'When in doubt, call it Covid': Trump accuses 'exaggeration' of tally; Fauci reacts

The outgoing US President Donald Trump has once again accused the states and the top USinfectious disease expert Anthony Fauci of exaggerating the coronavirus cases and death tally in the country.

As the country struggled to meet the rising demand for the COVID-19 vaccines, Trumptook to Twitter to spread panic and chaos through his tweets accusing officials of spreading'fake news'. "The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of@CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low. “When in doubt, call it Covid.” Fake News!," he tweeted.

The tweet came as the country passed the mark of350,000 deaths caused by the novel coronavirus. The US is struggling to contain the spread of the deadly virus, especially after identification of the new variants of COVID-19.

Anthony Fauci, who has been on the bad side of the outgoing President for the past few months now, however, feels trump should "go into the trenches" to take a reality check of the situation in the country he has lead for the past four years. "Go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths," Fauci said in an interview with the local media.

Turns out, Fauci is not the only one who disagrees with Trump's claims.Dr Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, also disagreed with trump's claims of the figures being 'exaggerated'.

"I have no reason to doubt those numbers, and I think people need to be very aware that it’s not just about the deaths, as we talked about earlier," Adams told the local media. "It’s about the hospitalisations, the capacity, these cases are having an impact in an array of ways, and people need to understand that there’s a finish line in sight but we’ve got to keep running towards it."

However, Trump — rarely known to take defeat in a healthy way — shot back at Fauci directly through another tweet saying, "Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?"

While the Trump-Fauci war continues, the health expert has, however, taken responsibility and has said there are "no excuses" for the delay in the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccines. The US officials had predicted of administering the vaccines to at least 20 million by January 01. However, till now, not even four million people have beengiven the vaccine.

"We’re not where we want to be," Fauci admitted on national television. "We’ve got to do much better, but let’s give it about a week or two into January to see if we can pick up momentum that was slowed down by the holiday season."

The rebuke from Fauci against trump has come at a time when the outgoing President has been caught in yet another controversy due to a leaked audio tape in which trump cna be heard asking the Georgia state leader to 'find' votes for him and overturn Joe Biden's election victory.