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COVID-19 cases in the U.S. topped a world-leading 3.6 million cases Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University, as the number of new cases reported each day continue to rise sharply, as an unpublished report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force recommends that 18 U.S. states should impose more stringent lockdown measures.
A document obtained by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity suggests that the states, which are experiencing sharp spikes in coronavirus infections, curtail reopening plans.
The report identified the states as "red zone" areas because they had over 100 new cases per 100,000 population last week. Among the states are Florida, South Carolina and Texas, all of which reported record number of COVID-19 deaths on Thursday.
The report's recommendations are contrary to the position taken by President Donald Trump, who insists that states reopen even as infections continue to rise.
Teams of military medical personnel have been deployed in Texas and California to help overwhelmed hospitals treat coronavirus patients.
In addition to infections, the U.S. also continued to lead the world in COVID-19 deaths, with more than 138,000, according to Johns Hopkins statistics.
In Europe, leaders gathered in Brussels on Friday for a two-day meeting to negotiate the terms of an $855 billion economic rescue plan. It was their first in-person meeting in Brussels in five months.
The coronavirus pandemic continues a steady climb as it ravages locations around the world. Almost 14 million global COVID-19 infection cases have been recorded by Johns Hopkins.
Brazil follows the U.S. in infections, with more than 2 million, and India has 1 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins.
Spain showed "strong resolve" that "changed the course" of the country's coronavirus outbreak, the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said, while paying tribute to the onetime COVID-19 hotspot for reversing "the trajectory of the outbreak."
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday, "Spain has shown that with political leadership and action, backed by community support, that COVID-19 can be controlled, no matter at what stage virus transmission is at in a country."
In late March and early April, Spain was reporting as many as 10,000 new cases a day.
Tedros gave credit to both the Spanish government and people for adhering to tough restrictions including what the WHO says has been robust surveillance, testing, contact tracing, treatment and isolation.
While hailing the success, Tedros also remembered the Spaniards and others worldwide felled by COVID-19 and warned that the coronavirus remains a threat even where the emergency appears to have abated.
The virus shows no sign of easing in Brazil, where the health ministry is reporting more than 2 million cases and more than 1,000 deaths a day.
Brazilian health experts blame the federal government for the high toll.
"The virus would have been difficult to stop anyway. But this milestone of 2 million cases, which is very underestimated, shows this could have been different," said Dr. Adriano Massuda, a health care professor at Sao Paulo's Getulio Vargas Foundation university. "There's no national strategy for testing, no measures from the top ... too little effort to improve basic care so we find serious cases before they become too serious, no tracking."
Although the number of cases appears to be ebbing in some of the larger Brazilian cities, it is now starting to hit places that had been spared.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who spent months minimizing COVID-19 as "a little flu," has tested positive for the virus twice in the past two weeks.
Bolsonaro has encouraged businesses to reopen and pushed local leaders to ease restrictions, saying the lockdowns and other measures are costing Brazilians their jobs.
Another trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has proved it to be ineffective as an early treatment for mild cases of COVID-19, researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine have concluded.
"There is not convincing evidence that hydroxychloroquine can either prevent COVID-19 after exposure or reduce illness severity after developing early symptoms," said Caleb Skipper, lead author of the study. "While disappointing, these results are consistent with an emerging body of literature that hydroxychloroquine doesn't convey a substantial clinical benefit in people diagnosed with COVID-19, despite its activity against the coronavirus in a test tube."
Trump had hyped hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment early in the pandemic and said he took the drug himself. He has tested negative for the coronavirus.
After initially approving it as an emergency treatment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reversed itself once doctors warned of potentially deadly side effects.