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Singapore, which has been praised for controlling the virus, sees a record increase in new infections.
Singapore announced a record jump in coronavirus cases on Wednesday evening, with most of the 447 new confirmed cases coming from crowded dormitories for migrant laborers. While Singapore has been lauded for its rigorous contact-tracing program, which quickly identified clusters of local transmission, the coronavirus spread quickly through residences for migrant laborers, where up to 20 people are crammed in each room with shared kitchens and bathrooms.
Nearly half of Singapore’s roughly 3,700 coronavirus cases are among low-wage migrant workers, who have built the gleaming, modern city-state. About 200,000 such workers, many from India and Bangladesh, have been quarantined to their dormitories, with healthy residents gradually being transferred to other housing to prevent community transmission.
After weeks of slow transmission, Singapore began recording a rapid rise in cases in March, as travelers from Europe and the United States brought the virus with them. But no imported cases have been recorded for nearly a week.
The rapid spread of the coronavirus among foreign laborer communities has prompted the Singaporean government to vow changes in the way migrants are treated, even if the dormitories met standards set by the International Labor Organization.
“In terms of living conditions for foreign workers, collectively many of us were blind to this, and this has to change,” said Teo Yik Ying, the dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore. “But in Singapore, it will change because we are committed to learning lessons from every epidemic.”
South Koreans gladly trade privacy for a life without lockdowns or social distancing.
Imagine you are at your favorite Starbucks when a text arrives on your cellphone warning you that a person previously found to be infected is also in the same shop.
That sort of detailed alert regularly arrives on citizens’ smartphones in South Korea. Widespread testing coupled with the country’s super fast internet allows the government to trace individuals’ movements and warn the public of potential dangers in real time.
As a result, most restaurants, bars, churches — even the airports — remain open, and a national election took place this week. Social distancing and lockdowns do not exist. In a country of 50 million people only 220 have died from the virus, about the number who are felled on a quiet day in New York City.
But there is a trade-off.
Big Brother is watching, and so is everyone else.
Testing is widely available, and anyone who receives a test must also install the tracing app on his or her phone. Those who test positive are made to self-isolate for the duration of the illness.
The app allows the government to track the locations and contacts of infected people. That information is then used to alert those who have the app on their phones — and that is almost everyone.
For those who are being tracked the degree of detail of their movements is stunning.
Recently, the residents of the Songpa District in Seoul, the capital, learned that an infected person from another city was visiting their neighborhood. Residents learned when the individual arrived, the hotel in which he stayed, the hospital he waited outside in his car and that he dropped by a 7-Eleven and a kimbap restaurant.
They also were able to breath a sigh of relief, knowing exactly when he left town.
British Parliament is moving its business online, for now.
A scramble is underway to convert an ancient institution, the British Parliament, into a virtual one. After an absence of several weeks, lawmakers are anxious to return to the job, in cyberspace if nothing else.
“We need a functioning Parliament to hold ministers to account on their response to the coronavirus,” said Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party. “There are too many questions that have gone unanswered.”
A decision on how and when to meet could come as early as Thursday. But going online is not easy for an institution so steeped in tradition that casting a vote requires lawmakers to pass through a narrow lobby where their names are recorded by officials in formal dress.
And, paradoxically, the job of facilitating one of the biggest revolutions in the workings of Parliament falls largely to the leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man whose mannerisms are so self-consciously old-fashioned that he has been nicknamed “the honorable member for the 18th century.”
Some lawmakers are queasy about the very idea of a virtual Parliament. “The House of Commons met when air raids were going on in the war,” David Davis, a former cabinet minister, told The Observer. “I think it needs to be reconstituted even if it means members of Parliament being tested every day.”
Some select committees have used technology to hold hearings virtually, but widening this out to the full 650-member House of Commons raises trickier issues. One possibility is to have the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, sit in isolation in the chamber, moderating proceedings via a video link.
Alternatively, Mr. Hoyle might be joined by a government minister and a political opponent, with lawmakers using a messaging system to ask questions.
In Manila slum, life was already a struggle. The lockdown has made it worse.
Even before the coronavirus arrived in Manila, a saying in the capital’s sprawling San Roque slum — “no one dies from a fever” — crystallized the many threats that its residents faced in their daily lives.
Drug-fueled petty crime. Food shortages. Overcrowding and poor sanitation. Fever, body aches and coughs were commonplace long before the virus came.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s lockdown of Luzon, the Philippines’ largest island and home to Manila, is moving into its second month, plunging San Roque’s people even deeper into poverty as the virus continues to rage. Yet the restrictions have not stopped runny-nosed children from playing tag in the slum’s labyrinth of alleyways, as parents shout halfhearted admonitions to stay away from one another.
Home to roughly 6,000 families — conservatively, about 35,000 people — San Roque, in Manila’s northern suburb of Quezon, has for years been home to some of the poorest people on the fringes of Philippine society.
Frustration over the lockdown recently exploded into violence. An April 1 gathering in San Roque became an impromptu rally, with dozens taking to the streets demanding answers from the government about when they would receive promised relief.
Police officers in riot gear and fatigues responded with force, scuffling with protesters and sending 21 people to jail. Mr. Duterte accused Kadamay, a group that advocates for the poor, of inciting the violence, and warned that his government would not be lenient toward those who challenged it.
So far, there have been no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in San Roque. As of Wednesday, 349 people had died in the Philippines from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and 5,453 infections had been confirmed. But that figure is likely to rise sharply, with the Philippine government having just begun mass testing this week.
Russia’s battle with the bubonic plague prepared it for the coronavirus.
Like a ghost from the medieval past, the bubonic plague still makes occasional, unwelcome appearances in remote regions of the former Soviet Union, where it survives today in wild rodents.
Over the centuries, with improved public hygiene, the plague declined as a threat. Today, as a bacterial infection, it is treatable with antibiotics, if caught in time.
But the plague was still a lethal menace in the 1920s and also an embarrassment for the Soviet Union, which established a specialized state agency to track and contain it.
Successors to that agency still exist in Russia and in half a dozen other countries that were once Soviet republics and, with their ready quarantine plans and trained personnel, they have become a mainstay of the regional response to the coronavirus.
It is too early to tell if the former Soviet antiplague centers, as the sites were called, have made any difference in the coronavirus outbreak, which so far has infected more than 24,000 Russians, killing 198.
At most, the legacy Soviet system helped delay the spread, and it is just one data point in assessing why the coronavirus moved more slowly in Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries than in Western Europe and the United States.
Russia maintains 13 antiplague centers, from the Far East to the Caucasus Mountains, five plague research institutes and multiple field stations. In March, the authorities moved new laboratory equipment into the antiplague center in Moscow to expand its ability to test for the coronavirus.
The Microbe institute, originally dedicated wholly to bubonic plague but later expanded to tackle other infections such as cholera, yellow fever, anthrax and tularemia, models the spread of the coronavirus.
One soccer club in Spain faced criticism when it acted well before authorities banned mass gatherings.
Valencia, a top soccer team in Spain, was starting to take heat from the local media and some rival teams for what they considered to be an overreaction to the threat posed by a mystery illness that had spread to Europe from Asia.
It was Feb. 29. No other team in Spain had yet dared to impose such harsh measures: The club’s first team was to be isolated. There was to be no contact with fans. All interviews, even those deemed mandatory as a part of Spanish soccer’s broadcast contract, would be banned. Employees who did not have a reason to be at the stadium were barred from attending.
Anil Murthy, the team president and a former diplomat for Singapore, had spoken to friends and family in Asia and knew the coronavirus outbreak was serious and on its way, no matter what the view in Spain was at the time.
The news media greeted Mr. Murthy with a wave of negative headlines until shortly before the league suspended all activities.
Mr. Murthy, who spent almost 16 years working with Singapore’s government, was keeping an eye on what was happening there while the team owner was sending daily updates.
The club’s staff got to work, preparing for the outbreak in part by purchasing protective clothing and equipment.
Since then, 35 percent of Valencia’s first team has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Australia’s new cases drop, but restrictions will stay in place for at least a month.
Australia will consider lifting some restrictions in four weeks if the number of new cases continues to drop and crucial public health benchmarks are met, officials said on Thursday.
Australia remains in “the suppression phase,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Before restrictions can ease, the country will need to extend surveillance measures, improve contact tracing and respond to local outbreaks faster, he said.
Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicates that Australia has one of the best detection rates in the world, with 92 percent of all symptomatic cases identified, said Brendan Murphy, the chief medical officer of Australia. The rate of new daily cases has dropped in the country, but he cautioned that it was too soon to relax.
As of Thursday, the country has 6,457 reported cases and 63 people have died, with 42 on ventilators. More than half of those who have contracted the virus have recovered, Mr. Morrison said.
Economically, Australians would also need to prepare for some “very sobering news” in the months ahead, he added. “It will be a different world on the other side of the virus.”
Australia had previously enjoyed the world’s longest economic boom, with nearly three decades without a recession. Now, with the employment rate expected to double to 10 percent by the end of June, the government has approved $200 billion in stimulus measures.
Trump wants to reopen the economy, but experts warn against relaxing too soon.
As President Trump pushes to reopen businesses, public health experts warn that the country is not conducting enough testing to do so without exacerbating the spread of the coronavirus.
Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House, offered a road map on Wednesday on which states could be the first to ease stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses — with President Trump saying a target date could be before May 1. Governors and mayors would make the call on lifting restrictions after receiving guidance from the federal government, which would be announced Thursday, Dr. Birx said.
Some workers, agitated about the shutdowns and state-issued limitations on daily life, are starting to protest the restrictions. In Michigan on Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators in cars jammed the streets around the State Capitol, and in Frankfort, Ky., dozens of people shouted through a Capitol building window as Gov. Andy Beshear provided a virus update.
Testing shortages are hampering the country’s efforts to get life back to normal. Antibody tests, which reveal whether someone has ever been infected with the coronavirus, are just starting to be rolled out, and most have not been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration.
Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that governors were “chomping at the bit to get going,” but Dr. Birx warned that it was no time for Americans to become complacent about social distancing.
“I will remind the people again: This is a highly contagious virus. Social gatherings, coming together — there is a chance an asymptomatic person can spread it unknowingly,” she said. “Don’t have that dinner party for 20 yet.”
In South Korea, a big victory in Parliament was fueled by the virus battle.
President Moon Jae-in’s governing party in South Korea won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections on Wednesday, as he leveraged his surging popularity over his country’s largely successful battle against the coronavirus to increase his political sway.
With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Moon’s left-leaning Democratic Party had won 163 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, according to the National Election Commission. A satellite party the Democrats created for Wednesday’s elections won 17 seats.
Together, the two groups took three-fifths of the seats, giving Mr. Moon the largest majority in three decades.
The main conservative opposition group, the United Future Party, and its own satellite, Future Korea Party, suffered a crushing defeat, winning 103 seats between them. The remaining seats were taken by independents and candidates from smaller parties.
Pandemic or not, South Koreans proved eager to vote in the election, widely seen as a midterm referendum on Mr. Moon, who was elected to a five-year term in 2017. The voter turnout was 66.2 percent, the highest for a parliamentary election in 28 years.
It was the first time in 16 years that left-leaning parties secured a parliamentary majority, as South Koreans expressed their support for Mr. Moon’s government, which has won plaudits for bringing the epidemic under control.
Bogotá’s gender-based restrictions on travel are enforced with steep fines.
So many men. Men at the bakery, men on bikes, men in parks, men in the grocery aisles.
“It’s weird,” said Adriana Pérez, 40, a nurse in scrubs waiting at the bank, the only woman in sight. “But it’s working.”
Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, joined Panama this week in instituting a gender-based virus-prevention measure designed to limit the number of people in the streets.
On odd-numbered days, men can leave the house to seek out essentials. On even-numbered days, it’s the women’s turn.
There are exceptions for people working in critical industries, like food service and health care. Dog walkers of any gender can leave for 20 minutes. But beyond that, anyone caught breaking the rule is subject to a fine of $240, about the minimum monthly salary in Colombia.
Bogotá’s mayor, Claudia López, the first woman and the first openly gay individual to lead the city, has said that transgender people can follow the gender with which they identify. The authorities, the health order says, should respect “diverse gender manifestations.”
During the first two days of the measure, 104 women and 610 men were sanctioned by the police for violating the order, according to Ms. López. Violators must pay half the fine within five days or face a potential day in court.
Peru had enacted a similar measure, but President Martín Vizcarra canceled it following criticism that it would lead to discrimination against transgender people.
The Colombia measure is reminiscent of Bogotá’s best-known traffic policy, which restricts cars by license plate number and is a defining feature of life in the city during normal times.
The city has been under quarantine for nearly a month, which has been particularly difficult on people with jobs in the informal sector, who typically support their families on the work they do that day or that week.
On Wednesday, Yesica Benavides, 24, stood amid the men on a Bogotá sidewalk, trying to sell candy. She had no gloves or face covering, having given her only mask to her 3-year-old, Nicole, who was by her side.
“We go out every day,” she said. The two have been sleeping in a motel, and they pay their rent nightly. “If we don’t go out,” Ms. Benavides said, “we don’t eat.”
Reporting was contributed by Isabella Kwai, Su-hyun Lee, Rod Nordland, Hannah Beech, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Choe Sang-Hun, Andrew E. Kramer, Stephen Castle, Jason Gutierrez and Tariq Panja.
