Countries tried to balance how far to ease coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) lockdowns on Wednesday, with Germany enforcing mandatory masks in shops, as the crushing global economic cost of the pandemic became clearer. Excitement over moves towards normality is being tempered by fear of fresh outbreaks of a disease that has already killed 2,14,000 people worldwide and infected more than three million.
China said its legislature would hold its annual session in May after being delayed by the coronavirus, signalling the communist leadership’s growing confidence in taming the disease that emerged in the country late last year.
From Wednesday in Germany, masks were needed to enter shops, which began to open last week after the government declared its outbreak under control. Nose and mouth coverings are already compulsory on buses, trains and trams.
Warning against travel
However, Germany extended a warning against travel worldwide to mid-June, spelling more bad news for a global aviation industry that has already been forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs.
Italy, Spain and France have been the worst affected European countries, with each reporting more than 23,000 deaths but daily tolls appear to be on a downward trend and they are all charting their way out of shutdown.
Spain reported a slight increase in its daily death toll from the disease on Wednesday but the government is moving towards a transition out of lockdown by the end of June, having already allowed children out at the weekend for the first time in six weeks. Spaniards have increasingly embraced home workouts as they wait for a return to something approaching normality.
“It's very motivating because we can see each other, talk,” said Ivan Lopez, 45, a Madrid teacher who has been using the Zoom video app for workout sessions with his running group. “We completely disconnect from reality, which is very complicated at the moment.”
Britain, the fourth worst affected European nation with more than 21,000 deaths, still lacks a plan to exit lockdown.
But just weeks after being hospitalised with the virus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was celebrating on Wednesday after becoming a father again when his partner Carrie Symonds gave birth to a boy.
The pressure to ease lockdowns is immense as the world economy teeters on the brink of a huge depression, with demand for goods gutted, travel and tourism hammered and big banks reporting deep falls in quarterly profits.
With warnings mounting of a meat shortage in the U.S., the White House said President Donald Trump would sign an executive order compelling meat-packing plants to stay open, despite a string of coronavirus deaths in the industry.
The United States has reported its millionth coronavirus case, and at over 58,000 the country’s COVID-19 death toll is by far the world’s highest — surpassing the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam war in the 1960s and 1970s.
In Lebanon there were more signs of a deepening crisis, with protesters confronting soldiers in defiance of a nationwide lockdown, complaining they could no longer feed their families.
China's outbreak, however, appears to be under control with no new deaths reported for two weeks straight and confirmed fatalities at around 4,600 – although doubt has been cast on the accuracy of these figures.
Chinese state media said Wednesday that the top legislature will hold its annual meeting on May 22, after postponing it from March.
