Coronavirus tally: Global cases of COVID-19 29.6 million, 935,591 deaths and Trump says he 'up-played' virus

The global tally for confirmed cases of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 climbed to 29.6 million on Wednesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while the death toll rose to 935,591. At least 20 million people have recovered. The U.S. has the highest tallies in the world with 6.6 million cases and 195,942 deaths. Brazil has the second highest death toll at 133,119 and third highest case toll at 4.4 million. India is third with 82,066 deaths and second with 5 million cases. Mexico is fourth with 71,678 deaths and seventh with 676.487 cases. The U.K. has 41,753 deaths and 376,670 cases, the highest death toll in Europe and fifth-highest in the world. President Donald Trump said on an ABC town-hall event that far from downplaying the virus, as he said in a taped interview with journalist Bob Woodward in February, he had "up-played it." "Yeah, well, I didn't downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action." The tapes of Trump's interview were released last week. Trump also said eventually the U.S. would achieve "herd mentality." Herd immunity, not mentality, is the notion that once a high proportion of a population has contracted or been vaccinated against an infectious disease, the likelihood of others in the population being infected is drastically reduced.

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