AP FACT CHECK: If he's said it once, he's said it 100 times

WASHINGTON (AP) — If saying things 100 times could make them true, President Donald Trump's account of how the U.S. is doing with the coronavirus would be true.

COVID-19 testing would be the envy of the world, the economy would be on the cusp of roaring back, the threat would be receding in a pandemic that has sickened more than 3.1 million Americans and killed more than 133,000.

But repetition doesn't make for reality. The U.S. is taking a disproportionate hit from the coronavirus globally and does not have it under control.

A look at how rhetoric from the past week compares with the facts on various fronts:

VIRUS

TRUMP: “For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: His notion that infections are high only because the U.S. diagnostic testing has increased is false. His own top public health officials have shot down this line of thinking. Infections are rising because people are infecting each other more than they were when most everyone was hunkered down.

It's true that increased testing also contributes to the higher numbers. When you look harder, you're going to see more. But the testing has uncovered a worrisome trend: The percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus is on the rise across nearly the entire country.

That's a clear demonstration that sickness is spreading and that the U.S. testing system is falling short.

“A high rate of positive tests indicates a government is only testing the sickest patients who seek out medical attention and is not casting a wide enough net,”...