Beaches across Europe began reopening in time for an early heatwave, as several countries inched out of coronavirus lockdown, and the continent prepared for the first major league football matches in over a month.
The games played in Germany’s Bundesliga will be held in empty stadiums, with tight controls including a ban on handshaking between players. Other opening measures for travel, commerce and tourism are all tentative, with governments ready to bring back tight controls if signs of a second wave of infections appear.
The World Health Organization has warned countries ending lockdown that now should be a “time for preparation, not celebration”, to avoid a deadly winter surge in new infections.
But the changes suggest there are hopes of rescuing the summer tourism season, at least for travellers coming from countries that have had some success suppressing the virus. Italy will allow international travel from 3 June, and Greece has said it hopes to open up to foreign tourists again from July.
Austria’s borders with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary will fully reopen on 15 June, the interior ministry said on Saturday, following a previously coordinated step to fully remove barriers on travel between Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Restrictions remain in place for transit from Italy.
Elsewhere the battle against Covid-19 continues, with infections in India rising past China’s total, and the government expected to extend its strict lockdown despite the heavy human and economic cost. Millions of migrant labourers have been stranded without employment, and dozens have died trying to get home.
Russia recorded its highest daily toll from the disease on Saturday, with 119 deaths, but says overall cases are falling, and is pushing ahead with plans to start lifting the lockdown from next week.
In Brazil the health minister offered his resignation over the ballooning crisis, after less than a month on the job and a day after president Jair Bolsonaro stepped up pressure on him to expand the unproven use of the antimalarial drug chloroquine in treating patients.
Brazil now has its third health minister in three months as Bolsonaro continues to ignore expert advice. It has had over 200,000 cases, and 14,000 deaths.
Worldwide the disease has now infected over 4.5 million people and killed over 300,000; both tolls are likely to be underestimates because of shortages of testing.
Although the disease affects older people more severely, Europe and the US have seen sharp surges in recent weeks of a rare but severe immune disorder in children linked to Covid-19. At least five children have died from the condition, which has hallmarks of a rare disease known as Kawasaki syndrome.
The most recently announced death from this inflammatory syndrome was that of a nine-year-old boy in France. Doctors said he had developed a form of coronavirus but had no symptoms, and medics initially thought he had scarlet fever. He died on 8 May, six days after being admitted to intensive care.
Despite the high toll of the coronavirus, and as new discoveries continue to emerge about its nature and impact, there are protests over the weekend in several countries, including the UK and Germany, by small groups who oppose the lockdown measures.
In the US, the worst affected country in terms of both infections and deaths, the toll is projected to exceed 100,000 by 1 June, the CDC director, Robert Redfield, has said.
President Donald Trump has announced details of a “warp-speed” effort to create a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, even as experts warn that such a breakthrough could take longer than 18 months. Standing behind Trump, Anthony Fauci, an infectious diseases expert, wore a face mask and cast his glance down and reached to adjust his tie as the president spoke. Trump did not wear a face mask.
The US House of Representatives has narrowly approved a $3tn bill pushed for by Democrats to battle the coronavirus and stimulating a faltering economy. But Republicans who control the Senate have vowed to block the bill, though some support its provisions aimed at helping state and local governments.
Trump also suggested on Saturday his administration might resume some payments to the World Health Organization, which he has frozen after accusing the body of promoting Chinese “disinformation”. WHO officials denied the claims and China has insisted it was transparent and open.
One draft would see the US return to paying only 10% of its former contributions, matching China’s assessed contribution.
In other developments:
In Australia, as coronavirus restrictions begin to ease, people have started venturing back to weekend activities such as dining out, going to beauty salons and attending birthday parties, while observing social distancing rules.
China has increased pressure on European states to reject Taiwan’s WHO inclusion, arguing that its presence can only be justified if it accepts that it is part of China. The World Health Assembly is being held virtually on Monday; Taiwan’s attendance and a possible international inquiry into the start of the pandemic are likely to be the two big political flashpoints between China and the west.
As Mexico moves toward a gradual reactivation of its economy from Monday, the number of new coronavirus infections grows higher every day, raising fears of a new wave of infections that other countries have seen after loosening restrictions. There were 2,437 new coronavirus test confirmations on Friday, the highest daily total yet and the second straight day with more than 2,000 new cases.
