Donald Trump is Time magazine's Person of the Year 2016

The President of United States Donald Trump has said that countries like India and China would have much more coronavirus cases than America if they conduct more tests.

“I say to my people every time we test; you find cases because we do more testing. If we have more cases, if we wanted to do testing in China or in India or other places, I promise you there would be more cases you are doing a fantastic job in getting out the swabs,” the US president said on Friday.

Trump said that the US has carried out 20 million tests while compared to America, Germany is at four million and much talked about South Korea is about three million tests. He made the remarks at Puritan Medical Products in Maine, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The US has reported nearly 1.9 million cases and over 1,09,000 deaths while the total number of coronavirus cases in India and China stand at 2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center data.

India has so far conducted over 4 million COVID-19 tests, according to the health ministry.

Trump said, “we will be well over 20 million tests. Remember this, when you test more, you have more cases.”

“Puritan is one of the only manufacturers in the world producing high-quality medical swabs that are crucial for rapid testing. And every swab you make at Puritan is proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase made in the USA,” Trump said.

“Thanks to the testing capacity that you are making possible, our country is reopening and our economy is recovering like nobody would’ve thought possible,” he added.

Trump also spoke about the huge unemployment problem the country is currently facing. He said that the economy is now back on track, referring to the latest monthly employment numbers,.

“We absolutely shattered expectations, and this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history, think of that; that’s a long time,” Trump said

“I think it’s more than double or about double of what our highest was before so this is the largest monthly job increase in American history. And we’re going to have a phenomenal next year. We’re going to have a tremendous couple of months prior to the election on November 3 very, very important date,” the president said.

Keeping an eye on the November 3 presidential elections, Trump is seeking re-election for his second consecutive term. He is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden who in opinion polls is surging several points of Trump.

“It’s going to be a very important election because the only thing that can screw it up is if you get the wrong president and they raise your taxes, and they open up your borders so that everybody pours into our country,” Trump said.

Trump also vowed to bring the American economy back on track, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. He reiterated that his administration has built a strong economy in the last three years.

Describing the fight against coronavirus as the greatest national and industrial mobilisation since the World War II, Trump said that his administration has marshaled the full power of the US government and US industry to defeat the invisible enemy.

“It is indeed an enemy. It came from China, should have been stopped in China. They didn’t do that,” he alleged.

The administration, he said, has delivered over 1.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. We slashed the red tape to speed up the development of vaccines.

“And vaccines are coming along incredibly well, wait till you see, and therapeutics. And we partnered at private sector leaders such as Puritan to build the largest and most advanced testing capacity on the face of the earth, like this one,” the US president said.

The Puritan factory in Maine, he said, quickly ramped up the production to produce nearly 20 million foam-tipped swabs each month.

“Then in April, my administration invoked the Defence Production Act to help you scale up even more. Under a USD 75 million public-private partnership, Puritan will soon double production to 40 million swabs per month,” Trump added.

New York, Apr 21: Oil prices plunged below zero on Monday as demand for energy collapses amid the coronavirus pandemic and traders don't want to get stuck owning crude with nowhere to store it.

Stocks were also slipping on Wall Street in afternoon trading, with the S&P 500 down 0.9%, but the market's most dramatic action was by far in oil, where benchmark U.S. crude for May delivery plummeted to negative $3.70 per barrel, as of 2:15 pm. Eastern time.

Much of the drop into negative territory was chalked up to technical reasons — the May delivery contract is close to expiring so it was seeing less trading volume, which can exacerbate swings. But prices for deliveries even further into the future, which were seeing larger trading volumes, also plunged.

Demand for oil has collapsed so much due to the coronavirus pandemic that facilities for storing crude are nearly full.

Tanks could hit their limits within three weeks, according to Chris Midgley, head of analytics at S&P Global Platts.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil for June delivery, which shows a more ”normal” price, fell 14.8% to $21.32 per barrel, as factories and automobiles around the world remain idled. Big oil producers have announced cutbacks in production in hopes of better balancing supplies with demand, but many analysts say it's not enough.

“Basically, bears are out for blood,” analyst Naeem Aslam of Avatrade said in a report. “The steep fall in the price is because of the lack of sufficient demand and lack of storage place given the fact that the production cut has failed to address the supply glut.”

Halliburton swung between gains and sharp losses, even though it reported stronger results for the first three months of 2020 than analysts expected. The oilfield engineering company said that the pandemic has created so much turmoil in the industry that it “cannot reasonably estimate” how long the hit will last. It expects a further decline in revenue and profitability for the rest of 2020, particularly in North America.

Brent crude, the international standard, was down $1.78 to $26.30 per barrel. .

In the stock market, the mild drops ate into some of the big gains made since late March, driven lately by investors looking ahead to parts of the economy possibly reopening as infections level off in hard-hit areas.

Pessimists have called the rally overdone, pointing to the severe economic pain sweeping the world and continued uncertainty about how long it will last.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 364 points, or 1.5%, to 23,887. The Nasdaq was down 0.1%..

More gains from companies that are winners in the new stay-at-home economy helped limit the market's losses Amazon rose 1.4%, and Netflix jumped 3.8% as people shut in at home buy staples and look to fill their time. Clorox likewise rose toward a new record and was up 1% as households and businesses that remain open look to stay clean.

In Tokyo the Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% after Japan reported that its exports fell nearly 12% in March from a year earlier as the pandemic hammered demand in its two biggest markets, the U.S. and China.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong lost 0.2%, and South Korea's Kospi fell 0.8%.

European markets were modestly higher The German DAX was up 0.5%, the French CAC 40 was up 0.7% and the FTSE 100 in London gained 0.7%.

In a sign of continued caution in the market, Treasury yields remained extremely low. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 0.64% from 0.65% late Friday. It started the year near 1.90%. Bond yields drop when their prices rise, and investors tend to buy Treasurys when they're worried about the economy.

Stocks have been on a generally upward swing recently, and the S&P 500 just closed out its first back-to-back weekly gain since the market began selling off in February. Promises of massive aid for the economy and markets by the Federal Reserve and U.S. government ignited the rally, which sent the S&P 500 up as much as 28.5% since a low on March 23.

More recently, countries around the world have tentatively eased up on business-shutdown restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the virus.

But health experts warn the pandemic is far from over and new flareups could ignite if governments rush to allow ”normal” life to return prematurely.

The S&P 500 remains about 15% below its record high in February as millions more U.S. workers file for unemployment every week amid the shutdowns.

Many analysts also warn that a significant part of the recent recovery in stocks is due to the expectation among some investors that the economy will rebound sharply once economic quarantines are lifted. They're essentially predicting that a line chart of the economy will ultimately resemble the letter “V,” with a wild ride down but then a quick pivot to a vigorous recovery.

That may be to optimistic. “We caution that a U-shaped recovery is also quite likely,” where the economy bottoms out and stays at that low level for a while before recovering, strategists at Barclays warned in a recent report.

Without strong testing programs for COVID-19, businesses likely won't feel comfortable bringing back their full workforces for a while.

”With risk assets now overbought, the chance for a correction has increased,” Morgan Stanley strategists wrote in a report.

Sao Paulo, June 20: Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States.

The country’s health ministry said that the total now stood at 10,32,913, up more than 50,000 from Thursday. The ministry said the sharp increase was due to corrections of previous days’ underreported numbers.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro still downplays the risks of the virus after nearly 50,000 deaths from COVID-19 in three months, saying the impact of social isolation measures on the economy could be worse than the disease itself.

Specialists believe the actual number of cases in Brazil could be up to seven times higher than the official statistic. Johns Hopkins University says Brazil is performing an average of 14 tests per 1,00,000 people each day, and health experts say that number is up to 20 times less than needed to track the virus.

Official data show a downward trend of the virus in Brazil’s north, including the hard-hit region of the Amazon, a plateau in cases and deaths in the countries’ biggest cities near the Atlantic coast, but a rising curve in the south.

In the Brazilian countryside, which is much less prepared to handle a crisis, the pandemic is clearly growing. Many smaller cities have weaker health care systems and basic sanitation that’s insufficient to prevent contagion.

“There is a lot of regional inequality in our public health system and a shortage of professionals in the interior,” said Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil’s Institute for Health Policy Studies, which advises public health officials.

That creates many health care deserts, with people going long distances to get attention. When they leave the hospital, the virus can go with them.

The cattle-producing state of Mato Grosso was barely touched by the virus when it hit the nation’s biggest cities in March. Sitting far from the coast, between the Bolivian border and Brazil’s capital of Brasilia, its 33 lakh residents led a mostly normal life until May. But now its people live under lockdown and meat producers have dozens of infected workers.

In Tangará da Serra, a city of 1,03,000 people in Mato Grosso, the mayor decided Friday to forbid the sale of alcoholic drinks for two weeks as an incentive for people to stay home.

Fᢩo Junqueira said the measure was needed after a spike in COVID-19 cases that filled 80% of the city’s 54 intensive care beds. The city has had nearly 300 cases of the disease, plus three fatalities.

In Rondonópolis, only 300 miles away from Tangará da Serra and home to a thriving economy, health authorities closed the local meatpacking industry after 92 cases were confirmed there. The city of 1,44,000 inhabitants counted 21 deaths from the virus and more than 600 cases. The mayor has also decided to limit sales of alcoholic beverages.

Even regions once considered examples of successful efforts against the virus are now struggling.

Porto Alegre, home to about 14 lakh people, had success in slowing the virus’ spread over the last three months. But now its mayor is considering increasing social isolation measures after ICU occupancy in the city jumped to 80% this month.

We were already making projections for schools to come back, Mayor Nelson Marchezan Jr. told The Associated Press. Now the trend is to impose more restrictions. Outside Sao Paulo city, five regions of the state’s countryside will have to close shops starting Monday due to a rise in coronavirus cases. Governor João Doria announced the decision Friday.

Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s executive director, said at a news conference that Brazil needs to increase its efforts to stop the spread of infections.

“The epidemic is still quite severe in Brazil. I believe health workers are working extremely hard and under pressure to be able to deal with the number of cases that they see on a daily basis,” Dr. Ryan said.

“Certainly the rise is not as exponential as it was previously, so there are some signs that the situation is stabilising. But we’ve seen this before in other epidemics in other countries.”

Margareth Dalcolmo, a clinical researcher and professor of respiratory medicine at the state-funded Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, believes the reopening in major cities and the virus traveling by road into Brazil’s heartland will keep the pressure on the country’s health system.

“The risk in the interior now is very big,” she said. “Our health system just can’t solve the most serious cases of COVID in many places of the countryside.”