99% of Covid-19 cases are 'totally harmless': Trump

US President Donald Trump has celebrated Independence Day with a string of false and misleading claims attempting to play down the coronavirus pandemic and warning that China will be “held accountable”.

In a speech at the White House on America's Independence Day, the US president insisted his strategy to tackle Covid-19 was "moving along well" despite some states reporting record increases in cases.

He had earlier branded the virus a "terrible plague from China" and warned Beijing "must be held accountable" for its spread around the world.

Mr Trump said the US has now tested almost 40 million people for coronavirus, and added: "By so doing, we show cases - 99% of which are totally harmless.”

"Results that no other country can show because no country has testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of the quality."

Mr Trump said the US is producing gowns, masks and surgical equipment which used to be "almost exclusively made in foreign lands, in particular China where ironically this virus and others came from".

"China's secrecy, deceptions and cover-up allowed it to spread all over the world - 189 countries," he added.

"China must be held fully accountable."

In a video message posted on the White House's Twitter account before his speech, Mr Trump claimed the US had been "doing better than any country had ever done in history... and then we got hit with this terrible plague from China".

"Now we're getting close to fighting our way out of it," he said.

"We're on the way to a tremendous victory."

More than 2.8 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the US, and nearly 130,000 people in the country have died with the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University._Agencies

Dhaka/AI