The United States has a little more than 4% of the world's population.

But almost 30% of the people who have died of COVID-19 worldwide have died here.

That's now 100,000 people. And that is despite the fact that the US spends more money on healthcare

per person than any other country in the world by far. Coming up, some health workers still say,

almost 80 days into this pandemic, they do not have what they need to stay safe.

This is coronavirus daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Wednesday, May 27th.

Okay, so we know that most scientists are warning about a second wave this fall.

But now they are also talking about the possibility of a second peak this summer.

What needs to be understood is this coronavirus is not the flu.

Dr. Margaret Harris is a member of the WHO's coronavirus response team.

So a lot of people have put what I'd call a flu lens on their expectations. They keep on

thinking it's seasonal. But if you look around the globe, we've got countries in the middle of

this summer and autumn having large, large outbreaks. So we're not seeing a seasonal pattern.

What public health officials do see is a predictable rise in cases where countries open up too

quickly. We certainly don't say you have to be in lockdown, but we're saying is carefully.

But even as countries are learning from each other about how this virus spreads,

they're also competing with each other to find a vaccine. Today, I want to update you on the next

stage of this momentous medical initiative. The Trump administration's vaccine effort is called

Operation Warp Speed. That means big and it means fast, a massive scientific and

industrial, analogistical endeavor. Unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.

The idea is to develop a coronavirus vaccine for Americans as soon as possible.

But when the science and business of vaccine development requires international cooperation,

...