Donald Trump says he will not cancel August Republican Convention

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would not cancel the Republican National Convention in August in Charlotte, North Carolina, because of the coronavirus.

In an interview on Fox News, Trump said he believed the country will have rebounded from the coronavirus outbreak by then. “We’re not going to cancel,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to be in great shape long before then.”

Mr Trump also cast doubt on the figures coming out of Beijing, telling reporters: “You don’t know what the numbers are in China.”

He said he would speak to President Xi Jinping by phone on Thursday night, but denied the Chinese leader had asked him to “calm down” the language he uses to refer to the pandemic, which the US leader refers to as “the Chinese virus”.

The US now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country with more than 85,500 positive tests.

According to the latest figures collated by Johns Hopkins University, the US has overtaken China (81,782 cases) and Italy (80,589).

But with almost 1,300 Covid-19-related fatalities, the US death toll lags behind China (3,291) and Italy (8,215).

The grim milestone came as President Donald Trump predicted the nation would get back to work “pretty quickly”.

going to cancel,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to be in great shape long before then.”