctor Fauci is a nice man, but he made a lot of mistakes," said Donald Trump, saying that the expert was against the closure of the air border with China at the start of the pandemic. According to several media at the time, Anthony Fauci was initially opposed to it, but had changed his mind and ended up recommending the measure to the president.

- New meeting on Saturday -

Two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic, according to an ABC poll released Friday, up from half in April. And polls for the November 3 presidential election give the advantage to his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden.

The president has three events scheduled for Friday in the Miami area: a visit by the military command for South America, an event with Venezuelan opponents in a large church, and a meeting with "supporters" for his re-election.

It is especially his campaign meeting Saturday, in Portsmouth in New Hampshire, which worries, because of the risks of contagion.

Its previous meeting, in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20, had gathered 6,200 people in a closed room, and was followed by an outbreak of contamination two weeks later.

This time, the meeting will take place in an airport hangar, and the Trump team will distribute masks. The Republican governor announced that he would not be going, and the Trump camp seemed to be preparing for a low attendance.

"I have nothing against wearing the mask, if that reassures people," said Donald Trump, saying that he would wear one himself during an upcoming visit to a military hospital, and that he did not need to wear it in general because all the people approaching him were systematically tested.

Then he taunted Joe Biden, who still wears it in public.

"He comes on stage with a huge mask, there is no one else on stage, and he takes it off, often he lets it hang down from his left ear. Frankly, he does that to please himself."

© 2020 AFP