President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised Arizona as a “model” for the nation in handling the CCP virus while avoiding a prolonged lockdown, which he calls “punishing.”

“Arizona has been able to protect high risk populations and quickly bring its outbreak under control without the need to impose overly punitive measures,” Trump told reporters at a press conference at the White House. The president called Arizona “a model for applying a science-based approach to the decreasing cases and hospitalizations” without imposing a “punishing lockdown.”

“Arizona has a record and a record really to be proud of. It’s reduced the number of daily new cases by over 75 percent, cut the positivity rate in half and reduced ER visits by two-thirds, all the while keeping the economy functioning and functioning really well,” Trump told reporters.

The state experienced a severe increase in cases of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus, starting around the end of May.

The number of daily confirmed cases is now at a downward trajectory after having reached a peak around late June to early July, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Arizona now has more than 182,200 confirmed CCP virus cases and 3,932 deaths recorded as of early Thursday.

At a White House meeting with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) at the White House earlier in the day, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said that Arizona has set an example of how to get the reproduction rate of the CCP virus to below 1, which means the outbreak is subsiding. The replication rate is the number of new infect….