The Week That Was: Lockdowns Ease And Choices Are Complex
Around the world, lockdowns are starting to ease as some places get coronavirus outbreaks under control and others decide the economic pain of keeping businesses closed is too much to bear.
The piecemeal reopenings are leaving people to make their own choices about what they should and shouldn't do to protect themselves and others. Is it safe to go to a restaurant? Visit elderly family members? Experts don't have definitive answers.
Beijing's ancient Forbidden City, along with the city's parks and museums, is open to the public for the first time in months. In the U.S., more than a dozen states are allowing stores, restaurants and other businesses to open, but with restrictions meant to keep the virus from spreading. In Spain, people are allowed outside to exercise for the first time in seven weeks, while German children can return to playgrounds. The U.S. Senate is set to convene Monday, but without tests that can quickly make sure senators and staffers are healthy.
In some places, unrest is brewing as people push back against continued restrictions. Protesters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona have brought guns to rallies outside state capitol buildings. In Brazil, residents egged on by President Jair Bolsonaro are defying social distancing. In Japan, known for conformity and consensus, many are going out even though the government has asked them to stay in.
And in Hong Kong, where the virus has slowed, the pro-democracy movement has re-emerged, with protesters defying a ban on public gatherings to chant slogans at a luxury mall.
But in many places, people remain mostly in their homes. In a series of breathtaking images, AP photographers documented a world on pause.
Workers Unions keep a safe distance from each other and wear face masks to help protect against the spread of the new coronavirus during an event marking May Day in Lisbon, Friday, May 1, 2020. With the traditional protest marches cancelled this year, workers unions delegates representing all workers that had to stay at home took part in the event with the approval of the Portuguese health and interior ministries. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
As restrictions relax, there is sure to be a reckoning over what went wrong in places with high death tolls. In Italy's hard-hit Lombardy region, the AP found that a perfect storm of failures combined to expose residents to the effects of the virus in ways unseen elsewhere. State and federal officials in Massachusetts are trying to figure out how nearly 70 people died at a home for veterans. That was the deadliest known outbreak at a long-term care facility in the U.S. until Friday, when a New York City nursing home reported the deaths of 98 residents. Yet in a sign that things were not as bad as they could have been in many places, dozens of field hospitals meant to relieve the strain on emergency rooms have gone largely unused.
Meanwhile, sports teams are working on how to get baseball, basketball and hockey going again, but testing remains a major hurdle. And there are more questions than answers about the Tokyo Olympics, which have now been rescheduled for July and August 2021.
Here is a guide to some of AP´s best coverage this week across the globe:
HEALTH AND SCIENCE
The promise of an experimental drug that seems to help coronavirus patients recover faster has unleashed a flurry of interest - and a clamor to know how soon it might be available. Here are some questions and answers about remdesivir.
For doctors and nurses treating critically ill patients, their work puts them inches away from where the new coronavirus lives. Hundreds of times each week during this pandemic, they steel themselves for a procedure that remains anything but routine.
And here are some tips if you find yourself laid off from your job and need to find new health insurance.
ECONOMY
As some businesses start to reopen, hopes for an economic recovery in the second half of the year are starting to rise. But economists caution that a quick rebound is unlikely. The U.S. economy shrank 4.8 percent from January through March, and 30 million Americans have applied for kynghidongduong.vn unemployment aid since the virus hit.
The economic outlook is similarly bleak in Europe, but unemployment there has edged up only slightly, thanks to government programs that are helping to keep businesses afloat and preventing millions from losing their jobs and incomes - for now.
Business bankruptcies in the U.S. were already up in March, and attorneys who work with struggling companies expect to see a flood of them in the coming months. In Japan, many are struggling to work from home in a country that´s not set up for it. In Russia, desperate business owners are pleading with the Kremlin for help. But some businesses have found ways to survive, and even thrive, in a time of crisis.
Several big meatpacking plants where hundreds of workers tested positive for the virus are preparing to reopen after President Donald Trump ordered them to go back online to prevent a possible meat shortage. But with many plants not operating at full capacity, the industry remains under pressure.
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Widespread testing is one key to emerging from the pandemic. But an Associated Press analysis finds that most states in the U.S. are not meeting the minimum levels of testing suggested by the federal government and recommended by public health researchers, even as many begin to reopen their shattered economies.
In states where governors have started allowing businesses to reopen, some Americans are facing a tough choice: Return to work and risk infection, or stay home and risk losing unemployment payments.
The surge in unemployment has another side effect - it's starting to push some state jobless funds toward insolvency. At least a half-dozen states already have notified the federal government that they could need to borrow billions to pay benefits because their own trust funds are running out of money.
INEQUALITY
Essential workers have continued to show up to their jobs in the U.S. during the coronavirus shutdowns. An AP analysis shows they are disproportionately women, people of color, immigrants and the poor. "They are calling us heroes but it´s like they are sending us to World War II with wooden pistols," a truck driver said.
The virus´ toll has torn through the black community in Detroit, where hundreds of people have died, while the economic toll has many workers struggling to meet their expenses.
Scenes of tragedy were mirrored across the world. A UK mosque that should be celebrating Ramadan is instead dealing with scores of the dead. The lockdown in France is casting a light on the struggling communities in the nation´s poor regions. And in Latin America, poorly paid maids are being summarily laid off or forced to lock in with their employers.
RIPPLES
It's clear that life in the coming weeks will be nowhere near normal as Americans try to navigate through a landscape of invisible threats. Many are dreaming like never before - and sharing their experiences. Even the nature of friendship is being recast in the virus era.
But what was it like before? We talked to people around the world about their last normal moments before the virus changed everything.
Meanwhile, among those struggling with the impact of the virus is the comic book industry, which is on hold and wondering if its independent retailers will survive. Even colleges and universities are facing a possible existential crisis as campuses turn into ghost towns and students wonder what the fall will look like.
ONE GOOD THING
Kindness, joy and maintaining old routines have been helping people around the world cope with the "new normal" created by the pandemic. AP´s "One Good Thing" highlights the stories of people bringing happiness to others, just because they can.
This week, we tell the story of a Bangkok hairstylist offering her talents to hard-hit medical staffers. Pornsupa Hattayong said she was almost embarrassed to offer at first because hair cuts seemed trivial in the face of the fight against COVID-19. But she has been overwhelmed by the response - she's swarmed by desperate, shaggy-haired doctors, nurses and support staff when she takes her team of stylists into hospitals.
And tour trương gia giới Associated Press photographers tasked with chronicling the heartache and anxiety of the crisis have found that joy is still visible too, just not with the usual, recognizable facial cues.
GROUND GAME
The pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 230,000 people worldwide. They were more than just statistics - they were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, accomplished professionals, brave workers on the front lines. This week, AP's "Ground Game: Inside the Outbreak" podcast featured a discussion with Digital Storytelling Editor Raghu Vadarevu and Western U.S. News Director Peter Prengaman, who are working to tell their stories through the Lives Lost series. And AP correspondents Angela Charlton in Paris and Aritz Parra in Madrid talked about the steps France and Spain are taking to reopen.
VIRUS DIARY
AP correspondents around the world are sharing their experience as they live through - and cover - the coronavirus saga. This week they wrote about dealing with loneliness in New York City, finding hope in the form of an apple seed planted in Pennsylvania, and coping with a quarantine in Mumbai.
Follow Virus Diary here.
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Find AP's top virus coverage for the week of April 19-April 25 here.
Find AP´s top virus coverage for the week of April 12-18 here.
Find AP´s top virus coverage for the week of April 5-11 here.
Find AP´s top virus coverage for the week of March 29-April 4 here.
Find AP´s top virus coverage for the week of March 22-28 here.
Follow overall AP coverage of the virus outbreak on Understanding the Outbreak here.
A list of requirements to allow a person to get a haircut are posted at Kilroy's Haircutters, Friday, May 1, 2020, in Brunswick, Maine. Gov. Janet Mills has allowed barber shops and some other businesses to reopen Friday under strict guidelines to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A protester is detained by California Highway Patrol officers during a demonstration against Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic, at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, May 1, 2020. Several people were taken into custody during the protest calling for Newsom to ease the restrictions and allow people return to work. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Janitorial staff member Curtis Sulcer, right, wipes down an escalator's handrail at NorthPark Center mall on Friday, May 1, 2020, in Dallas, Texas. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order requiring Texans to stay at home expired on the day before, allowing businesses to reopen under certain conditions as soon as Friday. Stores, restaurants and movie theaters may open as long as they maintain only a 25 percent occupancy and follow social distancing. Under those guidelines, malls can also open but food courts, play areas and interactive displays or settings must remain closed. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Waves wash over rocks as a beacon of light shines across the rocky shore from the Point Judith Lighthouse in Narragansett, R.I., Saturday, April 25, 2020. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Guests watch as Wickenburg police officers leave the Horseshoe Cafe as owner Debbie Thompson, right, cries in the kitchen Friday, May 1, 2020, in Wickenburg, Ariz. The officers informed Thompson she was in violation of the state's stay at home order and asked her to shut down guest seating. A few small businesses reopened in defiance of Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's decision to extend a statewide stay-at-home order for another two weeks in. The Gov. extended the stay at home order in an effort to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Matt York)
People who arrived from neighboring Madhya Pradesh state on Thursday stretch their hands out to receive a banana each before boarding a bus to be transported back to their native homes in Uttar Pradesh state in Prayagraj, India , Friday, May 1, 2020. The shelter-in-place orders imposed in India on March 24 halted all but essential services, sparking an exodus of migrant workers and people who survive on daily wages out of India's cities and toward villages in rural areas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to announce on Sunday his decision whether to extend the 40-day-old lockdown or gradually ease it to resume economic activity. AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Workers keep their distance during a break from producing medical ventilators at AMRC Cymru in North Wales as they help the UK in the fight against coronavirus or COVID-19, Broughton North Wales, Thursday April 30, 2020. Working as part of the Ventilator Challenge UK consortium, over 550 Airbus and Siemens employees at the site are working around the clock to produce at least 15,000 ventilators for the National Health Service, making this location the single largest site as part of the consortium (which currently has around 3,000 people working across various sites across the country. ( AP Photo/Jon Super)
A cat sits on the balcony of a house during lockdown to control the spread of the new coronavirus in Kathmandu, Nepal, Friday, May 1, 2020. Nepal has extended the lockdown to May 7 and closure of the international border to May 13. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Visitors wearing face masks to protect against the new coronavirus walk through the Forbidden City in Beijing, Friday, May 1, 2020. The Forbidden City reopened beginning on Friday, China's May Day holiday, to limited visitors after being closed to the public for more than three months during the coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A worker disinfects the roof terrace of the Atlantic hotel, in Rome, Wednesday, April 29, 2020. After seven weeks in lockdown to contain one of the world's worst outbreaks of COVID-19, Italians are regaining some freedoms, starting on May 4, public parks and gardens will re-open and people will be able to visit relatives who live in the same region. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Nightbird Restaurant chef and owner Kim Alter, left, mimics giving a hug to nurse practitioner Sydney Gressel, center, and patient care technician Matt Phillips after delivering dinner to them at University of California at San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital in San Francisco, March 27, 2020. A group of tech-savvy, entrepreneurial San Francisco friends wanted to help two groups devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. They came up with a plan that involved soliciting donations, tapping friends in the restaurant world and getting San Francisco hospitals to accept free food cooked up by some of the city's top chefs. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)