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More than 3.5 million people have now been infected worldwide by the coronavirus and over 247,000 people have died from the respiratory disease Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was confident that a vaccine would be available by the end of 2020.
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India has 40,263 confirmed cases of infection as of Sunday evening, according to data on the health ministry’s website, as the country prepares for another two weeks of extended lockdown with some ease of restrictions.
Global cases top 3.5 million, death toll above 247,000
More than 3.5 million people have now been infected worldwide by the coronavirus and over 247,000 people have died from the respiratory disease Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. reported the most number of cases, with over 1.1 million infections and more than 67,000 deaths, Hopkins data showed. The death toll from Covid-19 has surpassed American fatalities from the Vietnam War.
Trump says he believes there will be a vaccine by end of 2020
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was confident that a vaccine would be available by the end of 2020. That appeared to contradict projections made by public health officials, who have said a coronavirus vaccine could take between a year to 18 months.
“We are very confident that we are going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. “We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year, and we are pushing very hard.”
He said he thought many companies were close to developing a vaccine. — Tucker Higgins
US intelligence report accuses China of covering up outbreak severity to hoard medical supplies
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, chairs a symposium at the School of Medicine at Tsinghua University in Beijing, capital of China, March 2, 2020.
Yan Yan | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
The Associated Press has obtained a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 which states Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January to stock up on medical supplies.
The report from the Associated Press states that China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. The analysis states that China attempted to cover up doing so by “denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.” — Riya Bhattacharjee, Associated Press
@ CNBC