Donald Trump says China ‘caught red handed’ allowing oil into North Korea

Washington, Apr 17: A record number of 4,591 Americans have died in the last 24 hours due to the deadly novel coronavirus in the US, which has the highest number of COVID-19 casualties in the world.

According to the Johns Hopkins University data, by 8 pm on Thursday, as many as 4,591 Americans have died in the last 24 hours, The Wall Street Journal said.

The previous highest was 2,569 on Wednesday.

By Thursday, more than 662,000 Americans tested positive with the coronavirus.

The dreaded disease, which originated in Wuhan city in China in December last year, has so far claimed more than 144,000 lives and infected over 2.1 million people.

The virus has infected over 671,000 people and claimed more than 33,000 lives, the highest for any country in the world.

New York City and its adjoining areas, including New Jersey and Connecticut have emerged as the epicenter of the virus in the US.

New York alone accounts for 226,000 cases of infections and 16,106 deaths.

In New Jersey, as many as 3,518 people have died of the disease and 75,317 have tested positive.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, till April 14, four per cent of the Americans infected with COVID-19 were of Asian origin and nearly one-third (30 per cent) were African Americans.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that experts and scientists report that his strategy to slow the spread of the virus has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Models predicted between 1.5 million and 2.2 million US deaths. If there was no mitigation, it could have even been higher than that and between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. It is looking like we will come far under even these lowest numbers, he said.

Noting that experts say the curve of the virus has flattened, and the peak in the new cases has passed, Trump said that nationwide, more than 850 counties or nearly 30 per cent of the country have reported no new cases in the last seven days.

Because of our early and aggressive action, we have avoided the tragedy of health care rationing and deadly shortfalls that have befallen in many other nations, nations which wherever possible we are helping, he said.

According to Trump, at least 35 clinical trials are already underway, including antiviral therapies, immune therapies, and blood therapies in the form of convalescent plasma. So far, more than 3.5 million tests have been carried out.

May 15: Global tensions simmered over the race for a coronavirus vaccine Thursday, as the United States and China traded jabs, and France slammed pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi for suggesting the US would get any eventual vaccine first.

Scientists are working at breakneck speed to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which has killed more than 300,000 people worldwide and pummelled economies.

From the US to Europe to Asia, national and local governments are easing lockdown orders to get people back to work -- while fretting over a possible second wave of infections.

Increased freedom of movement means an increased risk of contracting the virus, and so national labs and private firms are labouring to find the right formula for a vaccine.

The European Union's medicines agency offered some hope when it said one could be ready in a year, based on data from clinical trials already underway.

But Marco Cavaleri, the EMA's head of vaccines strategy, acknowledged that timeline was a "best-case scenario," and cautioned that "there may be delays."

The race for a vaccine has exposed a raw nerve in relations between the United States and China, where the virus was first detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan.

Two US agencies warned Wednesday that Chinese hackers were trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research -- a claim Beijing rejected as "smearing" its reputation.

US President Donald Trump, who has ratcheted up the rhetoric against China, said he doesn't even want to engage with Chinese leader Xi Jinping -- potentially imperilling a trade deal between the world's top two economies.

"I'm very disappointed in China. I will tell you that right now," he said in an interview with Fox Business.

"There are many things we could do. We could do things. We could cut off the whole relationship."

On Capitol Hill, an ousted US health official told Congress that the Trump government had no strategy in place to find and distribute a vaccine to millions of Americans, warning of the "darkest winter" ahead.

"We don't have a single point of leadership right now for this response, and we don't have a master plan," said Rick Bright, who was removed last month as head of the US agency charged with developing a coronavirus vaccine.

The United States has registered nearly 86,000 deaths linked to COVID-19 -- the highest toll of any nation.

World leaders were among 140 signatories to a letter published Thursday saying any vaccine should not be patented and that the science should be shared among nations.

"Governments and international partners must unite around a global guarantee which ensures that, when a safe and effective vaccine is developed, it is produced rapidly at scale and made available for all people, in all countries, free of charge," it said.

But a row erupted in France after drugmaker Sanofi said it would reserve first shipments of any vaccine it discovered to the United States.

The comments prompted a swift rebuke from the French government -- President Emmanuel Macron's office said any vaccine should be treated as "a global public good, which is not submitted to market forces."

Sanofi chief executive Paul Hudson said the US had a risk-sharing model that allowed for manufacturing to start before a vaccine had been finally approved -- while Europe did not.

"The US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it's invested in taking the risk," Hudson told Bloomberg News.

Macron's top officials are scheduled to meet with Sanofi executives about the issue next week.

The search for a vaccine became even more urgent after the World Health Organization said the disease may never go away and the world would have to learn to live with it for good.

"This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away," said Michael Ryan, the UN body's emergencies director.

The prospect of the disease lingering leaves governments facing a delicate balancing act between suppressing the pathogen and getting their economies up and running.

In the US, more grim economic data emerged Thursday, with nearly three million more Americans applying for unemployment benefits.

That takes the overall total to 36.5 million -- more than 10 percent of the US population.

Further signs of the damage to businesses emerged when Lloyd's of London forecast the pandemic will cost the global insurance industry about $203 billion.

European markets closed down, but Wall Street rallied despite the new jobless claims. In a sign of progress, the New York Stock Exchange trading floor was due to reopen on May 26.

The reopening of economies continued in earnest across Europe, where the EU has set out proposals for a phased restart of travel and the eventual lifting of border controls.

"Maybe it's a mistake, but we have no choice. Without tourists, we won't get by!" Enrico Facchetti, a 61-year-old former goldsmith, said of Venice's reopening.

Japan -- the world's third largest economy -- lifted a state of emergency across most of the country except for Tokyo and Osaka.

And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said national parks would partially reopen on June 1.

But in Latin America, the virus continued to surge, with a 60 percent leap in cases in the Chilean capital of Santiago.

Authorities said 2,000 new graves were being dug at the main cemetery.

South Sudan reported its first COVID-19 death on Thursday.

And in Bangladesh, the first case was confirmed in the teeming Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, which are home to nearly one million people.

Washington, May 20: Once dubbed as historic by him, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he now feels ‘differently’ about the trade deal he signed with China earlier this year.

He said this while once again venting out his frustration with the Beijing leadership, accusing it of letting coronavirus spread.

Till Tuesday, over 92,000 Americans have died and 1.5 million tested positive for coronavirus that has globally killed around 320,000 people.

The US and China had signed a deal in January to end their 22-month-long trade war during which the two countries slapped tit-for-tat tariff hikes on products worth nearly half a trillion USD.

Under it, Beijing agreed to increase its purchase of US goods by USD 200 billion in 2020-2021.

“I feel differently now about that deal than I did three months ago,” Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

“We will see what all happens, but it's been a very disappointing situation. A very disappointing thing happened with China because the plague flowed in and that wasn't supposed to happen and it could have been stopped," he said.

Trump said he was very excited when the trade deal with China was signed.

“But once the virus came in, once the plague, as I called it, came in, I said how did they let that happen? And how come it didn't go into other sections of China? Why did they block it from leaving Wuhan? But they didn't block it from going to the rest of the world, including the United States. Why is that? Beijing doesn't have it. Other places don't have it,” he said.

Trump did not respond to questions on retaliation against China.

Meanwhile, top American senators continued to press the administration that rules of engagement with China needs to change post-coronavirus.

“As we know, they unleashed this virus on America and the world with their classic communist cover-up, deception, continued propaganda campaign, costing now over 90,000 American lives, 35 million Americans losing their jobs so far,” Senator Martha McSally said during a Congressional hearing.

“We don’t know who patient zero is, they destroyed samples, they silenced doctors, they kicked out journalists, they impacted international travel to seed this and their reckless behaviour continues to be the root of all this,” she said.

As a result of coronavirus, the American economy has been thrown into recession; more than 36 million people have lost their job – the worst ever after last century’s great depression.

Many of the US states have now started opening up, after taking necessary precautions.

By conservative estimates, it will take several quarters for the economy to be back on track.

Trump in the last a few weeks has exuded confidence that the economy will be back on track next year.