European Coronavirus Lockdowns Extended, Dashing Hopes for Speedy Reopening - The Wall Street Journal

Italian police patrol a thoroughfare in Rome on Monday. Nationwide restrictions have helped slow the virus’s spread in the hard-hit country.

Photo: alberto lingria/Reuters

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Giovanni Legorano and

Giovanni Legorano
The Wall Street Journal
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Sam Schechner

Sam Schechner
The Wall Street Journal
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April 13, 2020 5:19 pm ET

French President Emmanuel Macron announced a month-long extension of the country’s nationwide lockdown, prolonging measures to fight the new coronavirus into mid-May, as Italy and Spain—two of the nations hit hardest by the pandemic—signal that drastic restrictions on their populations also would continue as the spread of the virus slows.

Mr. Macron extended France’s lockdown, which began nearly a month ago, until at least May 11. After that date, he said in a national address Monday, “as many workers as possible” could begin to resume activity, allowing the country to reopen factories, schools and day-care centers. Restaurants, cinemas and other public spaces would remain closed initially as authorities evaluate the changes and make adjustments along the way, Mr. Macron said.

“We will prevail, but first we will have to live with this virus for several months,” he said. “Today we must make decisions with humility, taking into account the uncertainty.”

Face masks are distributed in Ronda, in southern Spain, on Monday as the government began to ease some curbs. Covid-19 has killed more than 17,000 people in the country.

Photo: jon nazca/Reuters

Europe has enacted some of the West’s tightest and longest-running restrictions on businesses and civil society to combat the pandemic, measures that have helped slow the growth of confirmed new infections and deaths.

France’s decision Monday to extend its lockdown echoed a similar move last week by the Italian government, which extended nationwide restrictions until at least May 3, dashing the hopes of many that this week would bring the start of a return to normality.

Italian and French authorities have said that a premature reopening could spark new outbreaks and even longer quarantines. Some countries in Asia that appeared to have contained the virus recently have experienced a second wave of infections.

Mr. Macron said France is far from developing herd immunity against the virus, because only a small minority of the population has been infected.

The decision in Europe to keep businesses closed and millions confined to their homes for weeks more contrasts with cautious optimism among some U.S. officials that the country has turned a corner in its fight against the pandemic and can begin planning how and when to reopen the economy.

In the U.S., confirmed cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, approached 560,000 on Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Last Friday, the U.S. had 35,000 new confirmed cases; the number dropped to below 29,000 on Sunday. More than 22,000 people have died in the U.S. In hard-hit New York state, 671 people died on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 10,056.

Since March 10, Italy—the country with the second-highest death toll from Covid-19 after the U.S.—has been under a lockdown, and its government has since tightened the rules by closing all nonessential businesses.

Beijing is emerging from a roughly two-month coronavirus lockdown, forcing people to adapt to a new way of life. WSJ’s Julie Wernau shows us how she’s changed her daily routine to protect herself from the virus. Photo composite: Crystal Tai

Police and military patrol empty streets, fining those violating quarantine up to €3,000.Authorities cracked down on Italians attempting to leave their homes during the Easter weekend, with police drones patrolling parks and beaches.

Such sacrifices have helped slow the spread, however painstakingly. Italy hit a peak of 919 in single-day deaths on March 27. It took more than two weeks to cut that figure to 566 on Monday. Confirmed new infections rose about 2% on Monday to 159,516. More than 20,000 people have died.

In France, the epidemic has reached what health officials describe as a high plateau. As of Monday evening, the number of people on life support fell for the fifth consecutive day to 6,821, according to health officials. France’s overall number of confirmed infections reached 98,076 cases, and nearly 15,000 have died in hospitals and old-age homes.

As France, Italy and Spain have made progress in slowing the virus, their leaders have faced intense pressure to ease restrictions and reopen the economy. More than a third of France’s private-sector workforce has applied for payments from the country’s temporary unemployment program.

Italian businesses worry they risk losing international customers to rivals in countries such as Germany that have allowed most of their factories to continue operating.

Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter was largely deserted on Easter Monday. The Spanish government’s move to let some business reopen has been criticized as premature.

Photo: Matthias Oesterle/Zuma Press

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects the jobless rate to rise to 23% in Spain and to 17% in Italy amid the biggest contraction of the European economy since World War II. Germany’s unemployment rate could rise to just over 5% and France’s to 10%.

The Italian government decided last week to allow only a few select businesses to reopen this week, such as logging companies, bookstores, stationary shops and children’s stories.

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Lombardy, the region with almost 40% of the country’s cases and more than half the deaths, is keeping even these businesses shut, worrying that any unwinding of the restrictions could renew the heavy pressure on its hospitals.

Spain, where 17,489 people have died in a pandemic that left the country’s health-care system on the brink, began to ease some measures Monday, allowing some nonessential businesses to restart their activities. But at the same time, the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez extended the remaining lockdown measures for two weeks until April 25 and signaled that they could be extended further.

“I want to be very clear: We are not entering the second phase, what experts call the de-escalation phase. The general confinement continues,” Mr. Sánchez said Sunday in an address to the nation.

The decision to allow some business to resume work has drawn criticism. Quim Torra, the president of Catalonia, a wealthy region where many factories are located, said it was reckless.

Mr. Sánchez said his government allowed some businesses to reopen after consulting with a group of scientists advising the government, and that the restrictions could be reinstated if the pandemic worsens.

Spain’s Civil Protection began distributing face masks in metro and train stations. Employers will need to ensure workplaces are disinfected daily.

By Monday, Spain’s confirmed cases had risen by 2% to 169,496, the smallest daily increase in more than three weeks. Daily deaths are also slowing. They rose by 517 to 17,489.

“This isn’t victory yet,” said Mr. Sánchez. “We are still far away from this victory, from the moment we will recover this new normality in our lives. However, these are the first decisive steps on the path to victory.”

Write to Giovanni Legorano at giovanni.legorano@wsj.com and Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com

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2020-04-13 21:37:57Z
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Boris Johnson praises immigrant nurses who saved his life, as Britain’s NHS becomes a rallying cry - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/boris-johnson-addresses-coronavirus-after-leaving-hospital/2020/04/12/e04ad3b8-d05b-4515-9192-c3abaf2f4422_video.html

LONDON — When he emerged from St. Thomas’ Hospital on Sunday, the first thing Prime Minister Boris Johnson did was thank the National Health Service for saving his life. He paid special tribute to his nurses, “Jenny from New Zealand” and “Luis from Portugal,” two of the thousands of immigrants who serve in the NHS.

“It’s hard to find the words to express my debt,” said the usually loquacious Johnson, pale and wan in a video clip, after days in the virus ward, where “it could have gone either way,” he said.

In Johnson’s short speech on life and death, the 55-year-old Tory praised the NHS as “powered by love.” His tribute underlines how Britain’s great socialist endeavor, a national health-care system, free for all, has emerged as the most trusted and vital of all institutions.

Right now, the NHS nurse garners the kind of acclaim directed at New York City firefighters in the days after 9/11. A taxpayer-funded system for rationed care, born in the deprivation of 1948 postwar Britain, is holding this place together.

When the health secretary or finance minister address the country, they repeat over and over their call to “stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.” The rallying cry to safeguard “our NHS” is a powerful tool deployed to convince the people to submit to lockdown.

When government desperately needed help to care for the vulnerable in isolation, to shop for their groceries and medicines, it created the “NHS Volunteer Responders,” and saw more than 750,000 apply in four days. Not because the government needed them, the NHS did.

Toby Melville

Reuters

A staffer at Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence in London, displays rainbows in the window in support of the NHS.

When kids put crayon drawings of rainbows in their bedroom windows, it is for NHS. When people mourn public deaths, it is for NHS doctors and nurses, many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants. And if and when the government wants to track infections via cellular phones? It will be by NHS-branded app.

[In fight against coronavirus, the world gives medical heroes a standing ovation]

Johnson and his ministers have been effusive in their praise for the NHS — and careful, too, to emphasize their full support. In doing so, they’ve also managed to gloss over a decade of austerity budgets for the health-care system overseen by their Conservative Party governments — budgets that created the very shortfalls in staffing, beds, ventilators that threaten to see the NHS overwhelmed now if the number of coronavirus patients surges.

Kevin Corbett, a retired nurse and a university lecturer, said the NHS helps the government stoke feelings of community for political purpose. “The clapping. Isn’t it sort of whipping people up into a frenzy of support?” he said.

Corbett said the crisis also underscored a pivotal question about the system: how valued, really, are the NHS workers? “Would you rather have someone clapping for you once a week or getting another 20,000 pounds paid to you,” he said. “I know what I would like.”

Even in a normal winter, the NHS barely copes with the onslaught of seasonal flu. This year, before coronavirus, the health service was reporting an overload, with patients waiting in trolleys, in hospital hallways, for hours.

Before the virus struck, the NHS was already suffering from a shortfall of 100,000 caregivers. Its nursing staff has been particularly taxed. As of 2018, there were 41,000 vacancies, according to an independent assessment.

As the Conservatives pursued “austerity” — a budget-cutting campaign by the governments since 2010 — the NHS remained the largest employer in England, but was experiencing a steep drop in the number of doctors, according to the Nuffield Trust research group.

Johnson campaigned on NHS investment — both ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum and in the run-up to his landslide general election victory in December.

“The NHS is a very potent brand,” said Julian Le Grand, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. Unlike in the United States, where people can be distrusting of big hospitals and insurance companies, the NHS is viewed as “an essentially altruistic, professionally-driven organization,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/britain-applauds-nhs-in-weekly-clap-for-carers-initiative/2020/04/13/e48184a5-4467-4ce1-bd7d-db5f815a51b9_video.html

During the pandemic, the British public has been shocked by reports of NHS nurses donning garbage bags as protective gowns, and hearing doctors plead for more personal protective equipment, called PPE.

Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the government is making a “herculean effort” to import and distribute visors, gloves and gowns to front-line workers.

But the British Medical Association reported that this effort is falling short. A BMA survey found just 12 percent of hospital doctors and 2 percent of general practice physicians felt fully protected from the virus while treating patients.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents 800,000 of the 1.2 million NHS staffers, said even as government officials quote ever-growing figures of the many millions of pieces of protective gear being delivered, there remains high anxiety.

“Frontline staff, and those representing them, are pointing with increasing frustration to multiple instances of PPE not being available when required,” he wrote in the Guardian newspaper Monday.

Meng Aw-Yong, an emergency room physician at Hillingdon Hospital in London, said the crisis has meant he is working 60 to 70 hours a week in protective gear.

“It is really hot, it is really uncomfortable using PPE,” he said. “I almost fainted last week because it was so humid … You’ve got gloves on. You have a big over-suit. You have your scrubs. It is not pleasant.”

He admits he is exhausted, and has daily regrets. “For someone to die — and for the last thing for them to see is your face, not a loved one. And then they can’t even see your face because we have the mask on. It’s a horrible way to let someone die. It doesn’t feel right.”

Andy Rain

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

NHS ambulance staff arrive at a call out in London.

In Johnson’s remarks upon release from the hospital, the prime minister called the NHS the country’s “greatest” asset. He singled out two nurses — Jenny McGee from New Zealand and Luis Pitarma from Portugal — who stayed at his bedside for 48 hours.

Johnson’s decision to highlight the two immigrants was notable. The prime minister was a leading cheerleader for Brexit, which was driven by calls to “take back control” of Britain’s borders and slash immigration.

Carrie Symonds, a former Conservative Party media strategist and Johnson’s 32-year-old fiancee, who is pregnant with the couple’s first child, tweeted “I cannot thank our magnificent NHS enough … there were times last week that were very dark indeed.”

Immigrants make up almost a quarter of all hospital staff in Britain. Analysis last December by the Nuffield Trust, an independent health think talk, found that half of the increase in health and nursing home care workers over the last decade were from people born overseas.

Immigrants also represent a “disproportionate” number of health-care workers who have died from coronavirus, Hancock said this weekend.

Nineteen front-line NHS workers have died, including a retired village doctor from Syria, a midwife from Hong Kong, a nurse from the Philippines whose Facebook profile showed him in a mask with the words: “I can’t stay at home, I’m a health-care worker.”

Chaand Nagpaul, chair of British Medical Association, the main doctor’s union, said that “almost all” of the doctors who have died have come from abroad.

“These statistics are stark and disturbing,” he told the BBC on Monday. He said an investigation was needed. He has also said that staff have “dangerously low” levels of protective equipment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/londons-excel-centre-converted-into-coronavirus-hospital/2020/03/31/3a1e541a-016e-45d4-8546-d4ad61d5db90_video.html

One doctor that raised concerns was Abdul Mabud Chowdhury. Last month he warned on social media about the shortages of protective equipment. Last week he died after losing a two-week battle with coronavirus.

His son, Intisar Chowdhury, told the BBC he was glad protective equipment was now getting attention, “because it pains me to say that my father is not the first and he is unfortunately not going to be the last NHS front-line worker to die.”

Before the coronavirus pandemic and his hospitalization, Johnson promised to give preference to foreign-born NHS doctors and nurses in a post-Brexit immigration scheme. And now, the government has announced it would extend visas for a year, at no charge, for 2,800 migrant doctors, nurses and paramedics whose visas were set to expire in October — two months before the scheduled end of the Brexit transition period.

But a cross-party group of more than 60 lawmakers is pushing for Johnson to go further. They have called on the government to give foreign staff who work for the NHS — and their families — the right to stay in Britain indefinitely, as they believe that “those who have put their lives at risk for our country are welcome to live in it.”

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2020-04-13 20:28:40Z
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European Coronavirus Lockdowns Expected to Last Into May: Live Coverage - The New York Times

新冠病毒疫情最新消息

Here’s what you need to know:

• Across the globe, countries weigh easing restrictions, even as new clusters emerge.
• In a turnaround, Putin describes Russia’s outbreak in bleak terms.
• Britain is expected to extend lockdown into May as its tally of confirmed cases surpasses China’s.
• In the Persian Gulf, migrant workers face poverty and fear.
• Macron to address the nation as France’s cases appear to plateau.
• Low oil prices and pandemic combine to worsen Venezuela’s misery, and pose a new challenge to Maduro.
• Hokkaido, a major Japanese island, declared a state of emergency for a second time.

The nearly empty streets of Camden Town in London on Sunday. The total number of confirmed coronavirus deaths in Britain has surpassed that of China.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Across the globe, countries weigh easing restrictions, even as new clusters emerge.

As the number of people around the globe confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus passes 1.8 million, countries are finding themselves at various stages of their own outbreaks and struggling to balance the medical benefits of keeping restrictions in place and the risks that come with getting their economies moving again.

The preventive measures in many countries have taken the form of lockdowns. And while some places try to mimic the policies of nations that have curbed their outbreaks and others introduce their own measures, there is no clear path for the next steps.

Italy, the center of the pandemic last month, is emerging from the throes of its worst days, with experts saying that a fall in hospitalizations and deaths in recent weeks is a “trustworthy” trend. A handful of businesses will reopen there beginning on Tuesday, though the country’s broader lockdown will remain until at least May 3.

Spain has also started to ease its restrictions, with some construction workers and others set to head back to work this week after a two-week shutdown that touched nearly every industry. The number of deaths rose slightly over the weekend, however, and the decision about whether to pull back to help get the economy moving again will fuel the debate about whether the government is taking too much risk too soon.

The crisis seems to be easing in parts of Europe, but cases continue to mount elsewhere, including in the United States, which is now squarely at the center of the global outbreak with more than 555,000 confirmed cases and 22,000 deaths.

Even as new infections and hospitalizations in New York and other hard-hit areas have stabilized in recent days, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, said that any future measures to ease lockdowns should be part of a slow and considered process.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak

The virus has infected more than 1,850,000 people in at least 177 countries.

Britain’s lockdown, which is set to expire on Monday, will continue until the government decides on parameters for formally lengthening restrictions. That decision is expected to come later in the week.

The country’s death toll was over 11,000 as of Monday. And while officials warned that Britain was still days away from a peak of new cases, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was released from the hospital on Sunday after being treated for the virus.

President Emmanuel Macron of France is expected to announce an extension of his country’s lockdown in a televised address on Monday, as the country approaches 100,000 total cases and 15,000 deaths.

In China, where the number of cases has eased in recent weeks, a surge in new infections has been linked to a return of Chinese citizens from Russia, a country that is now experiencing its own uptick.

Some areas of Japan that are experiencing a new wave of infections have declared a state of emergency for a second time, an example of how initial successes from social distancing and restrictions on movement can fade once they are relaxed.

In a turnaround, Putin describes Russia’s outbreak in bleak terms.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia offered his bleakest comments yet on his country’s handling of the pandemic, warning officials on Monday that the number of severely ill patients was rising and that medical workers faced shortages of protective equipment.

“We have a lot of problems, and we don’t have much to brag about, nor reason to, and we certainly can’t relax,” Mr. Putin told senior officials in a televised videoconference that he conducted from his residence outside Moscow. “We are not past the peak of the epidemic, not even in Moscow.”

Russia’s total number of confirmed cases reached 18,328, double the level of five days earlier, with roughly two-thirds of them in Moscow. The number of deaths stood at 148 nationwide.

Moscow’s health system in particular was under growing strain, and state television reported hours-long lines of ambulances waiting to admit suspected coronavirus patients into hospitals. The authorities tightened their lockdown on the city of 13 million people, directing residents to apply online for permission to leave their homes.

Mr. Putin’s dour tone Monday was part of a sharp shift in Russia’s official rhetoric on the crisis, with hope fading that the country might escape being hit hard by the pandemic. He directed officials to remedy shortages in medical workers’ protective equipment and to share ventilators and medicine across Russia’s far-flung regions to respond to geographic differences in demand.

“All scenarios of how the situation could develop must be taken into account, including the most difficult and extraordinary ones,” Mr. Putin said.

Britain is expected to extend lockdown into May as its tally of confirmed cases surpasses China’s.

Monday was supposed to be the day when Britain might have started to lift its lockdown, but with no sign yet that the epidemic there is abating, the government is expected to leave the restrictions in place until well into next month.

The country reported 717 new deaths from the virus, bringing its total to 11,329. It has 88,621 confirmed cases, surpassing the reported total in China.

When Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed the lockdown on March 23, he said the government would review it on April 13. But officials have signaled it is too soon to ease the measures.

The latest death figure was smaller than those reported late last week, but numbers are typically lower on the weekend because of a lag in reporting.

China’s number of confirmed cases is widely suspected to be understated, though medical experts said the number of infected people in Britain was also likely higher because of a lack of widespread testing.

Britons were cheered on Sunday after Mr. Johnson was released from the hospital following his own serious bout with the virus. But now, as he convalesces at his country residence, Chequers, attention is shifting back to the broader trajectory of the outbreak, which is increasingly worrisome.

The number of known infections and fatalities is rising faster in Britain than anywhere else in Europe, putting it on track to reach the death totals in Italy and Spain.

Jeremy Farrar, a leading British medical researcher who is director of the Wellcome Trust, told the BBC on Sunday that Britain is “likely to be one of the worst, if not the worst, affected countries in Europe.”

In the Persian Gulf, migrant workers face poverty and fear.

Millions of migrant workers in Persian Gulf countries have found themselves locked down, laid off and stranded, with no place to turn for help amid the coronavirus outbreak. Qatar alone has locked down tens of thousands of migrant workers in a crowded neighborhood, raising fears of a rampant spread of the virus there.

Companies in Saudi Arabia have told foreign laborers to stay home — then stopped paying them. In Kuwait, an actress said on television that migrants should be thrown out “into the desert.”

The oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf have long relied on armies of low-paid migrant workers from Asia, Africa and elsewhere to do the heavy lifting in their economies, and have faced criticism from rights groups for treating those laborers poorly.

Now, the coronavirus has made matters worse, as migrants in Gulf States are locked down in cramped, unsanitary dorms, deprived of income and unable to return home because of travel restrictions.

Some are running out of food and money, and fear that they have no place to turn in societies that often treat them like an expendable underclass.

“Nobody called us,” said Mohamed al-Sayid, an Egyptian restaurant worker who lives with seven friends in a one-room apartment in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — and all are now unemployed. “Nobody checked on us at all. I’m not afraid of corona. I’m afraid we’ll die from hunger.”

Macron to address the nation as France’s cases appear to plateau.

President Emmanuel Macron is expected to extend France’s lockdown in a televised address on Monday evening, as the country nears 100,000 total cases and 15,000 deaths.

His office has confirmed that the national lockdown, currently in its fourth week, will be extended past its April 15 deadline. But officials have not given details on its new duration or any potential new limitations.

A weekslong extension — or even another month of lockdown — is widely expected, putting further stress on the French economy and society as patience grows thin around the country, from poor urban suburbs to disgruntled countryside communities.

The toll of the virus in France appears to have reached a plateau. With the number of patients in intensive care continuing to decrease below 7,000, one top health official said it was a “pale ray of sun” amid the gloom. The number of deaths has also been rising at a slower pace.

But the authorities say it is too early to know whether the unprecedented strain on France’s vaunted health system is easing. And the outbreak may be far from over.

The Charles de Gaulle, France’s flagship aircraft carrier, berthed in Toulon, its home port on the Mediterranean coast, on Sunday after 50 crew members onboard tested positive for Covid-19. The French Navy now plans to disembark and test nearly 2,000 sailors and isolate them for two weeks. It is unclear how the ship’s outbreak started.

Low oil prices and pandemic combine to worsen Venezuela’s misery, and pose a new challenge to Maduro.

In his seven years in power in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro has weathered a series of crises and attempts to topple him, always emerging in firm control despite his country’s tattered economy.

But the coronavirus pandemic is contributing to his greatest challenge yet.

Around the world, lockdowns to contain the virus have caused demand and prices for oil, Venezuela’s main export, to plummet. Last month his ally, Russia, and Saudi Arabia entered into an oil price war that suppressed prices even further.

Then the Russian oil giant, Rosneft, Venezuela’s main trading partner, halted operations there. Venezuela’s output of oil collapsed; not only was it too cheap to produce profitably, the country had lost its main outlet for selling crude or trading it for refined gasoline.

Gasoline supplies fell sharply, bringing much of Venezuela to a standstill.

Now the deadly pandemic is spreading through Latin America and reaching into Venezuela, a country whose health care systems have deteriorated so far that they lack even the most basic supplies.

“The regime is in survival mode,” said Michael Penfold, a Caracas-based fellow at the Wilson Center, a research group. “The country is entering into a very fragile equilibrium that’s going to be increasingly difficult to maintain.”

Mr. Maduro, who was recently indicted in the United States on drug charges, was among the first Latin American leaders to act against the virus, rolling out a national lockdown on March 15 — compounding the economic calamity — two days after confirming the first infection in the country.

As of Monday, the government said, there had been 181 cases and nine deaths, but it is hard to gauge how many have gone unreported.

Hokkaido, a major Japanese island, declared a state of emergency for a second time.

In an example of how initial successes of a social distancing campaign can fade once restrictions are relaxed, Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, declared a state of emergency for a second time on Sunday and called on residents to stay at home for all but the most essential outings.

Hokkaido’s governor said the government was taking action because of a second wave of infections. Long before Japan’s central government issued a state of emergency for the country’s seven largest prefectures last week, Hokkaido called for a soft lockdown of the region on Feb. 28. As cases appeared to come under control, the prefecture lifted the state of emergency two weeks later and slowly allowed schools to reopen.

Overall case numbers remain low in Hokkaido, but the government is concerned about how quickly they are multiplying. Four new cases were confirmed on April 7, and that figure tripled within five days.

On Sunday, Hokkaido and Sapporo, the provincial capital, asked residents to refrain from going out, cease traveling and avoid restaurants — particularly for “business entertainment.”

In Osaka, Japan’s third-largest city, the governor urged on Monday that businesses like night clubs, internet cafes, karaoke venues, pachinko parlors, movie theaters, gyms, museums and libraries close until May 6. The move followed similar requests in Tokyo.

Under the law authorizing the state of emergency, governors have the power only to request that businesses close. Those who do not comply can be publicized, but not officially punished.

Japan’s health ministry reported 530 new cases and four deaths on Sunday, taking Japan’s total to 7,255 cases and 102 deaths. Tokyo reported 166 new cases on Sunday, more than half of which were concentrated in one hospital — the latest of several recent clusters at the country’s hospitals.

An unexpected new source of cases in China: Russia.

A surge of Chinese people returning from Russia, which is now experiencing its own spike in infections, has fueled the largest increase in reported new cases in China in more than a month.

Chinese officials said on Monday that 98 new infections were reported among people who recently arrived in China. Most of those were Chinese citizens who had apparently scrambled to return to their homeland after China limited flights in and out of the country.

Previously, an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Shanghai on April 10 carried 60 people who ultimately tested positive for the coronavirus. The passengers were all quarantined.

That flight arrived just days after China said that it would close, effective Monday, its last overland crossing at Suifenhe, a small city across the border from Russia’s Far East.

Many Chinese people seeking to leave Russia have flown from Moscow to Vladivostok in hopes of completing the last leg by land. The Chinese Consulate in Vladivostok said in a statement on Sunday that 243 Chinese citizens infected with the coronavirus had already crossed the border.

So many cases have emerged in the borderlands that the local government has opened a temporary hospital to deal with the caseload.

Russia closed its borders with China in January, hoping to staunch the spread of the pandemic, only to find itself facing a belated spike in cases. By Monday, Russia had nearly 16,000 cases and at least 130 deaths.

Italy’s downward trend is now ‘trustworthy,’ experts say.

For the fourth time in six days, Italian officials reported fewer than 600 coronavirus-linked deaths on Monday, a significant drop from the peak of the country’s crisis in late March and early April, when it was averaging about 800 fatalities per day.

And even as the total number of fatalities surpassed 20,000 on Monday, officials and public health experts in the country said the reductions of new cases and fatalities were evidence of a hopeful turn.

“The trend is now trustworthy,” Luca Richeldi, a pulmonologist who is on the scientific committee that is advising the government, said at a news conference. “Putting together the drop of people being hospitalized, patients in I.C.U. and the number of people dying, we can say that the measures that were adopted and extended are having an impact on this virus.”

Italy reported 566 deaths on Monday and 431 on Sunday, the lowest figure in more than three weeks.

Officials also said that for the tenth day in a row, the number of people hospitalized in intensive care fell on Monday.

The drop in numbers has considerably relieved the pressure on Italy’s national health system, Dr. Richeldi said, which had been strained by an influx of patients last month.

As of Monday, more than 159,000 people in Italy have tested positive for the coronavirus, surpassed in Europe only by Spain — an increase that Dr. Richeldi attributed in part to an uptick in testing.

Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Civil Protection Department, said that the group of experts who are managing the next phase of the government’s response had met with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte over the weekend. The committee is working on an “inventory of solutions and proposals,” Mr. Borrelli said.

While the government has extended lockdown measures until May 3, businesses like children’s clothing stores and stationery and book shops will reopen on Tuesday.

Small numbers of Spanish workers return to work, but some fear it’s too soon.

At bus stops and subway stations in Madrid on Monday, transit workers and police officers handed out face masks to commuters who showed papers indicating that they were returning to work. A partial loosening of restrictions, the government’s first step in easing a national lockdown, comes amid political feuding over whether the move will reignite an outbreak.

The reopening of construction sites and factories begins on Monday in half of Spain’s 17 regions, with others following on Tuesday. Other companies have been allowed to recall some employees.

The director of a Michelin factory in Valladolid told Spanish national television that workers would return gradually. And Alu Ibérica, an aluminum company, resumed its recycling activities on Monday with a third of its work force.

The government also issued recommendations for workers, including washing clothes at high temperatures after returning home and using their own water bottles rather than drinking from water fountains.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Sunday that the general lockdown was still in place. “The only thing that has ended is the extreme measure of hibernation” of the economy, he said.

On Monday, Spain reported a decline in the daily casualty rate — with 517 dead overnight, brining the overall tally to nearly 17,500, the second highest in Europe.

Some regional leaders, opposition politicians and labor unions said they feared that the partial return to work would set off a new wave of infections.

“Companies must have the means to protect us,” Pepe Álvarez, the secretary general of the UGT union, told Spanish television. “Nobody can make us choose between working safely or facing difficulties to maintain our job.”

Chinese social media users mourn a heroic doctor on a digital ‘wailing wall.’

Credit

Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who was threatened by the authorities for raising the alarm about the outbreak — and who later died of Covid-19 — is seen as a martyr by many people in China.

After his death on Feb. 6, supporters began to gather at his last post on Weibo, the social media platform, to grieve together. They have left more than 870,000 comments. Only posts by China’s biggest actors and pop stars can match those numbers, but even those lack the visceral response that Dr. Li’s last post has drawn.

Li Yuan, who writes the New New World column for The New York Times, focusing on the intersection of technology, business and politics in China and across Asia, read through thousands of the comments.

The page is sometimes called China’s Wailing Wall, a reference to the Western Wall in Jerusalem where people leave written prayers in the cracks.

Some people post a few times a day, telling Dr. Li how their mornings, afternoons and evenings went. Because many people see him as an ordinary person wronged by the authorities and as a hero who stood up to power, they come to him to express their frustration that justice and righteousness haven’t prevailed.

Some people complain that the comments are censored, an allegation that is difficult to prove. They worry that his Weibo account could be deleted, just like many others. Then, they will lose the only place they can take a break from a world that has been turned upside down.

An agreement to slash oil production may not be enough to stabilize the industry as demand collapses.

Oil-producing nations on Sunday agreed to the largest production cut ever negotiated, in an unprecedented coordinated effort by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States to stabilize oil prices and, indirectly, global financial markets.

It was unclear, however, whether the cuts would be enough to bolster prices. Before the coronavirus crisis, 100 million barrels of oil each day fueled global commerce, but demand is down about 35 percent. While significant, the cuts fall far short of what is needed to bring oil production in line with demand.

The plan by OPEC, Russia and other allied producers in a group known as OPEC Plus will slash 9.7 million barrels a day in May and June, or close to 10 percent of the world’s output.

The agreement was the result of more than a week of telephone conversations involving Mr. Trump; the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman; and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. It should bring some relief to struggling economies in the Middle East and Africa and global oil companies, including American firms that directly and indirectly employ 10 million workers.

The reaction in oil markets on Monday was largely muted. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was unchanged at $31.47 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate, the main U.S. marker, was up 1 percent to $22.98 a barrel.

“This is at least a temporary relief for the energy industry and for the global economy,” said Per Magnus Nysveen, head of analysis for Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. “The industry is too big to be let to fail.”

A drug study ends in Brazil over concerns of fatal heart complications.

A small study of chloroquine, which is closely related to the hydroxychloroquine drug that President Trump has promoted, was halted in Brazil after coronavirus patients taking a higher dose developed irregular heart rates that increased their risk of a potentially fatal arrhythmia.

The study, which involved 81 hospitalized patients in the city of Manaus, was sponsored by the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Roughly half the participants were prescribed 450 milligrams of chloroquine twice daily for five days, while the rest were prescribed 600 milligrams for 10 days.

Within three days, researchers started noticing heart arrhythmias in patients taking the higher dose. By the sixth day of treatment, 11 patients had died, leading to an immediate end to the high-dose segment of the trial.

“To me, this study conveys one useful piece of information, which is that chloroquine causes a dose-dependent increase in an abnormality in the E.C.G. that could predispose people to sudden cardiac death,” said Dr. David Juurlink, an internist and the head of the division of clinical pharmacology at the University of Toronto, referring to an electrocardiogram, which reads the heart’s electrical activity.

The researchers said the study did not have enough patients in the lower-dose trial to conclude whether chloroquine was effective in patients with severe cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Patients in the trial were also given the antibiotic azithromycin, which carries the same heart risk. Hospitals in the United States are using azithromycin to treat coronavirus patients, often in combination with hydroxychloroquine.

President Trump has promoted them as a potential treatment for the coronavirus despite little evidence that they work, and despite concerns from health officials. Companies that manufacture both drugs are ramping up production.

U.S. update: Economic recovery will be slow, experts warn.

With infections and deaths still rising in the United States, public health and business experts warned Monday that the country’s devastated economy will be slow to recover.

President Trump is eager to ease lockdown measures and minimize the economic damage. Governors are urging caution, fearing a resurgence of the coronavirus, while the president’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said the shutdown could do more damage to the nation’s health than the virus, itself.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that he expected reopening to play out “community by community,” but that it would require the country to “substantially augment our public health capacity.”

The United States has had more than 555,000 confirmed cases and over 22,000 deaths from the epidemic, more than any other country has reported.

In New York, the hardest-hit state, the death toll passed 10,000 on Monday, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo said “the worst is over if we continue to be smart.” The number of coronavirus-related hospital admissions and deaths, though high, continued to decline.

Compared to the Northeast, California, Washington and Oregon, which were hit first by the virus, continued to do fairly well. Experts said that relative success reflects the West Coast states’ earlier, more aggressive efforts to shut down public life.

And in Guam, a crew member of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt died from Covid-19, the first fatality from the outbreak aboard a ship whose captain, Brett E. Crozier, had said that the Pentagon was not treating the outbreak seriously enough.

The captain, who is ill with the virus, was removed from his post when his complaints became publicly known. More than 580 of the ship’s crew members have been infected.

The Israeli spy service has helped the country obtain medical supplies.

Israel’s powerful spy service has been deeply involved in the country’s fight against the coronavirus, and has been one of its most valuable assets in acquiring medical equipment and manufacturing technology abroad, according to Israeli medical and security officials.

As countries around the world compete for limited supplies during the pandemic, they are turning to any help available, and flexing their muscles unapologetically.

And with the Mossad having determined that Iran — which is struggling with its own coronavirus crisis — no longer represents an immediate security threat, the agency could afford to immerse itself in the health emergency, according to multiple people knowledgeable about its operations.

In early March, a command and control center was set up to handle the distribution of medical gear across the country, with Yossi Cohen, the Mossad chief, at its head and headquartered at Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s biggest hospital.

Professor Yitshak Kreiss, Sheba’s director general, said the Mossad had been pivotal in helping Sheba secure vital medical equipment and expertise from abroad.

Flight attendants and pilots question whether they should still be working.

Airlines have canceled a staggering number of flights, but thousands still take off every day, leaving many in the industry reckoning with whether to continue working and how to stay safe if they do.

Hundreds of flight attendants and pilots have fallen ill, and at least five have died from the coronavirus, according to to the labor unions that represent them.

Tens of thousands of airline employees have taken unpaid leave, staying home out of necessity or concern, or to free up slots for colleagues who may need the income more. But some have continued to show up, either because they need the money or fear losing their jobs once the crisis has ebbed.

Flight attendants and pilots at several major airlines said they had had to take their own gloves and masks to work. Even when airlines have committed to providing protective equipment, many have run into the same supply problems that have plagued hospitals.

Air travel has fallen to new lows: For the first time since its formation, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration screened fewer than 100,000 people per day at its checkpoints on at least three occasions this month. It screened more than two million people per day at this time last year.

And even though the industry secured $25 billion from the U.S. government to pay employees through September, many airlines are likely to emerge from the crisis with fewer employees.

Reporting was contributed by Anatoly Kurmanaev, Richard Pérez-Peña, Karen Zraick, Anton Troianovski, Li Yuan, Elisabetta Povoledo, Raphael Minder, Aurelien Breeden, Constant Méheut, Megan Specia, Motoko Rich, Carlotta Gall, Mark Landler, Steven Lee Myers, Claire Fu, Ronen Bergman, Niraj Chokshi, Clifford Krauss and Ruth Maclean.

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2020-04-13 18:27:18Z
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Hundreds of thousands return to work as Spain relaxes coronavirus lockdown - CNN

As Spain enters its second month of lockdown, some restrictions were eased, allowing those who cannot work from home, such as those in the construction and manufacturing industries, to return to work.

However, shops, bars, and restaurants and other businesses considered nonessential remain closed.

Spain has been one of the countries worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 169,000 confirmed cases so far -- the highest in Europe, and second only to the US, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

The country has now recorded a total of more than 17,400 deaths. On Monday, it recorded the second-lowest daily rise in deaths for three weeks: 517 fatalities in the past 24 hours.

A cautious climbdown

But Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has cautioned that the nation's return to normal life will be "progressive," stressing that the resumption of normal activity will happen in phases and will be accompanied by hygiene measures and efforts to monitor new cases and prevent further contagion.

"We can't even know what kind of normality we're returning to," he said last week.

Over the weekend, the government announced that police would begin handing out 10 million protective masks at metro stations and other transport hubs, while reiterating guidance on social distancing and regular hand-washing.

Spain's central government has distributed one million coronavirus testing kits around the country, and a further five million will be sent out in the coming days and weeks.

"The climb has been difficult, the descent will also be," Sanchez told parliament last week, as the country's state of emergency was extended to April 26. Sanchez has warned that restrictions may need to be further extended.

'Irresponsible and reckless'

Still, the easing of restrictions has triggered concern in some quarters.

Spain's General Workers Union (GTU) has raised concerns over the safety of those returning to work. The union, which has 940,000 members, according to its website, called on employers to be responsible for providing personal protection equipment for their staff.

Some opposition politicians and a number of regional governments have also criticized the easing of restrictions. Quim Torra, president of Catalonia, said returning people to work was "irresponsible and reckless" in a video statement posted to his verified Twitter account.

Last week, a study published in medical journal The Lancet warned that coronavirus lockdowns across the globe should not be completely lifted until a vaccine for the disease is found. The study, based on China's outbreak, used mathematical modeling to show how lifting such measures prematurely could result in a sweeping second wave of infection.

Spain is one of several European countries cautiously preparing to loosen restrictions.

Austria said it would gradually begin to reopen shops after Easter, and in Germany a group of economists, lawyers and medical experts are recommending a gradual revival that would allow specific industries and workers to resume their activities while steps are taken to prevent a resurgence of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Denmark will reopen kindergartens and schools this week if coronavirus cases remain stable, and children in Norway will return to kindergarten a week later.

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2020-04-13 17:24:45Z
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Christ the Redeemer statue lit up as doctor to honor frontline medical workers during coronavirus pandemic - CBS News

The iconic Christ the Redeemer statue perched atop Mount Corcovado is an omnipresent symbol of faith overlooking Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On Easter Sunday, one of the holiest days of the year for Christians, the statue not only immortalized Jesus, but paid homage to medical workers battling the coronavirus across the globe. Lights projected a medical outfit onto the statue, transforming the depiction of Jesus into a doctor.

The statue appeared to wear a stethoscope and white lab coat as the words "thank you," written in different languages, flashed across him. "Obrigado," "merci," "grazie," "danke," the projection read, offering thanks to the millions of medical workers selflessly battling the pandemic around the world.

View of the illuminated statue of Christ the Redeemer that reads "Thank you" as Archbishop of the city of Rio de Janeiro Dom Orani Tempesta performs a mass in honor of Act of Consecration of Brazil and tribute to medical workers amidst the Coronavirus (COVID - 19) pandemic on April 12, 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  / Getty Images

The projection then showed images of real health care workers in their own scrubs. "Fique em casa," the projection read — "Stay at home."

Coronavirus: The Race To Respond ›

More in Coronavirus: The Race To Respond

People around the world have been asked to stay at home as part of social distancing measures now proven to help slow the spread of the deadly virus. Many countries have been placed under nationwide lockdowns because of the virus, while all but six U.S. states have issued stay-at-home orders. 

The coronavirus has killed 1,241 people in Brazil alone. The United States, which has become the hardest hit country, has 557,663 coronavirus cases and 22,116 total deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. The global crisis has stretched the staff of hospitals around the world thin.

The Christ the Redeemer statue has been lit up previously in a show of solidarity with specific countries affected by the pandemic. In March, "Praying together" was projected in multiple languages across the 125-foot-tall iconic statue.

On Easter Sunday, the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Dom Orani Tempesta, gave a Mass at the landmark and to paid tribute to medical workers during the pandemic.

View of a medical worker on the illuminated statue of Christ the Redeemer. According to the Ministry of health, as today, Brazil has 22,169 confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) and at least 1223 recorded fatalities. / Getty Images

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2020-04-13 16:17:30Z
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