Here’s what you need to know:
- A wave of cases in Beijing causes officials to lock down a section of the city.
- Disease experts are warning the virus isn’t going anywhere. Some places in the U.S. might see more lockdowns.
- Global markets fall, and Wall Street faces a tough opening.
- A month after reopening, Pakistan records 100,000 new cases, and panic is rising.
- Charter schools have accepted at least $50 million in virus aid meant for small businesses.
- Stores in England reopen as business in Europe slowly returns.
- In the rush to improve virus treatments, some medical journals are losing prestige.
A wave of cases in Beijing causes officials to lock down a section of the city.
A section of Beijing was locked down on Monday as the government rushed to contain a new outbreak of coronavirus infections — an unnerving breach in the capital, which President Xi Jinping of China had said should be a fortress against the pandemic.
City officials said they had tracked down 79 infections in Beijing over the previous four days, including 36 confirmed on Sunday. All appeared ultimately traceable to the vast, bustling Xinfadi food market in the south of Beijing.
Until the infections from the market began to emerge on Thursday, Beijing had gone 56 days without new, locally borne cases. Its main worry appeared to be Chinese people returning from abroad with the virus.
While a few dozen new cases seems slight compared to the hundreds or thousands of infections reported daily by other countries, the new outbreak has jolted China, which had appeared to have largely stifled the virus after it emerged late last year from Wuhan, a city in the country’s center.
“We feel this is dangerous,” Chen Xiaoxi, who owns a shop near the market, said by telephone. He said he was waiting for the results of a test to check if he had the virus. “It is a worry, everyone is worried. This is no ordinary disease. We’re waiting at home and can’t go out.”
Some Chinese disease control experts had said Beijing appeared to respond to the outbreak quickly. Even so, this failure in the capital’s defenses appeared to rile Mr. Xi’s subordinates. Two local officials and the general manager of the Xinfadi market were dismissed on Sunday for what the city leadership said was a failure to move quickly enough against the infections.
“The market is densely packed with many moving around, and the risks are high that the outbreak will spread,” Sun Chunlan, a vice premier overseeing health policy, said at a meeting on Sunday, according to Xinhua, an official news agency. “Take firm and decisive measures to thoroughly prevent its spread.”
Disease experts are warning the virus isn’t going anywhere. Some places in the U.S. might see more lockdowns.
Leading infectious disease experts in the United States are warning that the virus will be making life difficult for the foreseeable future.
And as strict social distancing wanes, some leaders in New York and Texas are threatening renewed lockdowns in an effort to get people to take the persistent threat of the virus seriously.
“This virus is not going to rest” until it infects about 60 percent to 70 percent of the population, said Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”
Experts have estimated that without a vaccine, about 70 percent of the population will need to be infected and develop immunity in order to stop the virus’s spread, a concept called herd immunity. The current number of confirmed cases in the United States is over 2 million, less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to a New York Times database.
Listen to ‘The Daily’: What We’ve Learned About the Coronavirus
Six months into the pandemic, we take stock of where we are, and where we might be going.Dr. Osterholm said that recent data show the rate of infection has been level in eight states, increasing in 22 states and decreasing in the rest. The increase is not simply because of more widely available testing, experts said, noting that Covid-19 hospitalizations are rising in several states.
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, medical director of the special pathogens unit at Boston University School of Medicine, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the rise in cases in some states in the South and West suggested that “we opened too early in those states.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said that by July 4, virus deaths in the United States would likely reach 124,000 to 140,000, from the current total of about 116,000.
Some state officials have warned of a second lockdown.
On Sunday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that the state had been deluged with some 25,000 complaints about businesses that “are in violation of the reopening plan.”
Specifically, Mr. Cuomo said that bar patrons in Manhattan and the Hamptons on Long Island had been flouting the rules, and warned that if local officials did not crack down on such behavior the state could be forced to suspend reopening plans.
In a statement on Monday, a spokeswoman for New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, pushed back against the governor’s remarks, noting that city workers had been working over the weekend to disperse large groups and help business owners separate patrons.
“These businesses are allowed to be open per the governor’s guidelines, and we don’t believe imprisoning people or taking away their livelihood is the answer,” the statement said.
In Houston, officials warned last week that a lockdown might be reimposed as cases continued to tick upward, CBS News reported. The region is now at what officials call “Code Orange,” meaning that there is a significant and uncontrolled level of virus spread in the community.
The new rise in cases in some states comes as the Trump administration announced that it did not plan to back the extension of expanded unemployment insurance benefits beyond the end of July, citing concerns that workers are opting to take the benefits instead of going back to their jobs.
Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, said on Sunday that the White House would support new incentives to bring people back to work rather than push to renew the additional $600 in weekly jobless benefits when it expires at the end of next month.
Global markets fall, and Wall Street faces a tough opening.
Markets in Asia and Europe tumbled on Monday over renewed fears of moreoutbreaks around the world, setting the stage for sharp losses when Wall Street opens later in the day.
Stocks in London, Frankfurt and Paris were 1 to 2 percent lower. That followed some sharper losses in the Asia-Pacific region, including a 4.8 percent drop in South Korea and a 3.5 percent fall in Tokyo.
U.S. stocks tumbled by more than 1 percent. Sentiment in financial markets has been shifting since late last week, as investors seem to acknowledge the risks to the economy from pandemic-related shutdowns earlier this year and the prospect of a second wave.
The sell-off was spread broadly across markets. Oil and gold fell in early futures trading. Prices for U.S. Treasury bonds, which generally rise when market sentiment is weak, gained sharply, sending yields lower.
Investors were reacting in part to bad news out of China, where some monthly economic indicators were weaker than expected, and where officials are battling a new spate of cases in Beijing. In the United States, states including Arizona, Florida and Texas reported higher numbers.
In other economic news:
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The risks of relying economically on China have never seemed clearer. But as the world tries to get moving again, it needs the Asian superpower more than ever.
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New data shows Chinese consumers still aren’t spending like they once did, holding back one of the world’s most powerful growth engines.
A month after reopening, Pakistan records 100,000 new cases, and panic is rising.
Pakistanis stricken by the virus are being turned away from hospitals that have simply closed their gates and put up signs reading “full house.” Doctors and nurses are falling ill at alarming rates — and are also coming under physical assault from desperate and angry families.
When Pakistan’s government lifted its lockdown on May 9, it warned that the already impoverished country could no longer withstand the shutdown needed to mitigate the pandemic’s spread. But now left unshackled, the virus is meting out devastation in other ways, and panic is rising.
Before reopening, Pakistan had recorded about 25,000 infections. A month later, the country recorded an additional 100,000 cases — almost certainly an undercount — and the pandemic shows no signs of abating. At least 2,729 people have died, according to a Times database.
Pakistan is now reporting so many new cases that it is among the World Health Organization’s top 10 countries where the virus is on the rise. The W.H.O. wrote a letter criticizing the government’s efforts on June 7 and recommended that a lockdown be reimposed, stating that Pakistan did not meet any of the criteria needed to lift it.
Compounding the dire situation, medical workers across Pakistan are being assaulted on a near-daily basis for not being able to admit patients or having to tell families that their loved ones had died.
“Our hospitals are completely exhausted,” said one doctor, who asked for his name to be withheld because he is a government employee.
Medical professionals now expect the virus to peak in July or August and infect up to 900,000, adding further strain to an already shaky health care system that some warn may collapse.
But government officials have ruled out the possibility of a further lockdown and dismissed the recommendations by the W.H.O.
Charter schools have accepted at least $50 million in virus aid meant for small businesses.
Charter schools, including some with healthy cash balances and billionaire backers like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, have quietly accepted millions of dollars in emergency virus relief from a fund created to help struggling small businesses stay afloat.
Since their inception, charter schools have straddled the line between public schools and private entities. The pandemic has forced them to choose.
And dozens of them — potentially more because the Treasury Department has not disclosed a list — have decided for the purpose of virus relief that they are businesses, applying for aid from the Paycheck Protection Program even as they continue to enjoy funding from school budgets, as well as tax-free status.
Parents, activists and researchers have identified at least $50 million in forgivable loans flowing to the schools, which, like all schools, are facing steep budget cuts next year as tax revenue, tuition payments and donations dry up.
“To me, either you’re a fish or a fowl — you can’t say you’re a public school one day, but now because it’s advantageous, say you’re a business,” said Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education, a group that scrutinizes charter school management, and whose early donors included a teachers’ union.
Charter leaders say traditional schools have long benefited from capital that they cannot obtain.
“Those who are questioning our eligibility for this program are those who question whether we should get money at all,” said Nina Rees, the president and chief executive of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
GLOBAL ROUNDUP
Stores in England reopen as business in Europe slowly returns.
The clothing stores are open, but the fitting rooms remain closed. Bookstores are allowing browsing, but any item touched and unpurchased will be put in “quarantine” to ensure no virus lives on the surface. Dealers of higher-end jewelry will use ultraviolet boxes to decontaminate diamond bracelets and gold necklaces.
Stores in England that sell nonessential goods reopened on Monday for the first time in nearly three months, part of a broader global attempt to restart commerce even as the virus remains deeply woven into the fabric of society.
Britain was among the last countries in Europe to close down commerce as the virus swept across the Continent, and it is now one of the last to tentatively allow shops to reopen. But the opening is coming with new precautions.
For the first time, all people using public transportation in England will be required to wear face coverings. Restaurants, pubs and gyms all remain closed.
In other international news:
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Commercial flights will resume to all of Egypt’s airports on July 1. Passengers from countries with high infection rates will be required to submit a lab test proving they are virus-free, the civil aviation minister, Mohamed Manar, said at a news conference on Sunday. Three coastal provinces — the Red Sea and South Sinai in the northeast, and Matrouh on the Mediterranean coast — will reopen to tourists, said Khaled el-Enany, the tourism minister. Egypt has registered more than 44,500 virus cases, and about 1,575 deaths.
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President Emmanuel Macron of France, speaking to the nation on Sunday, declared a “first victory” against the virus and said all business could resume this week. But he warned that, “the summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.” Restaurants and cafes in Paris will be allowed to open starting Monday, and many schools will reopen later this month.
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About 70 percent of Spain’s 47 million residents have entered the third phase of the government’s plan to end its lockdown, with gatherings of as many as 20 people permitted and all restrictions lifted on when people are allowed outdoors. Next week, the government is planning to end a state of emergency, which has been in effect since mid-March.
In the rush to improve virus treatments, some medical journals are losing prestige.
Recent retractions from respected medical journals are alarming scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the virus has overwhelmed the peer review process and opened the door to fraud, threatening the credibility of prestigious publications when they are needed most.
Two publications recently retracted two coronavirus studies that delivered astounding results and altered the course of research into the pandemic. The research is happening at an unprecedented pace because of the urgent need to publish new findings to improve treatments for desperately ill virus patients.
Peer review is supposed to safeguard the quality of scientific research, a process that used to take many months, or even a full year, to scrutinize and edit a complicated study. The system, widely adopted by medical journals in the middle of the 20th century, undergirds scientific discourse around the world, but some critics have long worried that the safeguards are cracking, and have called on medical journals to operate with greater transparency.
Journals used to take many months, or even a full year, to scrutinize and edit a complicated study, a process that included several weeks for outside experts to peer review the research. But now peer review may be condensed to as little as 48 hours, and some studies deemed of vital importance to patients may be published online within 20 days of submission.
Of two high profile retractions, one study undercut President Trump’s claim that certain antimalarial drugs can treat Covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, concluding that the medications in fact were dangerous to patients. (A separate clinical trial found that the drug did not prevent infections.) The other found that some blood pressure drugs did not increase the risk of Covid-19 and might even be protective.
The virus left migrants in Russia without work and without a way home.
With regular flights canceled, charters offer the only feasible way out for the more than five million migrant workers from former Soviet republics now stranded in Russia as a result of the pandemic, with many living in increasingly dire circumstances.
While Russia has been battered by the virus, with the third most cases in the world after the United States and Brazil, the crisis has hit migrant workers especially hard, as they were the first to lose their jobs and often the last to receive medical help.
A migrant’s life has never been easy in Russia. Lured by higher salaries, visa-free entrance and a common Soviet heritage, migrants from Central Asia often live in cramped apartments and dorms, frequently sharing a room with up to 10 other workers. Police officers habitually harass them. Many local Russians express a loathing of them. If they are fired, employers often do not pay their final salaries.
But the crisis has magnified the inferior status of migrant workers. The police, for example, have locked up entire dorms when one person has become infected.
In Moscow, the lockdown deprived 76 percent of migrant workers of their jobs, and 58 percent lost all their income, according to a poll conducted by Evgeni Varshaver, head of the Group for Migration and Ethnicity Research. Among Russians, 42 percent lost employment and 23 percent lost all income, Mr. Varshaver said the poll found.
New Yorkers starved for social contact use the stoop and the sidewalk.
Food relief efforts staged on the sidewalk in front of a church. Friends spread out on the stoop and drinking tallboys. As New York City reopens, residents emerging from quarantine may feel a bit nostalgic for the socially distant bonds they formed outside their homes.
The city first went on pause in early April, which is when Andrew Cotto, who lives in the Greenwood Heights section of Brooklyn, restarted a ritual from the summer of 2019: drinking a beer on the stoop with his retired neighbor.
In May, Christina Crespo, who is raising her children in her grandparents’ home in the Boerum Hill neighborhood, began chalking inspirational messages on her stoop.
“I started to follow these beautiful female poets and writers of color on Instagram, and I was so touched by their words,” Ms. Crespo said. She and her children also put out a quote request box for passers-by.
These are just two instances of how people combated their loneliness and came together, often with neighbors, in the spaces just outside their homes.
Read tips on how to gather safely with friends and family.
In the United States, Father’s Day is a week away, and July 4 is also drawing near. Here are some tips on celebrating safely with family and friends.
Reporting was contributed by Maria Abi-Habib, Pam Belluck, Dan Bilefsky, Chris Buckley, Salman Masood, Michael Gold, Erica L. Green, Raphael Minder, Jesse McKinley, Ivan Nechepurenko, Aimee Ortiz, Elisabetta Povoledo, Nada Rashwan, Zia ur-Rehman, Roni Caryn Rabin, Dana Rubinstein, Marc Santora, Kaly Soto, Eileen Sullivan, Carlos Tejada and Karen Zraick.
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