Much of the planet has been on lockdown for weeks. The dilemma facing countries beginning to see a downturn in Covid-19 infection and hospitalisation rates is a big one: how to reopen and at what speed? In the United States, Donald Trump is desperate to try to save his ailing economy by reopening. But as Guardian US chief reporter Ed Pilkington asks, could that rush prove an even bigger folly than Trump’s initial downplaying of the crisis?
Elsewhere, our reporters in central Europe look at the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where low infection rates have allowed the door to normality to creak open. Then, our indefatigable Beijing bureau chief Lily Kuo has been to Wuhan, where relatives of those who died in the early stage of the outbreak are now out of lockdown, but are quietly angry and looking for answers.
Elsewhere in another issue dedicated to the pandemic: a team of reporters from the Observer look back at the first weeks of the outbreak to work out why the UK has been so badly impacted. By doing so they find a prime minister and a government distracted by Britain’s exit from the EU on 31 January and by the urge to reform the civil service. Was a lack of focus in these key weeks of containment the reason Britain has witnessed so many cases and deaths?
Then, with the US having announced it would pull its funding of the World Health Organization, our diplomatic editor Julian Borger reveals the inside story of how the UN health body responded to the outbreak and how it has found itself caught between two sparring superpowers.
For those of us who have found our work desks relocated to spare rooms or kitchen tables, Mark Sweney ponders the homeworking revolution. Once the lockdown is lifted, will we ever want to go back to full weeks in the office?
Elsewhere in the magazine, Rebecca Solnit considers the importance of home in times like these; Anna Moore tells the story of the Freshwater Five, a group of Isle of Wight fishermen who, a decade ago, were sentenced to a total of 104 years in prison. Now, new evidence suggests they are innocent.
In culture we have an interview with British pop sensation Dua Lipa; design critic Oliver Wainwright ponders the post Covid-19 future of buildings and in books we look at new titles re-examining the life of legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar and Pragya Agarwal’s Sway – a study of unconscious bias.
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