UPDATE - US coronavirus deaths top 40,000 ―Johns Hopkins

The number of deaths from the new coronavirus in the United States topped 40,000 on Sunday, according to a

running tally by Johns Hopkins University.

It showed fatalities countrywide had reached 40,585, with almost half of them in New York, whose governor Andrew Cuomo said the outbreak there is now “on the descent.”

The US toll exceeds that of Italy, which has the second-highest number of deaths at 23,660, according to Johns Hopkins.

The tracker shows a total US caseload of 742,442 — nearly four times that of Spain, which has almost 196,000 cases.

In another news, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump have spoken on the phone, discussing the coronavirus pandemic, bilateral relations and regional developments.

According to an account of the phone call shared by the Turkish presidency’s office on Sunday, the two leaders agreed to continue their “close cooperation” against the threats posed by the coronavirus on public health and the economy. 

This would be a “necessity of the spirit of solidarity required by being NATO allies,” the message said.

The two leaders also spoke on the phone at the end of March.

The U.S. has the highest number of COVID-19 infections in the world and Turkey now ranks seventh, according to Johns Hopkins University’s data on the coronavirus pandemic. 

They have both surpassed China, where COVID-19 emerged, the figures show.

[AFP]

Vanguard News Nigeria.