Coronavirus update: Brazil crosses one-million mark, US in fear of a second wave

Brazil reported over 54,000 coronavirus positive cases, a single-day high. The country had over 1,200 deaths for the fourth day in a row, taking the Covid-19 death tally to almost 49,000 and rising to 52,000 deaths by the time of publishing. The country has crossed the one-million mark for positive cases on Friday, said the country’s health ministry.

Now, Brazil follows the US, which has 2.2 million positive cases.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the pandemic is spreading fast in the Americas, Southeast Asia and Africa. "This happens at a moment when the death toll has risen to 450,000 worldwide. About 75 percent of the cases are from only 10 countries, mainly from these regions," said WHO President Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In the United States of America, COVID-19 cases recently rose to a record high, triggering concerns of a second wave of contagion in the country.

However, Vice-President Mike Pence said the concerns were “overblown”. He blamed the media saying they were quoting “grim predictions” to spread panic among the American people.

The US has around 25 percent of the global cases.

Following a grim scenario in March last week, cases started declining in May. Later, many states relaxed restrictions. However, the number of new cases has not yet gone below 20,000 because some states managed to control the situation, others witnessed a spurt. Hence, top US health official Anthony Fauci said the initial outbreak was continuing. “People keep talking about a second wave," he told a reporter last week. "We're still in a first wave.”

The north-eastern region of the US still remains worst hit accounting for 25 percent cases in the country. Over 30 percent deaths have taken place in New Jersey and New York. However, the situation has been brought under control now. There has been a steep spike in cases in the southern and west regions, as per data provided by the COVID Tracking Project.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump said that he thought “testing is overrated” as “in many ways, it makes us look bad”. Around 25 million tests have been carried out in the US, the highest in any country.

Meanwhile, India reported the highest number of cases for the third consecutive day. The country had 14,516 new cases and 375 deaths in the past 24 hours. India’s tally of confirmed positive patients has gone up to 395,048 while the death toll is 12,948, said Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday. The Indian Council of Medical Research claimed that 6,616,496 tests had been carried out across the country. It said 189,869 tests were conducted on Friday.