US Will Donate Ventilators To India, Trump Calls PM Modi His 'Very Good Friend'

On Saturday, Donal Trump tweeted that the US will donate ventilators to India to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The tweet says:

“We stand with India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during this pandemic.”

Trump added that the US is working with India to develop a COVID-19 vaccine with praise for Indian-American great researchers and scientists.

Trump expressed his hope to find a vaccine for the coronavirus before year-end and announced to be appointing a former pharmaceutical executive to lead the project “Operation Warp Speed,” to fight COVID-19. Trump said to reporters:

“I just got back a short while ago from India recently and we are working very much with India and we have a tremendous Indian population in the US and many of the people that you are talking about are working on the vaccine too. Great scientist and researchers.”

Trump even said PM Modi is a “very good friend” of his.

“India has been so great and as you know your Prime Minister has been a very good friend of mine.”

The statements from Trump come just over 1 month after he threatened to retaliate if India doesn’t lift the hold on exporting Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that can treat COVID-19 patients. After Indian agreed to let the US buy 29 million doses, he sent a thanks letter.

On Friday, the number of positive cases in India surpassed that of China, recording 85,215 cases, according to data from state health departments. As of now, India has the 11th most COVID-19 cases in the world.

But the death rate from the disease is lower in India than in China, 3.2% as opposed to 5.5%. There have been over 27,000 people recovered in India, revealed in data from the Union Health Ministry.

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