E.U. Softens Report on China’s Coronavirus Propaganda: Live Global Coverage

The E.U., pressured by Beijing, watered down a report on China’s disinformation.

Bowing to pressure from Beijing, the European Union this week softened criticism of China in a report on disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, The New York Times has learned.

The initial report, obtained by The Times, was not particularly strident — a roundup of publicly available information and news reports. But documents, emails and interviews show how European officials delayed and then rewrote the document to dilute the focus on China, a vital trading partner.

“China has continued to run a global disinformation campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak of the pandemic and improve its international image,” the report said.

Chinese officials contacted European Union representatives to try to kill the report. In an email written on Tuesday and seen by the Times, a European diplomat warned of Chinese retaliation.

When the public summary of the report went online on Friday, the sentence about “a global disinformation campaign” had been removed. So had references to China’s criticism of France and a pro-Chinese bot network in Serbia. Other elements had been toned down.

A section on state-sponsored disinformation, singling out China and Russia, had been folded into the rest of the report.

The changes angered and frustrated some diplomats and disinformation analysts. At least one analyst formally objected, writing to her bosses that the European Union was “self-censoring to appease the Chinese Communist Party.”

The fight over the document is part of a broad, global battle over the coronavirus narrative. And it comes at a time when the European Union hopes to win trade concessions from Beijing and restore a rich relationship once the pandemic has passed.

In the time of ‘les microbes,’ our Paris bureau chief sees an older Paris emerging.

Adam Nossiter, The Times’s Paris bureau chief, moved to the city at the age of 3 when his father was assigned to cover the European economy for The Washington Post. He moved back in 1983, in 1999 and then in 2015 when The Times posted him there. We asked him to share his thoughts on a Paris transformed by the pandemic.

Before Paris became a theme park for the global affluent, there was an older Paris I knew as a child, where sculpted horse heads announced butcher shops and you were likelier to find céleri rémoulade at the corner than $30,000 handbags aimed at tourists.

Echoes of that Paris have come back to me over the last month as the coronavirus stalked the city. It’s a paradox that the empty streets have made it easier to imagine Paris as a place where people actually live, and not just a polyglot destination for shopping and playing.

Thousands of affluent Parisians have left the city. Up to a quarter of the people who were in the city at the time of confinement have left, according to some estimates. The Paris of the 1960s, far more economically diverse, seems to be back. Around Montmartre, where working people still live, Parisians perch at their windows, greeting each other and just looking out; my neighborhood around Madeleine, on the other hand, given over to luxury shops, is dead.

France has recorded more than 21,856 virus deaths, far more than Germany, but fewer than Italy or Spain; French officials intervened earlier than the Italians but had far fewer emergency beds and tests ready than the Germans. The good news, at least for now, is that the number of patients in French hospitals has been slowly dropping.

For those willing to brave police checks, this is a remarkable chance to rediscover Paris. In recent days, I saw for the first time — in a relationship with France that is nearly 60 years old — an epicenter of mass tourism, the beguiling Place du Tertre at the top of Montmartre. The little village square was nearly empty, and a worried Parisian stopped to ask if I wasn’t taking a chance by being out on my bike.

But it is all an illusion. Paris is no more Paris without its smart young people chattering outside at now closed cafes than New York is New York without skyscrapers. Paris reduced to its architectural essence is grandiose but cold, an unreal postcard.

Ramadan, normally a time for Muslims to congregate, begins under lockdowns.

The pandemic cast a long shadow across Ramadan, the holy month of fasting, celebration and prayer that started for many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims on Friday.

From the eerily deserted Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina, home to Islam’s holiest sites, to Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority nation, mosques were shuttered and communal prayers forbidden as worshipers adjusted to the jarring reality of a uniquely restricted Ramadan.

Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations issued fatwas urging followers not to gather for traditional prayers or iftar communal dinners to break their fast. One cited the Prophet Muhammad’s words advising followers not to enter a disease-stricken area or leave a place where a plague has struck.

In an address on the eve of Ramadan, the prime minister of Malaysia, Muhyiddin Yassin, hailed his country’s “jihad” against the pandemic — new cases have dropped significantly in recent days — but extended a lockdown by two weeks.

People packed into mosques across Indonesia’s autonomous province of Aceh, where clerics had ruled that prayers could continue, with at least 10,000 attending the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque, according to local news media reports.

In Pakistan, where Ramadan is expected to start on Saturday, the government bowed to pressure from clerics and allowed mosques to remain open, telling worshipers to observe social distancing instead. The opposition-controlled Sindh province, though, declared a ban on all prayers at mosques during Ramadan.

In Egypt, most people followed an order from the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, the revered center of Islamic scholarship, to perform their prayers at home, but some chafed at the restrictions.

On Thursday night, dozens of people marched through the coastal city of Alexandria carrying a model of the Kabaa, Islam’s holiest site, drawing praise from other Egyptians on social media. The police arrested the march organizers.

In the upscale district of Zamalek in central Cairo on Friday, a small group gathered to offer their prayers on the street, close to a shuttered mosque.

Pakistani doctors warn that the country is loosening its lockdown too soon.

Doctors in Pakistan have issued an urgent warning that the government was loosening its coronavirus lockdown too soon, allowing mosque gatherings for Ramadan and letting more work resume long before testing was widespread enough to gauge the pandemic’s progress.

“The next two to three weeks are very crucial,” said officials of the Pakistan Medical Association, a representative body of medical professionals.

As of Friday, Pakistan listed 11,155 active cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, with 237 deaths recorded so far.

But Dr. Ashraf Nizami, the president of the association’s Lahore chapter, said that testing in the country was starkly insufficient, and that the true numbers were likely much higher.

“I don’t want to scare you, but I would like to inform you that the cases are not in thousands, the number is much higher,” Dr. Nizami said during a televised news briefing in Lahore.

Dr. Nizami and his peers have also heavily criticized the move by the government to allow prayers in the mosques during the holy month of Ramadan, stressing that it would lead to an alarming spread of cases. The government and clerics have agreed on some safety measures, including urging worshipers to keep distance among themselves. But doctors fear that religious congregations will simply ignore the guidelines.

“The rule of a 6-foot distance between worshipers is not possible practically. We appeal to the government to review its decision and establish the writ of the state,” Nizami said.

Doctors’ representatives said the country’s already debilitated health infrastructure simply cannot cope with the health emergency if the numbers of coronavirus cases increase sharply. There is already a shortage of ventilators for patients, of isolation wards and beds, and of protective gear for medical staff. Doctors in several cities have clashed with the police as they protested against a lack of basic facilities and gear in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has been averse to a complete lockdown in the country from the start, stressing that daily wage workers and the poor cannot survive an economic shutdown. Mr. Khan said Thursday that the country should move toward a “smart lockdown.”

Belgium to begin lifting restrictions in May.

Belgium will begin a gradual lifting of lockdown measures in May, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès said during a news conference on Friday.

On May 4, certain shops, including those selling fabric, will be allowed to reopen, provided they can follow social distancing measures. Public transportation will resume, and face masks covering nose and mouth will be obligatory for passengers over 12 years old. The government will provide at least one mask for every citizen, Ms. Wilmès said.

Some open-air recreational sports, like tennis and horseback riding will be allowed, as well as outdoor meetings of three people. Teleworking will continue, wherever possible.

A target date of May 11 is set for the reopening of all other shops, following strict precautions. Classes in primary and secondary schools will resume gradually in mid-May, with face masks mandatory for all employees and students over 12 years old. Kindergartens will remain closed until at least the end of May.

While Belgium has recorded nearly 6,700 coronavirus deaths, with a per capita death rate higher than Italy’s, it has included suspected deaths and deaths in care homes, unlike other countries.

Ms. Wilmès said the dates were targets that could change. “It will be a gradual process,” Ms. Wilmès. “We will need to adapt certain measures depending on the evolution of the virus. We cannot rule out going backwards.”

U.S. roundup: Trump’s remarks on disinfectants are rebuked, and the Navy wants a captain reinstated.

As the outcry grew, the president tried to suggest Friday that he had only been kidding.

“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” Mr. Trump told journalists in the Oval Office as he signed the latest virus relief bill into law.

His explanation, which came after his comments were widely assailed and mocked, contrasted with his own press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who had made no claim that the president was not being serious.

In other news:

• The Navy’s top officials recommended on Friday that Capt. Brett E. Crozier should be restored to command of the Theodore Roosevelt, the aircraft carrier he was in charge of when he warned about a coronavirus crisis onboard and pleaded for help. A reinstatement of Captain Crozier would be a stunning turnaround in a story that has seized the attention of the Navy, the overall military and even a nation grappling with the coronavirus. Captain Crozier, who was fired, has taken on the role of an unlikely hero, willing to risk his career for the sake of his sailors.

• The Food and Drug Administration issued a safety warning on Friday about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, malaria drugs that have been promoted by Mr. Trump repeatedly and widely used to treat coronavirus patients despite a lack of evidence that they work. The drugs can cause dangerous abnormalities in heart rhythm in coronavirus patients, and should be used only in clinical trials or hospitals where patients can be closely monitored for heart problems, the agency warned.

• For Mr. Trump, who adores the pomp and precision of military ceremonies, this was the year he would finally get to deliver a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where Army cadets study. The graduation had been postponed because of the coronavirus and the cadets were sent home. But last Friday, Mr. Trump abruptly announced that he would, in fact, be speaking at West Point. So the academy is now summoning 1,000 cadets scattered across the country to return to campus in New York, the state that is the center of the outbreak in the U.S.

• Salons and barbershops and other businesses reopened across Georgia on Friday after Gov. Brian Kemp defied opposition from the president, public health experts and some mayors in his state. Mr. Kemp’s order generally allowed barbershops, nail salons, gyms, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors to reopen on Friday. Dine-in service at restaurants will be allowed to resume on Monday. The move is being closely scrutinized as other governors consider future steps for their own states.

A World War II veteran has the top single in Britain.

When Tom Moore, a British World War II veteran, set out to raise money for charities benefiting the National Health Service, he had a goal of 1,000 pounds. He exceeded it by far.

Completing laps around his garden, Captain Moore, 99, has raised more than £28 million, about $35 million, setting a Guinness world record for the most money raised by an individual through a charity walk. And on Friday, Captain Moore set another record through a different charitable undertaking during the coronavirus pandemic.

A rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” — the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune popularized by a Gerry and the Pacemakers cover in 1963 — he recorded topped the singles chart on Friday, making Captain Moore the oldest person to go No. 1 on Britain’s Official Singles Chart, less than a week before his 100th birthday.

The song — recorded with the N.H.S. Voices of Care Choir and the British actor and singer Michael Ball — had 82,000 combined chart sales, according to the Official Charts Company, with proceeds benefiting N.H.S. Charities Together.

“I think we’ve got to accept that what is going on at the moment is very serious,” he added. “But I think we must also remember that things will get better.”

Japan promised every household two masks. Now many are being recalled.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised that the government would give two masks to every household in Japan. Now many of them are being recalled, according to two of the companies that produced them, in response to complaints about their quality and cleanliness.

The Japanese manufacturers Itochu and Kowa on Thursday announced that they would collect all undistributed masks and examine them for problems, following requests from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Days earlier, the health ministry said that it had received nearly 2,000 complaints about the masks, after its staff began delivering 500,000 of them, meant for use by pregnant women.

Mr. Abe’s mask-giveaway plan was mocked from the moment he announced it on April 1. Some social media wags called it “Abenomasks,” a play on the leader’s eponymous economic plan, known as Abenomics. Others posted illustrations of the country’s most beloved cartoon families fighting over the masks.

Once distribution began, the jokes turned to anger, as people posted photos of newly opened masks covered in filth, or freshly washed ones that had shrunk to the point of being unusable.

Both companies said in statements on Thursday that heavy demand had forced them to produce the masks outside of Japan — a not-so-subtle hint that the problems were related to unreliable foreign manufacturers.

While Itochu referred vaguely to problems “overseas,” Kowa singled out China.

Demand for surgical masks has been especially high in Japan, where it has long been customary to wear them during flu season, and even companies that would not normally produce them have gotten into the business.

On Tuesday, after a flood of eager consumers crashed the website of the electronics manufacturer Sharp, the company said that it would sell its latest line of masks via lottery.

Isolating at home has become dangerous for many Italians.

Before everyone else in the West, Italians received and largely obeyed an order to stay at home. “I’m staying home” became a hashtag, then the name of a national ordinance and then a motto hung from balconies and windows.

Italian households now represent “the biggest reservoir of infections,” said Massimo Galli, the director of the infectious diseases department at Luigi Sacco University Hospital in Milan. He called the cases “the possible restarting point of the epidemic in case of a reopening.”

The family acts as a multiplier, said Andrea Crisanti, the top scientific consultant on the virus in the Veneto region. “This is a ticking time bomb,” he said.

The predicament of home infections is emerging not just in Italy but in hot spots across the globe, in Queens and the Paris suburbs, as well as the working-class neighborhoods of Rome and Milan. It is also a problem that local officials and epidemiologists say is getting too little attention, particularly as the government has announced tentative steps toward reopening in early May.

Britain overwhelmed by high demand after expanding coronavirus testing.

Britain invited millions of essential workers to apply online for coronavirus tests. But within hours of starting the system on Friday, the government was forced to halt it after overwhelming demand.

The shutdown of the site, which reopened later Friday, was the latest stumble for a government that has been widely criticized for not doing nearly enough testing to contain the epidemic, or even gauge its scope. In early April, it set a goal of conducting 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month, but it has yet to reach 30,000.

The sign-up system is intended to allow all key workers who have symptoms of the virus — including health care workers, social workers and delivery workers — and members of their households to register for testing on the government’s website. Previously, only health care employees and those working in nursing homes had been able to get tests if they were showing symptoms.

The Department of Health and Social Care said in a post on Twitter that the initiative had been temporarily shut down after “significant demand for booking tests.”

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the effort on Thursday, saying that it would allow essential workers to return safely to their jobs. He said the government would also hire 18,000 people to help trace coronavirus infections and was testing a new contact tracing app.

On Friday morning, in a BBC radio interview, Mr. Hancock reaffirmed his commitment to keeping lockdown measures in place until it was safe to ease the restrictions, adding that a second wave of the virus would be economically damaging.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government insisted that the chaos will not delay Brexit. Britain formally left the European Union in January, but the two sides are supposed to negotiate a long-term trade agreement by Dec. 31.

With governments consumed by coronavirus matters, and Mr. Johnson himself recovering from Covid-19, there has been speculation about pushing back the deadline.

But the government’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost tweeted on Friday: “We will not ask to extend it. If the EU asks we will say no.”

In Britain, more than 140,000 people have tested positive for the virus and almost 20,000 have died.

Germany’s program to bring back expatriates ends with a final flight.

Germany welcomed home passengers on the last flight of repatriated residents, which landed at Frankfurt Airport on Friday morning, ending an ambitious program started by the government in mid-March when around 240,000 Germans were left stranded by closed borders and reduced flights.

The unscheduled flight from Cape Town, which was operated by South African Airways, touched down at 9:35 a.m. local time, roughly five weeks after the German government started the repatriation program, called the Corona Air Bridge.

“You wouldn’t believe how many Germans are outside the country’s borders,” Chancellor Merkel noted in a speech to Parliament on Thursday morning, listing the repatriation efforts as a success in her government’s fight against the coronavirus.

Germany has been praised for its timely response to the coronavirus crisis, and the government quickly began to organize flights to bring Germans temporarily abroad home when lockdowns began around the world. Some countries closed their borders abruptly and flights were canceled.

The repatriation program brought home 240,000 Germans, most on scheduled commercial flights, but 66,000 were returned on a total of 260 flights chartered by the government, the German foreign ministry said. The government also brought back 6,100 European Union citizens and 3,300 nationals from other countries.

W.H.O. says care homes could account for half of virus deaths in Europe.

Up to half of all coronavirus-related deaths in Europe have occurred in long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, adding fuel to mounting criticism of how governments handled the virus there.

The picture emerging from long-term care facilitates in Europe in recent weeks has been “deeply concerning,” Hans Henri P. Kluge, the W.H.O.’s regional director for Europe, said in a news briefing.

“According to estimates from countries in the European Region, up to half of those who have died from Covid-19 were resident in long-term care facilities,” he said. “This is an unimaginable human tragedy.”

Most nursing homes across Europe have banned or limited family visits to help prevent the spread of the virus, but this has deprived residents of physical and emotional support and in some cases has resulted in abuse and neglect, the organization said.

“And yet equally troubling — the way that such care facilities operate, how residents receive care — is providing pathways for the virus to spread,” Mr. Kluge said, adding that the pandemic had exposed overlooked and undervalued corners of society, including long-term care, which has been “notoriously neglected.”

Almost half of coronavirus deaths in Ireland took place in nursing homes, according to Dr. Tony Holohan, the country’s chief medical officer, who announced on Thursday that 362 of the county’s 794 deaths were nursing home residents. But many other nations, including Britain, have not included the nursing home deaths among their daily count of fatalities.

Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said on Wednesday that it was hard to prevent deaths in care homes because of the vulnerability of the age group.

Official figures published by the Office for National Statistics say there were 975 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes in England by April 10. But figures compiled by the Care Quality Commission suggest that figure could double when taking into account deaths that occurred between April 11 and April 15.

“I’m sure we will see a high mortality rate in care homes, sadly, because this is a very vulnerable group and people are coming in and out of care homes, and that cannot, to some extent, be prevented,” Mr. Whitty said.

Working around the clock, Hong Kong prisoners churn out masks by the millions.

Face masks were already a common sight in Hong Kong, but with the coronavirus pandemic, they have become an obligatory part of public life, familiar to virtually everyone. Less well known is their source.

Millions of surgical masks are being produced by inmates at Lo Wu prison in Hong Kong, some of them working late-night shifts for a fraction of the territory’s official minimum wage.

The prison has been churning out masks 24 hours a day since February, when Hong Kong’s government ramped up production to supply the city’s army of medical, public health and sanitation workers.

Inmates, along with retired and off-duty corrections officers volunteering their time, now produce 2.5 million masks per month, up from 1.1 million before the outbreak.

More than 4,000 inmates in Hong Kong work in prison industries, producing traffic signs, police uniforms, hospital linens and office supplies for the government. Such goods were valued at $57 million in 2018, according to the authorities.

The city’s Correctional Services Department said inmates who worked overnight or additional shifts did so voluntarily, and received higher wages.

But Shiu Ka-chun, a legislator, said that prisoners felt pressured to take on additional hours in the mask factory.

One recently released prisoner, Yannis, said that working overnight making masks, she earned $4.30 a day, or $0.61 per hour — at the high end for prison labor. She asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of reprisal.

Inmates’ earnings often go back to the prison, spent at the commissary on products like menstrual pads and stationary.

Mr. Shiu, who served eight months last year for his role in pro-democracy protests, said he worked in a prison garment factory, earning up to $0.57 per hour.

“This is exploitation by nature,” he said.

The Czech Republic is lifting restrictions on travel and movement.

The Czech government on Friday eased many of the stringent restrictions put in place to stem the spread of the coronavirus, lifting a ban on travel and allowing people to move freely outside their homes in groups of no more than 10 for the first time in more than a month.

“We believe that from the epidemiological point of view we can now ease the ban,” said Adam Vojtech, the health minister. Under restrictions put in place on March 16, Czechs could only go to work and return home and spend time outside in groups of two, with the exception of family members.

Like many other European nations, the Czech Republic swiftly locked down the country soon after its first cases were confirmed. As with neighboring nations, it is beginning to open up again, but the measures are being lifted at a much faster pace.

The government says this is partly because the country has a comparatively low number of cases, and new infections continue to fall as well. The Czech Republic reported the lowest increase in positive test results since mid-March on Thursday, with just 55 new cases, bringing the total number to 7,188. There have been 213 deaths in the country since the outbreak began.

Beginning Friday, Czech citizens can also travel abroad, though when they return they will have to show they have tested negative for the virus or go into a two-week quarantine at home. It is unclear how residents could obtain a test or who would monitor the quarantine.

Some worry that the restrictions are being lifted too soon and that the parameters for travel are unrealistic, among them Jan Papez, the vice chairman of the Czech Association of Travel Agencies.

“The optics are good and it looks democratic, but in reality it will not mean much,” Mr. Papez said. “Hardly anybody can put themselves in a quarantine after taking holidays, and coronavirus tests are not easy to obtain commercially.”

The government is seeking to ease other restrictive measures more quickly, moving up the reopening date for restaurants, hotels, theaters and similar establishments by two weeks to May 25 from June 8. On Wednesday, the Czech Republic started an antibody study that will test 27,000 people, hoping for a clearer picture of how many people have been touched by the disease.

Hong Kong creeps back to a semblance of normalcy.

Hong Kong is slowly coming back to life after nearly two weeks of recording new coronavirus infections in the single digits. Thousands of high school students sat for college entrance examinations on Friday, as dozens of antigovernment protesters gathered at a shopping mall for an unrelated demonstration.

The exams had been delayed by a month, and schools in the semiautonomous Chinese territory are still closed for classes. But the test takers were permitted to enter school grounds after undergoing temperature checks and disinfection measures, and their desks were spaced farther apart than usual.

Also on Friday, a group of antigovernment demonstrators gathered — mostly at a safe distance from each other — inside a luxury mall in Hong Kong’s Central district to chant pro-democracy slogans. They were challenging Beijing days after more than a dozen pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers were arrested in connection with the protests that raged in the city last year.

Here’s what else is happening in China:

• The Hong Kong authorities said that, as of Friday afternoon, no new infections had been recorded over the last day.

• The Chinese government on Friday reported no new coronavirus deaths for at least the seventh straight day on the mainland, and confirmed that six new people had fallen ill with the virus. It also reported 34 new asymptomatic cases.

• In the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the authorities are prosecuting a man from Belize whom they accuse of “colluding with foreign anti-China forces to intervene with Hong Kong affairs,” the Chinese outlet Southcn.com reported on Friday. The man is thought to be the first foreigner to be prosecuted over the Hong Kong protests.

Australia and New Zealand, whose leaders are political opposites, are quietly beating the virus.

Australia reported its first case on Jan. 25, New Zealand on Feb. 28. But compared with Mr. Trump and leaders in Europe, Prime Ministers Scott Morrison of Australia and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand responded with more alacrity and with starker warnings.

Both nations are now reporting just a handful of new infections each day, down from hundreds in March, and they are converging toward an extraordinary goal: completely eliminating the virus from their nations.

Whether they get to zero or not, what Australia and New Zealand have already accomplished is a remarkable cause for hope. Mr. Morrison, a conservative Christian, and Ms. Ardern, New Zealand’s darling of the left, are both succeeding with throwback democracy — in which partisanship recedes, experts lead, and quiet coordination matters more than firing up the base.

“It’s a case of politicians just not being in the way,” said Ian Mackay, an immunologist at the University of Queensland who has been involved in response planning for the pandemic. “It’s a mix of things, but I think it comes down to taking advice based on expertise.”

The prospect of a return to near normalcy in these two countries may end up being a mirage or temporary triumph: Other nations that had seemingly kept the virus at bay, like Singapore, have seen rebounds.

And yet, if there are any two countries that could pull off a clear if hermetically sealed victory — offering a model of recovery that elevates competence over ego and restores some confidence in democratic government — it may be these two sparsely populated Pacific neighbors with their history of pragmatism.

The Philippine capital’s lockdown will continue until at least mid-May.

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has extended a lockdown in the capital, Manila, and threatened to impose martial law to quell Communist guerrillas that he accused of attacking aid deliveries.

In a meeting with his advisers on Thursday night, which was aired on television Friday morning, Mr. Duterte agreed to extend an “enhanced community quarantine” in greater Manila and some provinces until May 15.

Mr. Duterte imposed a lockdown on the island of Luzon, home to Manila and about 60 million people, in mid-March. It had been scheduled to end on April 15 and was later extended to the end of the month.

As of Thursday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Philippines stood at almost 7,000, with total deaths nearing 500. Those tallies are among the highest in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Duterte had been falsely claiming that he was the first leader in Asia to impose a lockdown. In fact, he initially resisted the move, assuring Filipinos in February that there was nothing to be scared of.

At the meeting on Thursday, Mr. Duterte said that he might impose martial law to quell communist guerrillas, whom he accused of preying on virus-related aid convoys. He did not mention a specific incident, but earlier this week, two soldiers who were distributing cash aid to a poor community on Luzon were killed in an attack.

“I am now warning everybody and putting the police and the A.F.P. on notice,” Mr. Duterte said, referring to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. “I might declare martial law and there will be no turning back.”

The Philippine military blamed the recent attack on New People’s Army, a group that has been waging a communist insurgency since the 1960s. But the group did not claim responsibility.

State officials plead with Washington to help with payroll relief.

Governors and mayors from around the United States have been pleading with Washington for aid to help them keep workers on their payrolls. But Congress did not provide money for state governments in a $484 billion relief package that the House passed on Thursday, setting up the next political battle over pandemic relief.

The package, which President Trump is expected to sign on Friday, replenishes a depleted small-business loan program. The Labor Department reported on Thursday that another 4.4 million people filed initial unemployment claims last week, bringing the five-week total to more than 26 million. Nearly one in six American workers has lost a job in recent weeks.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, said that states should consider filing for bankruptcy rather than look for handouts. His aides threw fuel on the fire in a news release that said the Senate leader was opposed to “blue state bailouts,” suggesting it was Democratic-leaning states that were seeking the money to take care of problems caused by fiscal mismanagement.

Here’s what else is happening in the U.S.:

• President Trump has been eagerly theorizing — dangerously, in the view of some experts — about the powers of sunlight, ultraviolet light and household disinfectants to kill the virus.

• Researchers say that hidden coronavirus outbreaks were creeping through cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle and Boston in January and February, weeks earlier than previously known.

• One of every five New York City residents tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus, according to results from random testing of 3,000 people.

• United Airlines said its flight attendants would be required to cover their faces while on duty, starting on Friday

Air travelers take precautions to protect themselves.

The thought of getting on a plane is far from most people’s minds at the moment, as they shelter in their homes. But some people have no choice but to fly now, whether it is returning from a long trip or rushing to leave a country as a visa expires.

In the days of the coronavirus, travelers are often taking extreme precautions to protect themselves. They wear anything from plastic ponchos to laboratory goggles to biohazard suits. They wipe down tray tables and arm rests with disinfectant. Some passengers say they avoid using the lavatory, even on transcontinental flights, believing there is a higher risk of infection there. Many pack their own food, and keep their protective gear on even as they sleep.

When Billy Chan flew home to Hong Kong from London in mid-March, he wore a disposable protective suit, goggles and an N95 mask. He changed his mask twice during the 13-hour flight, using hand sanitizer each time.

Stacie Tan, who flew to her home in Malaysia from Oregon on April 1, wore goggles, gloves and a mask on the plane.

“I knew that someone might look at me and laugh,” Ms. Tan said. “It’s better than lying in the hospital, right?”

Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne disease transmission at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, said it made sense to wear protective gear on an airplane, given the tight quarters.

“I think the most important thing to do would be to wear a face covering, a mask of some sort,” said Dr. Marr, who studies how viruses spread in the air. “Goggles aren’t a bad idea, especially if they will prevent you from touching your eyes.”

Reporting was contributed by Adam Nossiter, Declan Walsh, Matt Apuzzo, Steven Erlanger, Mark Landler, Stephen Castle, Richard Pérez-Peña, Christopher F. Schuetze, Hana de Goeji, Megan Specia, Mike Ives, Ben Dooley, Jason Horowitz, Emma Bubola, Dera Menra Sijabat, Ceylan Yeginsu, Yonette Joseph, Mike Wolgelenter, Salman Masood, Richard C. Paddock, Jin Wu, Vivian Lin, Thomas Fuller, José María León Cabrera, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Dan Levin, Elaine Yu, Andrew LaVallee, Jason Gutierrez, Farnaz Fassihi, Damien Cave, Monika Pronczuk, Evan Easterling and Victor Mather.