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Washington, Apr 20: The US wants to send a team of experts to China to investigate coronavirus, President Donald Trump has said, a day after he warned Beijing of "consequences" if it was knowingly responsible for the spread of COVID-19 which has killed more than 165,000 people globally, including over 41,000 in America.

Describing the coronavirus as a plague, Trump, during his White House news conference on Sunday, said that he is not happy with China where the pandemic emerged in December last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

“We spoke to them (Chinese) a long time ago about going in. We want to go in. We want to see what's going on. And we weren't exactly invited, I can tell you that,” the President told reporters.

“I was very happy with the (trade) deal (with China), very happy with everything and then we found out about the plague and since we found out about that I'm not happy,” he said.

The US has launched an investigation into whether the deadly virus "escaped" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

He has repeatedly expressed disappointment over China's handling of the coronavirus disease, alleged non-transparency and initial non-cooperation from Beijing with Washington on dealing with the crisis.

“Based on an investigation, we are going to find out,” Trump told reporters.

A day earlier, he warned China that it should face consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the spread of the novel coronavirus, upping the ante on Beijing over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If they (China) were knowingly responsible… then there should be consequences. You're talking about, you know, potentially lives like nobody's seen since 1917,” Trump said on Saturday.

The opposition Democratic Party said that Trump has falsely claimed he acted early by restricting travel from China when it was little too late and he continued to downplay the virus throughout February.

The number of COVID-19 deaths in the US crossed 41,000 and the total infections were more than 764,000 so far.

New York, the epicentre of the deadly COVID-19 in the US, has 2,42,000 cases and over 17,600 fatalities so far. It has registered a 50-percent decline in new cases over an eight-day period.

The novel virus, which emerged in China in December last year, has killed over 160,000 and infected more than 2.3 million people worldwide.

Months after the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan city of central China, families of those deceased, who contracted the contagious infection, stood in long queues at funeral homes demanding to receive the cremated ashes of their loved ones.

Now this has spurred questions about the actual tally of COVID-19 related casualties in Wuhan, in a renewed pressure on the Chinese government that is already struggling to control its containment narrative of the pandemic spread.

Chinese media outlet Caixin showed how trucks carrying 2,500 urns with the ashes of the deceased COVID-19 cases were being shipped in a funeral home last week. Another picture published revealed how 3,500 urns were stacked within these funeral homes. It is therefore unclear how many urns have been filled in.

According to media reports, workers at several funeral parlors declined to provide any details as to how many urns were waiting to be collected, saying they either did not know or were not authorised to share the number.

Some families said they had been forced to wait for several hours to pick up the ashes. The photos circulated as mass deaths from the virus spiked in cities across the west, including Milan, Madrid and New York, where hospitals were erecting tents to handle the overflow as global infections soar past 500,000, with 24,000 dead.

According to Chinese government figures, 2,535 people in Wuhan have died of the virus. The announcement that a lockdown in place since January would be lifted came after the country said its tally of new cases had hit zero and stepped up diplomatic outreach to other countries hard hit by the virus, sending some of them medical supplies.

But some in China have been skeptical of the accuracy of the official tally, particularly given Wuhan's overwhelmed medical system, authorities' attempts to cover up the outbreak in its initial stages, and multiple revisions to the way official cases are counted.

Residents on social media have demanded disciplinary action against top Wuhan officials.

Many people who died had Covid-19 symptoms, but weren't tested and excluded from the official case tally, Caixin said. There were also patients who died of other diseases due to a lack of proper treatment when hospitals were overwhelmed dealing with those who had the coronavirus.

There were 56,007 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to data from the city's civil affairs agency. The number of cremations was 1,583 higher than those in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 2,231 higher than the fourth quarter of 2017.

Two locals in Wuhan who have lost family members to the virus said online that they were informed they had to be accompanied by their employers or officials from neighborhood committees when picking up the urns, likely as a measure against public gatherings.

COVID-19 is affecting 199 countries and territories around the world. Over 664,000 coronavirus cases have been registered globally out of which 30,890 have succumbed to the infection.

India continues to remain ranked 43rd on an annual World Competitiveness Index compiled by Institute for Management Development (IMD) with some traditional weaknesses like poor infrastructure and insufficient education investment keeping its ranking low, the international business school said on Tuesday.

Singapore has retained its top position on the 63-nation list.

Denmark has moved up to the second position (from 8th last year), Switzerland has gained one place to rank 3rd, the Netherlands has retained its 4th place and Hong Kong has slipped to the fifth place (from 2nd in 2019).

The US has moved down to 10th place (from 3rd last year), while China has also slipped from 14th to 20th place. Among the BRICS nations, India is ranked second after China, followed by Russia (50th), Brazil (56th) and South Africa (59th).

India was ranked 41st on the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, being produced by the business school based in Switzerland and Singapore every year since 1989, but had slipped to 45th in 2017 before improving to 44th in 2018 and then to 43rd in 2019.

While its overall position has remained unchanged in the 2020 list, it has recorded improvements in areas like long-term employment growth, current account balance, high-tech exports, foreign currency reserves, public expenditure on education, political stability and overall productivity, the IMD said.

However, it has moved down in areas like exchange rate stability, real GDP growth, competition legislation and taxes.

Arturo Bris, Head of Competitiveness Center at IMD Business School, said India continues to struggle on the list and the recent country rating downgrade by Moody’s reflects the uncertainties regarding the economy’s future.

"In our ranking this year, we again emphasize the traditional weaknesses of India -- poor infrastructure, an important deficit in education investment, and a health system that does not reach everybody. For India to follow the path of China, it must stress its intangible infrastructure," Bris said.

"In a less global world, with China, USA, and Europe looking inwards, currencies like the rupee (and the Brazilian real for instance) are going to suffer and display high volatilities.

"Moody’s has threatened the country with a downgrade to junk and that would put India in a terrible position to attract foreign capital. So the urgency for the government should be to fix the short-term problems—and this requires to improve the credibility of the government itself," Bris added.

With the exception of Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan and the Korean Republic, most Asian economies dropped in rankings this year, the IMD said.

The reason for the Asian economies’ less stellar performance as a region, this year is partly the result of the trade frictions between China and the US, particularly because these economies are highly dependent on trade with China.

About Singapore, which moved to the top rank last year, the IMD said its position is largely driven by the relative ease of setting up business, availability of skilled labour and its cutting-edge technological infrastructure.

The IMD said the impact of COVID-19 on the competitiveness ranking has partially been captured by executives’ opinions about the effectiveness of the different health systems.

In the ASEAN countries included in the survey, only Singapore and Thailand have a positive performance in the effectiveness of the health infrastructure.