The global confirmed death toll from COVID-19 has reached a bleak new milestone with 400,000 deaths.

At least 6.9 million people worldwide have been infected by the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The United States leads the world with nearly 110,000 confirmed virus-related deaths. Europe has recorded more than 175,000 since the virus emerged in China late last year.

Many governments have struggled to produce statistics that can reasonably be considered as true indicators of the pandemic given the scarcity of diagnostic tests especially in the first phase of the crisis.

Many countries like the US and Britain insist that they can ease restrictions even when they have not stalled their COVID-19 outbreaks.

Vaccine makers are racing to develop COVID-19 vaccines and have advanced ten candidates into clinical trials but challenges remain.

Already, ten vaccines against the COVID-19 are in clinical trials and researchers at the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca hope to have the first phase 3 data in their hand this summer.

Although many infectious disease experts argue that 18 months for a first vaccine is an incredibly aggressive schedule, a few optimists believe that hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine might be ready for roll-out by the end of 2020.