Here’s what you need to know:
- Hong Kong protesters, subdued for months by the virus, are back on the streets.
- U.S. states loosen restrictions as nation nears 100,000 deaths.
- Afghanistan begins an Eid cease-fire, but concerns about the virus linger.
- In times of crisis, world leaders have human nature on their side.
- A #ClapForOurCarers organizer in Britain says it may be time to stop.
- Tourism and cultural life is creeping back, with a raft of caveats.
- The artisans behind Italy’s fashions worry about their future.
Hong Kong protesters, subdued for months by the virus, are back on the streets.
The antigovernment movement that roiled Hong Kong for much of last year subsided this year as fears of the coronavirus kept many at home. But on Sunday, police officers fired tear gas as hundreds of protesters flouted social-distancing rules to demonstrate against China’s plans to impose national security laws on the semiautonomous territory.
Protesters gathered in a central shopping district around midday, chanting slogans against the government and the Chinese Communist Party like “Heavens will destroy the C.C.P.” and “Hong Kong independence is the only way out.” As the crowd thickened, public tram cars sat immobilized on the rails.
Dozens of police officers in riot gear swarmed the area, but many protesters pressed around them, ignoring their raised warnings to disperse. Just before 1:30 p.m., the police fired at least four rounds of tear gas, sending protesters scrambling into nearby storefronts, which quickly pulled down their grates.
The protest on Sunday took place days after China’s biggest political event of the year, the annual session of the National People’s Congress, kicked off in Beijing. The ruling Communist Party is trying to project strength amid global criticism of its response to the pandemic.
As protesters gathered on Sunday morning, Tam Tak-chi, an activist from the pro-democracy group People’s Power, held what he described as an open-air “public health lecture” at a streetside stand, distributing masks and social distancing advice — along with criticism of the Chinese government.
“With the national security law, the people cannot be healthy,” Mr. Tam said. “Stand with Hong Kong; fight for freedom.” After bystanders erupted in antigovernment chants, several dozen riot police officers surrounded Mr. Tam, taking away his loudspeaker and leading him to a nearby police station.
As part of its response to the virus, the Hong Kong government has banned public gatherings of more than eight people until at least June 4.
U.S. states loosen restrictions as nation nears 100,000 deaths.
As the United States nears 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus, governors are continuing to ease lockdown rules despite warnings from medical experts that it could cause a spike in cases.
In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz said on Saturday that he would allow houses of worship to open next week after pressure from church leaders and from President Trump, who demanded that religious institutions be deemed essential. And in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that gatherings of up to 10 people would be allowed anywhere in the state, provided that social-distancing protocols were followed.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, played golf at his members-only club in Virginia, his first game since shutdowns began.
Other governors — including Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey — were scheduled to appear on the Sunday talk shows. So were several Trump administration officials, including Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, and Robert C. O’Brien, the president’s national security adviser.
The risks of trying to return to normal life were underscored in Missouri, where health officials said on Friday that a hair stylist who worked for eight days at a salon while sick with the virus had potentially exposed 84 clients and seven co-workers. (The state’s Republican governor, Mike Parson, allowed many businesses, including salons, to reopen on May 4.)
And a new study from Northern California found that, compared with white or Hispanic patients, black patients seeking care have more advanced cases of Covid-19.
The disparity remained even after researchers took into account differences in age, sex, income and chronic health problems that exacerbate Covid-19, like hypertension and Type 2 diabetes.
The finding suggested that black patients may have had limited access to medical care or that they postponed seeking help until later in the course of their illness, when the disease was more advanced.
Afghanistan begins an Eid cease-fire, but concerns about the virus linger.
For only the second time in almost two decades of conflict, the Taliban and the Afghan government announced a cease-fire for the three days of the Muslim festival Eid al-Fitr, which starts on Sunday in Afghanistan. But the relief that washed over people in the war-torn nation was partially offset by lingering concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.
As Muslims around the world celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday this weekend, the communal prayers, feasts and parties that usually accompany it have been restricted or scrapped. Not everyone in the Muslim world is sticking to the rules, however.
In Afghanistan, the authorities have struggled to enforce their call for people to stay home during Eid, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Markets were crowded in recent days, and many shoppers went maskless.
Afghanistan has nearly 10,000 confirmed cases, and nearly half of a limited number of tests being carried out are turning out positive day after day. In late March, Ferozuddin Feroz, Afghanistan’s health minister, warned that unless stricter social-distancing measures were enforced, 16 million Afghans could be infected and 110,000 could die.
Last month, at least 40 staff members in Afghanistan’s presidential palace tested positive for Covid-19. That forced President Ashraf Ghani to isolate himself and manage the country’s response to the virus — amid a raging war — largely via video conference.
In times of crisis, world leaders have human nature on their side.
As world leaders grapple with when and how to safely reopen their countries, many are also facing a political problem: how to maintain support as they oversee tanking economies, stifling restrictions and staggering death tolls.
Unable to promise physical or economic safety, many are instead offering the reassuring image of a strong leader with a steady hand, our columnist Max Fisher writes.
President Xi Jinping of China is using public appearances and state media to project a message of national triumph over adversity, with himself at the vanguard. President Emmanuel Macron of France has rallied citizens to join a collective “war” against the virus.
President Trump, like many leaders, regularly appears flanked by health officials. Appeals to national unity are practically universal.
And in Britain and Germany, people have rewarded their leaders with steep and nearly identical boosts in support.
While polls suggest that people remain deeply worried about the virus and its toll, support for leaders is increasing almost universally.
Whether they realize it or not, such leaders have a powerful force on their side: human psychology.
A #ClapForOurCarers organizer in Britain says it may be time to stop.
On Thursday nights, Britons bang pots and pans and let out hearty cheers of support for doctors and nurses who care for coronavirus patients and for other essential workers amid the pandemic.
But Annemarie Plas, the organizer who started #ClapForOurCarers, said in an interview with the BBC on Friday that next week’s national applause, the 10th, should be the last, pointing to concerns that the act of recognizing the workers had become politicized.
“I think that would be beautiful to be the end of the series, to maybe then stop and move to an annual moment,” Ms. Plas said. “I feel like this had its moment and then we can, after that, continue to something else.”
Ms. Plas said that she believed the ritual was “slowly shifting” and that other opinions had “started to rise to the surface,” referring to some criticism the movement has received. An opinion article in The Independent questioned the point of applauding if health care workers were underpaid. And some National Health Service workers have said they felt “stabbed in the back” by people who ignore public health guidelines.
To date, the United Kingdom has reported more than 250,000 coronavirus infections and over 36,000 deaths. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans for reopening the country have been met with criticism and some confusion.
While Britons have shown their appreciation for health care workers, Ms. Plas said, it’s now time for people in power to “reward and give them the respect they deserve.”
“I think to maintain the positive impact that it’s had so far, it’s best to stop at its peak,” she told the BBC.
The future of nightly clapping rituals in cities like New York, where it began in late March and continues to go strong in some neighborhoods, remains unclear.
Tourism and cultural life is creeping back, with a raft of caveats.
As countries begin to open their economies, a monthslong deep freeze on tourism and cultural life is gradually thawing — with caveats.
In Australia, officials on Sunday laid out plans to allow tourism in parts of the state of Victoria starting in June. Skiing, for example, will be allowed starting June 22. But many ski resorts plan to operate at half capacity, The Canberra Times reported, and they’re bracing for a raft of distancing restrictions.
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Saturday that the country would open to foreign tourists beginning in July, and that its globally popular soccer league La Liga would restart on June 8, part of the “de-escalation process” from its harshest pandemic restrictions. But the games will initially be played behind closed doors.
In Greece, officials said last week that international flights to Athens would resume on June 15, followed by the rest of the country’s airports on July 1. But tourists will be admitted only if their home countries meet certain “epidemiological criteria,” they said.
In the United States on Saturday, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, became the first major art museum to reopen since the country went into lockdown in March. Mask-wearing visitors encountered virus-specific restrictions even before they went inside, lining up on large blue stickers placed six feet apart.
“It’s good to be out of the house,” said Joan Laughlin, a nurse who was first in line. “I’ve been looking for something uplifting, something beautiful.”
The artisans behind Italy’s fashions worry about their future.
Italy’s $180 billion fashion industry is known for its glamorous brands, but it is built on a vast and tightly woven network of designers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers, large and small, that help make up the backbone of one of Europe’s largest economies.
For these companies, for this style of doing business, the future has never looked more uncertain.
Production of fashion collections has been either delayed or scrapped by large global fashion retailers and luxury brands. With the July couture shows in Paris canceled, and a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the fashion weeks in September, many specialist workshops remain in limbo.
Italy’s fashion manufacturing sector is expected to contract by up to 40 percent this year, said Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner at the consulting firm Bain & Company.
“It is a very worrying situation,” she said, adding that beyond luxury artisans was a vast ecosystem of export-oriented factories producing everything from metal hardware for accessories to rubber footwear soles.
“The big brands are enduring tough times but generally have some liquidity and a strong consumer profile,” Ms. D’Arpizio said. “However, they all have networks of small suppliers scattered all over Italy. Those are the businesses more likely to disappear.”
The U.S. is approaching 100,000 deaths, but a count reveals only so much.
It’s easy to report a daily average — more than 1,100 — of the people in the United States who have died from complications related to the coronavirus. But a count reveals only so much about what was lost.
As the national death toll approaches 100,000, a team of Times journalists has compiled a sprawling database with personal details on thousands of victims. Among them: a social worker, a boxing trainer and a nurse who loved to cook.
The virus, our journalists write, upended how we mourn and “forced us to suppress our nature as social creatures, for fear that we might infect or be infected.” It also wiped out the equivalent of a small American city.
Questions about how this happened in the United States of 2020 — and why the virus claimed a disproportionately large number of black and Latino victims — will be asked for decades to come.
Drones were ready for this. Are people ready for them?
Drones have been working as police officers, soaring over the banks of the Seine in Paris and the city squares of Mumbai to patrol for social distancing violators.
They’re delivering medical supplies in Rwanda and snacks in Virginia, and hovering over crowds in China to scan for fevers below.
The coronavirus has been devastating to humans but may prove a decisive step toward a time when aerial robots become a common feature of daily life, serving as helpers and even companions.
“Robots are designed to solve problems that are dull, dirty and dangerous,” said Daniel H. Wilson, a former roboticist and the author of the 2011 science fiction novel “Robopocalypse.” “And now we have a sudden global emergency in which the machines we’re used to fearing are uniquely well suited to swoop in and save the day.”
Athletes weigh health risks as sports begin to reopen.
Sports leagues are devising plans to resume play to salvage economic lifelines and sate fans pleading to be entertained by live games on television. For athletes and team staff members with conditions that put them at greater risk from the coronavirus, balancing health needs against the zeal to play is an especially delicate matter.
“It’s scary for everyone,” said Jordan Morris, 25, a soccer player for the Seattle Sounders and the U.S. men’s national team, who learned he had Type 1 diabetes at age 9 and wears a blood sugar monitor even on the field.
He took part in the voluntary socially distanced practices that began last week throughout Major League Soccer, which plans to resume its season as soon as next month. He said he felt safe at practice because the Sounders have done daily temperature and symptom checks, staggered workouts and encouraged frequent hand-washing.
As of Friday, unions representing athletes in major North American team sports were still negotiating specific plans for returning to play, including extra protection for the most vulnerable employees.
Reporting was contributed by Peter Baker, Max Fisher, Michael Hardy, Mike Ives, Michael Levenson, Mujib Mashal, Tiffany May, Sharon Otterman, Elizabeth Paton, Roni Caryn Rabin, Luis Ferré Sadurní, Edgar Sandoval, Marc Stein, Matt Stevens, Derrick Bryson Taylor, James Wagner, Vivian Wang and Alex Williams.
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