Around the world...
MORE than 3.6 million people have been infected across the world by coronavirus, with the death toll passing 250,000.
Here are the latest updates from around the world:
germanY
The country’s public health agency has cautiously welcomed the “emergency brake” agreed to by federal and state authorities should coronavirus cases rebound, but warned that the pandemic is far from over.
Lars Schaade, deputy head of the Robert Koch Institute, said that setting a level of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants for reimposing lockdown measures was a “pragmatic threshold that I believe in principle is sensible”.
But he noted that Germany remains “at the start of the pandemic,” adding that “it will probably continue into the next year.” On Wednesday, governors of the 16 states agreed to further loosen the rules.
IndonesIa
The country has posted its slowest growth in two decades as the crisis made its effects felt in exports, investment and consumption.
GDP expanded by only 2.97% in January-March from the same period last year, it was announced yesterday. This compares to a 4.99% expansion in the last quarter last year.
The first quarter reading might just be a sign of even more challenging times for the rest of the year. Since the pandemic began, the government has revised its growth projection to 2.3% this year, down from its original target of 5.3%.
Confirmed Covid-19 cases rose by more than 300 in Indonesia yesterday, to almost 13,000.
REGIONAL and political divisions have emerged in many nations over how fast to lift coronavirus lockdowns as worries about economic devastation collide with fears of a second wave of deaths.
In France, more than 300 mayors in the Paris region have urged President Emmanuel Macron to delay the reopening of schools scheduled for Monday.
Many mayors around the country have already refused to reopen schools and many parents will keep their children at home even where they are functioning again.
The mayors called the “untenable and unrealistic”, timing saying they were put on a “forced march” to get schools ready without enough staff or equipment, and complained that the government guidelines were too vague and slow in coming.
But governments are also under pressure to reopen faster and kickstart economies that have been plunged into hibernation.
Italian regional governors are pressing to open shops and restaurants, just days after the country began easing its two-month lockdown, allowing 4.5 million people to return to work in offices and factories.
Governors are seeking to be allowed to present their own plans for reopening, tailored to the rate of infection and economic needs of their regions.
In Germany, whose 16 state governments are responsible for imposing and loosening lockdowns, some governors have been more impatient than others to open up businesses such as restaurants and hotels.
At a meeting on Wednesday with Chancellor Angela Merkel, it was agreed that state leaders would have wide leeway to decide when to open more sectors of the economy.
They also will have to reimpose restrictions locally if coronavirus infections rebound.
In Russia, where the number of new infections is growing fast, President Vladimir Putin delegated the enforcement of lockdowns and other restrictions to regional governments, leading to wide variations across the country.
Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the St Petersburg Politics think tank, told the Vedomosti newspaper that the Moscow government was sending mixed messages that governors find hard to decipher – wanting a victory over the virus while also encouraging easing of the lockdown.
Fractures are also evident in the US, where about half of the 50 states are easing their shutdowns, to the alarm of public health officials.
Many states have not put in place the robust testing and contact tracing that experts believe is necessary to detect and contain new outbreaks.
And many governors have pressed