New Delhi: The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate several countries across the world — the latest count is 39,17,991 cases and more than 2,70,740 deaths.
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morris has announced a three-step plan that aims to reopen the country’s entire economy by July. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s is finding his authoritarian credentials a problem while responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, Beirut’s nightlife that survived civil war and foreign invasions is starting at a question: will it survive a pandemic?
ThePrint brings you the most important global stories on the coronavirus pandemic and why they matter.
This is Australia’s 3-step plan to reopen its economy
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morris has outlined a three-step plan to gradually reopen the economy, as the country comes out of the coronavirus pandemic, reports The Guardian. The prime minister said that he hoped that the country could completely reopen by July, but it would be up to the individual states to decide when they want to move from one stage to the other.
The first step would involve allowing small gatherings of up to 10 people and reopening retail shops and small cafes. Interstate recreational travel would be restarted and funerals and weddings of up to 30 people would be permitted. If feasible, people would be encouraged to work from home.
The second stage “will allow larger size gatherings up to 20 people, including for venues such as cinemas and galleries, more retail openings on sector-based COVID safe plans, organised community sport, and beauty parlours,” notes Guardian.
The third stage would allow gatherings of up to 100 people. “Most workers, by then, will be back in the workplace. Interstate travel will likely resume. Pubs and clubs with some restrictions will be open. And also possibly gaming venues.”
Putin on the sidelines as Russia deals with pandemic?
Russian analysts tend to believe that President Vladimir Putin is the only person of authority that matters in the country’s top-power dynamic, but he is increasingly found on the sidelines as the country tries to respond to a pandemic, writes the Washington Post.
“Putin has delegated the fight to subordinates, trying to avoid any direct fallout from unpopular isolation measures. Regional leaders, however, were left flat-footed when he tasked them to handle what may become Russia’s biggest crisis since the 1990s chaos following the fall of the Soviet Union,” notes the report.
“The coronavirus crisis has left Putin looking strangely diminished and has exposed one of his key weaknesses: tending to the dull, nitty-gritty work of improving Russians’ lives, such as boosting a rickety health system in far-flung regions,” the report adds.
Stark racial gap in coronavirus casualties in Britain
Black people are twice as likely to die as white people in the UK by the novel coronavirus, according to official figures released by the government Thursday.
“The analysis, conducted by Britain’s Office of National Statistics, found that longstanding differences in wealth, education, living arrangements and self-reported health could explain a portion of the outsized impact of the virus on racial and ethnic minorities,” notes a report in The New York Times.
“The number of black and South Asian people working in public-facing jobs and living with conditions that increase vulnerability to the coronavirus, like obesity, hypertension and diabetes, may account for other parts of the elevated risk, researchers said,” it adds.
Which country has the most generous bailout packages?
Ceyhun Elgin, an economics professor from US’ Columbia University, and his colleagues have carried out a comparative analysis of different countries’ coronavirus bailout packages, according to BBC.
“Japan’s response has been among the most aggressive, with a spending package estimated at roughly 20% of the country’s economy. (It is topped only by Malta, which benefits from European Union funds.) That compares to rescue spending estimated at roughly 14% of GDP in the US, 11% in Australia, 8.4% in Canada, 5% in the UK, 1.5% in Colombia and 0.6% in Gambia,” notes the report.
Trump admin shelves CDC guide to reopen economy
In a major scoop, the Associate Press reports that the US President Donald Trump administration has shelved a set of guidelines prepared by the country’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention — the country’s key health agency working on the pandemic response — on reopening the US economy.
The report titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework”, was meant to guide local leaders to decide “when and how to reopen public places such as mass transit, day care centers and restaurants during the still-raging pandemic,” writes AP.
“Traditionally, it’s been the CDC’s role to give the public and local officials guidance and science-based information during public health crises. During this one, however, the CDC has not had a regular, pandemic-related news briefing in nearly two months,” it adds.
Indonesia deals with dengue outbreak too
In a worrying development, Indonesia, already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, has now been struck with a dengue outbreak, the Nikkei Asian Review has reported.
“With the Southeast Asian archipelago notorious for inadequate medical infrastructure, a continued rise in cases of dengue fever — or “breakbone fever” as it is also known — alongside COVID-19 cases may potentially push it to the brink of collapse,” notes the report.
“A total of 39,860 people have been diagnosed with dengue fever in the first three months of the year, according to the Health Ministry, a 15.7% rise compared with the same period last year. Particularly troubling is that the 137,761 cases in 2019 were double the number in 2018,” writes Nikkei Asian Review.
The country has reported over 12,000 coronavirus cases and 930 deaths.
Can Beirut’s nightlife survive the pandemic?
The capital of Lebanon, Beirut, is known for its startling levels of perseverance. The locals believe the city has undergone so much blood, violence, and chaos that it can survive anything. A direct consequence of this spirit is the city’s zeal to never stop partying, even in the face of civil wars and foreign invasions.
Now as the city is engulfed by a pandemic, which has brought with it norms of social distancing and isolation, can Beirut’s nightlife survive this new beast, asks a report in the New York Times.
“In Beirut, the world-weary capital of the most nonchalant of Middle Eastern countries, it is both a cliché and a point of pride to say that the Lebanese partied straight through a civil war that cleaved Beirut in half, pitted Christians against Muslims and killed at least 100,000 from 1975 to 1990,” remarks the report.
What else we are reading:
Reopenings Mark a New Phase: Global ‘Trial-and-Error’ Played Out in Lives: The New York Times
When Will It Be Safe to End Coronavirus Lockdowns? (interview): The New Yorker
US push for Taiwan WHO observer status seen falling flat in Southeast Asia: South China Morning Post
Astronomy boom as UK stargazers look to sky for solace: Financial Times
This Is How Taiwan Got a Head Start on Smashing the Virus: Bloomberg
The Australian PM is Scott Morrison and not Morris.