LAMB OF GOD's Mark Morton has blasted President Donald Trump over his claim that the United States is only seeing a spike in new coronavirus infections because more testing is being carried out.
Trump tweeted on Thursday: "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!"
A short time later, Morton shared Trump's tweet and added: "It must be so insulting for the people that make up his actual base of support to see shit like this. He really thinks y'all are this stupid?? To have your intelligence so grossly underestimated over & over, I would imagine it's got to be exhausting to stay loyal to this regime."
Experts have repeatedly dismissed Trump's assertions as false, explaining that the number of tests doesn't indicate how fast the disease is spreading.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the efficacy of testing is not tied to the sheer number of tests being done, but must be proportional to the size of an individual country's epidemic.
"Several countries effectively controlled the spread of the virus through testing programmes that had a far lower number of tests per capita than the US," the university writes on its web site. "Meanwhile, despite having the highest rate of tests per capita, the US faces the largest outbreak in the world and new cases continue to trend upwards in many states."
Morton recently told A&P Reacts that it's important for him to use the platform that he has, including his Twitter account, to create awareness about the things that are happening around him.
He said: "When something's really wrong or there's a discussion not being had or there's something being ignored… I have a platform, and I have a platform in our music, in what we talk about lyrically, and social media, for better or worse, is a platform — I don't know if it's the best one, but it is one, and it's one I engage in.
"So I do speak my mind," he continued. "And I try to be open to other people's opinions and the fact that not everyone's gonna agree with me. I don't think my opinions can be put into a tight, neat little box, because there are things that I'm very liberal on, things that I'm very conservative on and things that I'm in the middle on. But lately, particularly in the last week or so, I've had a hard time keeping my mouth shut. And I don't make any apologies for that."
Addressing the fact that he has at times alienated some of the LAMB OF GOD fans with his views, Morton said: "Look, if I had a nickel for every time someone told on social media to just shut up and play guitar… I always actually take it as a compliment, because I'm, like, no matter how mad I made them, they're still saying that it's worthwhile for me to play guitar. [Laughs] So I'm doing something right; that's a compliment to me.
"I get to have an opinion too — I just do," he said. "Everybody does. And hopefully we can all start learning to respect each other's opinion and even maybe find some common ground. 'Cause a lot of that seems to be getting overlooked lately, and I hope we can plug into that.
"It's a trying time, man — there's so much going on — and everybody's really tense and anxious, and there's a lot of fear and a lot of anger," he added. "And I don't know what to do except to talk about when I see something that's wrong. And I'm not always great at not riling it up — sometimes I'm venting in anger myself; I'm a human being — but I'm trying to be a little more positive as I go. That's all I can do."
