Pressure rising for nations to set reopening plans

In U.S., governors remain hesitant, cite testing needs

BERLIN — Pressure mounted on governments to ease the economic pain of coronavirus lockdowns Sunday after protests from those fearing for their livelihoods, and authorities responded with a wide range of possible dates and solutions and a few emphatic “not yets.”

Shutdowns that began in China in late January and spread to Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere have disrupted economic, social, cultural and religious life across the globe, plunging the world into what some experts believe will be the most painful economic slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Tens of millions of workers have lost their jobs already, and millions more fear that they are next.

With the arc of infection being different in every nation, proposals have differed for coping with a virus that has claimed more than 165,000 lives worldwide over the past four months and for which there is still no vaccine.

The death toll in the U.S. topped 40,600 with more

than 759,000 confirmed infections, and the global case count has passed 2.4 million, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally of national health reports.

In the United States, there is clear evidence of the mount- ing pressure. The Trump administration says parts of the country are ready to begin a gradual return to normal. Yet some state leaders say their response to the pandemic is hindered by an inadequate federal response.

Washington state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, accused President Donald Trump of encouraging insubordination and “illegal activity” by goading protesters who flouted shelter-in-place rules.

“To have an American president to encourage people to violate the law, I can’t remember any time during my time in America where we have seen such a thing,” Inslee said on ABC’s This Week. He said it was “dangerous because it can inspire people to ignore things that actually can save their lives.”

People in several states have ignored social distancing and stay-at-home orders, gathering to demand that governors lift controls on public activity. The largest protest drew thousands to Lansing, Mich., last week, and others have featured hundreds of people in several states. The president has invoked their rallying cry, calling on several states with Democratic governors to “liberate.”

Vice President Mike Pence sidestepped questions Sunday about why Trump seemed to be encouraging efforts to undermine preventive measures that his own government has promoted. Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, said it “just doesn’t make any sense.”

“We’re sending completely conflicting messages out to the governors and to the people, as if we should ignore federal policy and federal recommendations,” Hogan said on CNN’s

State of the Union.

Trump is pushing to begin easing the lockdowns in some states even before his own goal of a May 1 economic reopening, a plan that governors from both parties and health experts say will require a dramatic increase in testing capacity nationwide.

But Pence insisted in television interviews Sunday that the country has “sufficient testing today” for states to begin reopening their economies as part of the initial phases of guidelines that the White House released last week.

The Trump administration has repeatedly blamed state leaders for delays, but governors from both parties have been begging the federal government for help securing in-demand testing supplies such as swabs and chemicals known as reagents.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio made a direct appeal to Washington: “We really need help … to take our capacity up,” he said on NBC’s

Meet the Press.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said his state can’t begin lifting restrictions until it is able to test more people daily. “Right now, we’re not even close as a nation, let alone as a state, to where we should be on testing,” he said.

Trump pushed back in a tweet before his Sunday evening briefing at the White House. “I am right on testing. Governors must be able to step up and get the job done. We will be with you ALL THE WAY!” he wrote.

Texas, Indiana and some other states have announced plans to allow some retail and other activity to resume. Florida and South Carolina have reopened beaches, with some drawing noticeable crowds.

NATIONS REOPENING

Some countries such as Britain, which is still deep in the middle of its outbreak, say it’s too soon to give definite lockdown-easing dates. But in Germany, which has managed to significantly slow the rate of new infections since midMarch, most small stores can reopen today.

The head of an association representing German cities said many people would probably welcome the opportunity to shop in person again. “But we’re not expecting a huge rush now,” Helmut Dedy told Germany’s DPA news agency. “The stores that are reopening will be just as accessible a week later.”

After six weeks of being stuck inside, Spanish authorities say, children will be allowed to leave their homes beginning April 27. Spain imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, helping drive the daily increase in confirmed infections from more than 20% down to 2% for a country whose more than 20,400 virus deaths are surpassed only by the United States and Italy.

Albania plans to let its mining and oil industries reopen today, along with hundreds of businesses including small retailers, food and fish factories, farms and fishing boats.

REMAINING CAUTIOUS

Still, many governments are resisting pressure to abruptly relax the coronavirus lockdowns.

“We must not let down our guard until the last confirmed patient is recovered,” South Korean President Moon Jaein said Sunday.

The country, which was hit early on by the virus, announced that new infections fell Sunday to eight, from a peak of 909 on Feb. 29. But officials have warned that a “quiet spread” of the virus is possible as people relax social distancing.

The U.K. government denied reports that its lockdown could start to be lifted in three weeks. Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, one of those leading the government’s response while Prime Minister Boris Johnson recovers from his covid-19 infection, said the plan remained to stick to the five tests set out by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on April 16.

Newspapers reported Sunday that the government had drawn up a three-stage plan for ending the lockdown that could see schools reopen as soon as May 11. “That is not true; we have not made that decision,” Gove said on the BBC. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson later told reporters: “I can’t give you a date.”

But Gove confirmed the idea of a staged easing of the lockdown when it does come, saying the hospitality industry — pubs and restaurants — would be “among the last” to exit. He said that a contact-tracing phone app, which would help Britain resume public life by enabling the government to see who people with the virus might have passed it to, was in beta testing.

Gove conceded that there is currently a shortage of protective gowns needed by health workers if they’re to avoid catching and spreading the virus. The government later said that a flight of supplies from Turkey, due to arrive Sunday, had been delayed.

U.K. health experts fear that Britain, which has nearly 16,000 confirmed deaths, could eventually have the highest virus death toll in Europe.

In France, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Sunday that within two weeks, officials will unveil a plan to progressively lift restrictions on travel and business.

After May 11, when the lockdown starts to get lifted, “our lives won’t be exactly the same as before,” Philippe said in a televised news conference. “Not right away, and probably not before long.”

“The goal of the government at this time is to save what can be saved now in order to rebound tomorrow. We have to make sure to not lose our productive base,” Philippe said as he detailed France’s arsenal to keep the frozen economy afloat “amid the strongest recession since 1945.”

“When the crisis is over, we need to think about a recovery plan,” he added.

In Germany, the number of coronavirus cases increased by the least in four days as the nation prepares for the cautious loosening of some restrictions on public life. But the nation is leaving most of its safety measures in place into next month. Schools will gradually reopen in early May.

Germany has the fourthhighest number of cases in Europe behind Spain, Italy and France.

Chancellery Minister Helge Braun cautioned Sunday that Germany must stick to strict hygiene and distancing rules even if infection rates are falling. “The lower the infection numbers, the better we can track contact and break the infection chain,” Braun said in an interview with DPA.

AROUND THE WORLD

In Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government bowed to demands by religious leaders and agreed to keep mosques open during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Pakistan has been blamed for contributing to the spread of the virus by refusing to stop a gathering of tens of thousands of religious missionaries. Nearly 2,000 confirmed cases have been traced to them.

In Singapore, McDonald’s suspended operations after seven employees tested positive for the coronavirus. The company said it will keep paying more than 10,000 employees in 135 outlets during the closure, due to last through May 4.

Elsewhere, hundreds of people protested against lockdowns in major Brazilian cities Saturday. President Jair Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the threat of the disease and criticized shutdowns imposed by state governors, said he would recommend reopening the country’s borders with Paraguay and Uruguay.

Also Sunday, millions of Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter even as church pews remained empty, with the leader of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christians holding a service in a desert monastery.

OPTIMISM IN N.Y.

In New York, the daily death toll dropped again, a sign that Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday means the state is “on the other side of the plateau” and that ongoing social-distancing practices are working to stem the spread of the virus.

Cuomo said 507 people died Saturday, down 33 from the previous day and 271 from last Monday. Other indicators were going in the right direction, the governor said. Hospitalizations were down by more than 750, to 16,213.

But Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio maintained their warnings that people in the city and the rest of the state need to stay vigilant.

“We showed that we can control the beast, and when you close down, you can actually slow that infection rate, but this is only halftime,” Cuomo said Sunday at a briefing. “We still have to make sure that we keep that beast under control, we keep that infection rate down, we keep that hospitalization rate down, as we all get very eager to get on with life and move on.”

Information for this article was contributed by Will Weissert, Jill Colvin, Frank Jordans, Hyung-Jin Kim and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Robert Hutton, Suzy Waite, Ania Nussbaum, Rudy Ruitenberg and Iain Rogers of Bloomberg News.