Donald Trump has doubled down on his claim New Zealand is in the grips of an outbreak of COVID-19.
In a press conference on Thursday (NZ time) the US president said New Zealand had a "big outbreak".
"New Zealand, by the way, had a big outbreak and other countries that were held up to try and make us look not as good as we should look, because we've done an incredible job, but they're having a lot of outbreaks but they'll be able to put 'em out and we'll put 'em out," he told reporters.
New Zealand had six new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday. The US had 39,318 according to the Centre for Disease Control.
The President's comments follow a remark he made on Tuesday claiming New Zealand had a "big surge".
"Even New Zealand, you see what is going on in New Zealand. They beat it, they beat it," he said.
"It was like front page, they beat it because they wanted to show me something. The problem is [a] big surge in New Zealand. It's terrible. We don't want that."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hit back at Trump's comparison, saying it was "patently wrong".
"Obviously I don't think there's any comparison between New Zealand's current cluster and the tens of thousands of cases that are being seen daily in the United States," Ardern said on Tuesday.
"We are still one of the best-performing countries in the world when it comes to COVID and our workers are focussed on keeping it that way."
