Restrictions slowly easing in Europe
Singapore extending limits after resurgence
BERLIN — One of the grimmest symbols of the coronavirus outbreak — a morgue set up in a Madrid skating rink — closed Wednesday as stores and other businesses reopened in places across Europe.
With the crisis easing but far from over in Europe, small shops in Berlin reopened, and restrictions were relaxed in Denmark and Austria. In France, long lines formed outside the few Mcdonald’s drive-thrus that started serving customers again.
Still, many employees and customers were uneasy, suggesting that a return to normal is a long way off.
“Of course I’m happy that I can open again and we can keep our heads above water,” said Galina Hooge, who opened her small Berlin toy store for the first time in over a month. But she worried that some Germans aren’t taking the outbreak seriously.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that “very careful steps” must be taken to keep the virus from making a resurgence.
While some hot spots like Italy, Spain and New York have seen a drop in daily death tolls and new hospitalizations, other areas are facing a resurgence of the coronavirus.
Singapore, once a model of virus tracking and prevention, saw an explosion of new cases and announced it would extend its lockdown into June.
Spain, one of the world’s worst-hit countries, planned to allow children out of their homes next week for the first time in nearly six weeks.
The country’s death toll reached nearly 22,000, behind only the United States and Italy, after 435 more deaths were reported Wednesday. But the numbers reflected a plateauing of the outbreak.
In another hopeful sign in Spain, a large makeshift morgue at an ice rink closed. It held 1,145 bodies of coronavirus victims during its four weeks in operation.
“We were not able to save their lives, but let it be known that our armed forces have not left them alone for one minute,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles said.
India partially eased one of the world’s strictest lockdowns this week but plans to use wristbands fitted with an app to track people’s movements and body temperature.
The technology is aimed at reducing the vast manpower needed to track the virus among the country’s 1.3 billion people.
Meanwhile, India’s extended lockdown led to an unexpected bonus in the country with six out of 10 of the world’s most polluted cities: cleaner air.
“It is a hell of a change,” said Kunal Chopra, who suffers from chronic bronchitis and whose morning walks no longer begin with a shot from an inhaler. “The air is much fresher and my breathing problems have gone down.”
In other developments:
The World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Wednesday he hopes the United States will reconsider its freeze in funding for his agency and vowed to keep working on “saving lives” despite calls from some U.S. lawmakers for his resignation.
The British government came under criticism for responding slowly to the coronavirus pandemic as its chief medical adviser warned that social distancing measures might have to stay in place for the rest of this year and beyond. The government reported that 759 more hospital patients with the virus had died since the last update a day earlier, taking the country’s total to 18,100.
Cyprus has negotiated the coronavirus pandemic with a low per capita death rate because its government followed the advice of medical experts and imposed a strict lockdown early on, the island nation’s president said. To date, Cyprus with a population of 880,000 has reported 13 deaths — about 1.5 per hundred thousand — and 790 infections.