VIRUS IS WORSENING: TRUMP

Says US leading the world in testing, India second

The US is leading the world in terms of COVID-19 testing and India is second, President Donald Trump has said while warning Americans that the pandemic may "get worse before it gets better." Over 140,000 Americans have died due to the coronavirus and 3.8 million have tested positive in the country. While the US economy is slowly coming back to normal, the pandemic is now spreading in many Sun Belt states, including in Arizona, Florida, Texas and parts of California.

"As one family, we mourn every precious life that's been lost. I pledge in their honour that we will develop a vaccine and we will defeat the virus. We're doing very well with vaccine development and therapeutic development," Trump said at a White House news conference on Tuesday, his first on coronavirus after several weeks.

Trump insisted the American response to the pandemic was "much better" than in other places. But he also warned that the disease could get worse in the coming days.

"It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better," he said.

Trump said his administration will stop at nothing to save lives and shield the vulnerable.

He assured that the vaccines against the novel coronavirus will be coming a lot sooner than expected.

Replying to a question, Trump said the US is "leading the world" in terms of COVID-19 testing.

"We're going to be over 50 million tests," he said, adding that "second country is India with 12 million (tests). Then you have seven million, six million, and four million. I think that we are doing a tremendous amount of testing." The "China virus", Trump said, is a vicious and dangerous illness.

"It's a nasty, horrible disease that should heve never been allowed to escape China, but it did. It infected the world, and the world is suffering. But we're going to get it taken care of, and we're helping lots of other countries," the US president said.

“As one family, we mourn every precious life that's been lost. I pledge in their honour that we will develop a vaccine and we will defeat the virus. We're doing very well with vaccine development and therapeutic development” —Donald Trump