US president Donald Trump has declared that the US is in "a very good shape" ahead of the coronavirus peak, with ten American firms now active in producing medical ventilators for ill patients.
Speaking at the White House during a Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Monday, Trump said: "We have ten companies at least making the ventilators, and we say go ahead because, honestly, other countries - they'll never be able to do it."
Officials in several states have expressed concern that hospitals could run out of vital equipment, but the president was insistent at the briefing that the US would have enough ventilators for everyone in need by the time the peak of the virus comes.
Trump added: "I think we're going to be in a very good shape".
The president also said that over one million US citizens had now been tested for Covid-19, "more than any other country by far".
The number of confirmed cases stateside has reached 163,000, with the death toll over 3,000.
540 new fatalities were confirmed on Monday, the highest in a 24-hour period in the US during the outbreak thus far, according to data collated by John Hopkins University.
Trump went on to declare that the US "will have a great victory", urging the American public to stick to social distancing measures which could save over one million lives. Such measures in the States have been extended until at least April 30.
At the briefing, Trump was defensive about his tardiness in initially implementing social distancing measures due to the economic impact, and his comments from previous weeks in which he seemed to shrug off the severity of the virus and its deadly potential.
He told a CNN reporter that his intention was to "avoid panic".
Trump said: "I don't want panic in the country. I could cause panic so much better than even you."
He added: "The economy is number two on my list, we're going to save a lot of lives."
