Nations yesterday tried to balance how far to ease COVID-19 lockdowns, with Germany enforcing the mandatory wearing of masks in shops, as the crushing global economic cost of the pandemic became clearer.
Excitement over moves toward normality was being tempered by fear of fresh outbreaks of a disease that has killed more than 217,000 people worldwide and infected more than 3.1 million.
With predictions of the worst recession in a century, the world was anxiously looking to the US, where the first economic growth figures from the pandemic era were due to be published and the death toll exceeded that from the Vietnam War.
Photo: AFP
From yesterday 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 were already compulsory on buses, trains and trams.
“I think it’s great. It’s the right thing,” said Heike Menzel, 54, who was stacking shelves in a Bio Company supermarket, wearing a simple black fabric mask. “You’re protecting others, and you’re not exactly protecting yourself, but you still feel a bit safer.”
However, the German government extended a warning against travel worldwide to the middle of June, spelling more bad news for a global aviation industry that has been forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs.
Italy, Spain and France have been the worst affected European nations, 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 lockdown.
Spain yesterday reported a slight increase in its daily death toll from COVID-19, but the government is moving toward a transition out of lockdown by the end of June, having 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 app for workout sessions with his running group. “We completely disconnect from reality, which is very complicated at the moment.”
The UK still lacked a plan to exit lockdown, but just weeks after being hospitalized with the coronavirus, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was celebrating yesterday after becoming a father 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 US, the White House said that US 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 US has reported its 1 millionth coronavirus case and at more than 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 troops in defiance of a nationwide lockdown, complaining that they could no longer feed their families.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS