Trump said that a university study on preventing coronavirus deaths was a 'political hit job'

Donald Trump has lashed out at a university study on coronavirus and called it a "political hit job."

Researched published this week from Columbia University found that an estimated 36,000 lives could have been prevented in the US if social distancing and lockdown measures were implemented just a week before they were actually introduced.

The study that was released on Wednesday, showing that if measures had been put in place on 15 March, 55 per cent of infections and 61.6 per cent of deaths might not have happened in the United States, bringing their overall cases to around 700,000, which is considerably below their current total of 1.6 million.

Unsurprisingly Trump wasn't too happy about this and called a scientific study by a university a "political hit job" against him and claimed, without evidence, that Columbia is a 'liberal institution'.

I was so early. I was earlier than anybody thought. I put a ban on people coming in from China. Everybody thought me on that. Nancy Pelosi, a month later was dancing in the streets of San Francisco, in Chinatown. I was way early. Columbia is an institution that is very liberal. I think it's just a political hit job if you want to know the truth.

We're used to Trump throwing a fit about something one a political rival might have said about him but hitting out at an academic study, which incidentally doesn't even mention him in the study, is a new low even for him.

Although the study is still yet to go under a scientific peer review process, their estimated figures are still eye-opening and a further blemish on Trump's handling of the pandemic.