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US President Donald Trump during a press conference on the coronavirus in the White House Rose Garden on Mar. 30. (Yonhap News)

US President Donald Trump distorted the facts with a nonsensical claim that the population of Seoul totals “38 million” while arguing that the US had been performing more novel coronavirus testing than anywhere in the world.

At a press conference on the coronavirus in the White House Rose Garden on the afternoon of Mar. 30, Trump fielded a question from a reporter, who said, “You said several times that the United States has ramped up testing, but the United States is still not testing per capita as many people as other countries like South Korea. Why is that? And when do you think that that number will be on par with other countries?” The questioner was Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, who has often clashed with Trump at past press conferences.

Replying in an admonishing tone, Trump insisted, “It’s very much on par.”

“I know South Korea better than anybody,” he added. “Do you know how many people are in Seoul? Do you know how big the city of Seoul is?”

“Thirty-eight million people. That’s bigger than anything we have. Thirty-eight million people all tightly wound together,” he continued.

Trump went on to say, “We have vast farmlands. We have vast areas where they don’t have much of a problem. In some cases, they have no problem whatsoever.” His remarks were interpreted as suggesting that the amount of testing conducted in a vast country like the US should not be compared with the high level of testing in a densely populated setting such as Seoul.

“I didn’t talk about per capita. We have done more tests, by far, than any country in the world, by far,” he continued.

In introductory remarks that same day, he said, “Today we reached a historic milestone in our war against the coronavirus. Over 1 million Americans have now been tested.”

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar explained, “We’re now testing nearly 100,000 samples a day, also a level that no other country has reached.”

According to figures registered with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety as of February, the population of Seoul stands at 9,736,962 people. The population of the Greater Seoul area, which includes the city of Seoul as well as Gyeonggi Province (13,265,377) and Incheon (2,954,955), totals 25,957,294. None of the numbers is anywhere close to the “38 million” mentioned by Trump.

Trump also recently shared a self-congratulatory message quoting White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx’s claim that the 220,000 tests performed by the US over an eight-day period was similar to the number performed by South Korea over eight weeks. But at the time, South Korea had performed 357,000 tests, a much different total from the one mentioned by Trump. Trump has also claimed multiple times that US Forces Korea consists of 32,000 troops, when the actual total is 28,500.

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]