US President Donald Trump has been accused of being jealous of the coronavirus’ media coverage by his predecessor.
Speaking in Florida as he campaigned for Joe Biden ahead of the 3 November election, former US President Barack Obama hit out at Mr Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
"More than 225,000 people in this country are dead. More than 100,000 small businesses have closed. Half a million jobs are gone in Florida alone. Think about that," Mr Obama said.
He continued: "And what's his closing argument? That people are too focused on COVID. He said this at one of his rallies. COVID, COVID, COVID, he's complaining. He's jealous of COVID’s media coverage. If he had been focused on COVID from the beginning, cases wouldn't be reaching new record highs across the country this week."
The US has recorded more than 8,755,000 coronavirus cases and 226,400 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally,
The case and death counts in the US are higher than anywhere else in the world.
At a rally on Monday in Pennsylvania, Mr Trump accused the media of focusing too much on the coronavirus ahead of next week’s election.
“By the way, on November 4, you won’t be hearing so much about it. ‘COVID, COVID COVID. COVID! Today let’s talk about COVID,” he told supporters.
“We are rounding the turn, and we have the vaccines coming out very soon, years ahead of schedule.”
He repeated the anti-media sentiment in several subsequent tweets, one of which said: “The Fake News Media is riding COVID, COVID, COVID, all the way to the Election. Losers!”
One week out from election day, Mr Trump remains behind in the polls.
They show a majority of voters are disappointed in the way Mr Trump has handled the pandemic, which he has repeatedly said would disappear on its own.
Around, 66 million Americans - wary of the health dangers of crowded polling booths, and energised by a race framed as critical to the future of the country - have already voted.
The number of early ballots far surpasses the total of 58 million pre-election votes in 2016.
Additional reporting by AFP.
