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Elvis Francois, the orthopedic surgery resident who has gone viral with his top-notch live performances at hospitals, knew from adolescence he wanted to help heal the world through medicine.But through music? Not so much.Two years after becoming an unlikely singing sensation, the 34-year-old doctor with a golden voice is releasing his first-ever EP on Friday and all the proceeds will be donated to The Center of Disaster Philanthropy COVID-19 Response Fund.
“It’s been such a unique time in all of our lives. I’m just honored to be able to share a bit of music with people, especially during these trying times,” Francois said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday. “What we do as surgeons, what we do as physicians goes a very long way, but music moves people in a way that medicine can’t.”
Francois has appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” CNN, “Good Morning America” and more programs after becoming popular for singing booming covers of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me,” but just weeks ago he got a call from two executives from the Nashville-based Big Machine Label Group, asking how they could help him spread his message of hope and joy through music.
Jake Basden and Allison Jones pulled their resources together, helping Francois get into a recording studio to record the four-song EP called “Music Is Medicine,” which is being independently released on the newly formed Doctor Elvis Records. Fellow resident William Robinson, who usually accompanies Francois on piano during his performances, joined in for the recording sessions of “Imagine,” “Lean on Me,” Andra Day’s “Rise Up” and Mike Yung’s “Alright.”
“It’s just been a group of people trying to use music to help people,” Francois said of all the help he’s received to make the EP. “I think that’s probably the most special thing about it.”
Francois also knew the EP could be a good way to help raise funds to fight the spreading coronavirus and honor the health care workers on the frontlines.
“We see health care providers who are getting impacted. We see our colleagues who are in the ICUs. We see our colleagues who are in the emergency department. We see how much need there is on the side of patients and on the side of providers. … I felt like the one thing we could do, if anything, was to use this momentum and use this energy to give,” he said.
Francois, who is in his last year of residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, began singing in high school and in church but he never took it seriously. Medicine, however, was always on his mind.
He grew up in Miami and New York and said trips to Haiti, where his family is from, really helped him find his life goal.
“I just always remember seeing long lines of people and how grateful they were to get Tylenol for free, or how grateful they were being able to just literally speak to a doctor and get their advice,” he recalled. “Since then, maybe when I was like 7 or 8, I’ve always looked at that as being something that I’d want to give the rest of my life to.”
But singing has helped him to connect to patients, and fans around the world, in a different way. He remembers going viral after posting a cover of “Imagine,” surprised that people outside of the U.S. saw and enjoyed the clip.
“My dad got a phone call from a relative in France who came across the video and that’s when I was like, ‘Oh wow!’ It hadn’t even been 24 hours,” he recalled. “I’ll get messages from nurses in Italy or messages from other residents and other health care providers or patients … A little bit of good can literally cross oceans and move people across the world.”
Once Francois finishes his residency, he’s heading to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, to complete a fellowship in spine surgery. Still, it feels surreal that he will have an album out on digital platforms next to releases from pop, rap and rock stars.
“Spotify, iTunes, Amazon? That’s just crazy. Literally if you asked me a month ago, I would probably laugh at you. Like, I’ve never even recorded a song,” Francois said.
“I’ve had to pinch myself, ‘Is this actually real?’ Seeing it all come together, it just feels like a dream,” he added. “I think the coolest thing about it is it’s a dream where we are all able to give our small parts to make the world better.”
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Amsterdam, in the midst of an unprecedented tourism slump caused by restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus, announced Thursday that it is planning to ban people from renting out homes to visitors in three historic downtown neighborhoods.
The move, which is set to come into force July 1, is the Dutch capital’s latest attempt to rein in people renting their homes out on platforms like Airbnb amid complaints from residents that tourists are spoiling their quality of life.
It goes hand-in-hand with a system coming into force July 1 in Amsterdam that will mean anybody renting out their home in the city will have to have a permit. City Hall will not be issuing permits for the three neighborhoods covered by the ban.
In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, Airbnb said 95% of its listings in Amsterdam are outside the areas covered by the ban, and added that the company already has introduced tools to tackle noise and nuisance.
“We remain eager to work with Amsterdam to support long-term solutions on home sharing — rather than short-term fixes that are confusing and damaging for residents and small businesses in these challenging times,” Airbnb said.  
Amsterdam has, in recent years, tightened rules for people renting out their homes, including limiting owners to a maximum of 30 nights a year and to a maximum of four guests on any given night.
The city’s district of picturesque canals and cobbled lanes is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has been swamped by tourists in recent years, leading to a rising chorus of complaints from local residents.
However, coronavirus restrictions have seen an unusual quiet descend on the city in recent weeks. Streets often choked with tourists are now largely deserted.
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Among the rolling vineyards of France’s southwestern Gironde region, osteopath Chloe Chancelier has found a new calling as she organizes a small volunteer army to sew cotton masks for health workers. Outside Paris, Anthony Seddiki has organized a network to churn out thousands of hospital visors using 3D printers. And in the Loire Valley, a luxury fabric maker is redirecting supplies normally heading to upscale stores to create a more prosaic, if vital, accessory to help slow COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. In France and elsewhere, the widening pandemic has catapulted even ordinary cloth face masks into prized objects, while surgical ones have incited fraud,Preparing an order of face masks in France’s southwestern Gironde region.hoarding, panic buying and political squabbling. But today, soaring demand for masks is generating a new vocation for locked-down populations and businesses — along with a spirit of solidarity and enterprise some hope will continue post-crisis.“I’m very happy to see what’s happening,” Chancelier said of her pro bono startup that uses locally sourced, recycled materials. “For me, it’s the beginning of other things.”A community effortNot so long ago, masks were barely seen on French and other European streets. Today, they are increasingly coveted, sometimes even worn as fashion statements, despite conflicting government signals about their usefulness. In France, at least, a pro-mask consensus is developing. Earlier this week, President Emmanuel Macron pledged that every citizen could access one by May 11 — when authorities hope to start easing France’s lockdown. A BFMTV poll out Wednesday found 94 percent of French respondents now support mask-wearing. A growing number of municipalities are now launching mandatory mask measures — sparking an increase in local production efforts. Chancelier’s initiative began last month, after the lockdown shuttered her health clinic. “I was getting calls from clients and friends who are midwives and nurses and who only had a few days of face mask stocks,” she recalled.Chancelier said she searched online for homemade alternatives, finding a YouTube tutorial for a design fitting government-recommended standards. She launched a Facebook group looking for volunteers and material.Face masks drying in the sun in Gironde, France.So far, Chancelier’s network of roughly 50 sewers has supplied the community hospital and local agencies with hundreds of free masks. She now has orders to make hospital gowns. Residents are donating old sheets and even diapers as material. Local vineyards and municipalities are offering spools of inexpensive elastic normally used to tie up vines.“It’s a real human network,” Chancelier said.Each mask comes with instructions on proper use, she said, and space for wearers to add an extra layer of protection.Putting out the fireSimilar pro-bono efforts are spreading across France. In the Essonne region outside Paris, packaging technician Seddiki also launched a Facebook volunteer drive to make visors for area health workers.“I’m surprised at how big it’s grown,” Seddiki told Le Parisien newspaper of his network, which has distributed more than 100,000 visors free of charge.In the Loire Valley, high-end fabric maker Le Tissus d’Avesnieres is offering material at factory prices, while 200 tailors have formed a nonprofit to meet local needs.The initiatives contrast with less uplifting reports of theft, hoarding and unseemly international free-for-alls to secure scarce supplies. Earlier this month, French and German officials accused the United States of diverting masks and other equipment meant for their own countries — accusations U.S. officials denied. France, too, has been accused of seizing masks bound for Spain and Italy.A woman wearing a face mask in Paris. Many Parisians opt for homemade cloth varieties.Meanwhile, European police announced Tuesday they had foiled a multimillion-dollar scam to sell non-existent masks to Germany, one of many reported in recent weeks.In Gironde, Chancelier is mulling how to keep her pro bono movement alive after she heads back to work next month.She likens grassroots initiatives like hers to an ancient Quechua culture legend of a hummingbird trying to put out a forest fire with tiny beakfuls of water.“Even after this crisis is over,” she said, “I hope people remember they participated in the response. They put in their own drops of water into the fire.” 
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The coronavirus pandemic has brought creativity to the many people around the world under lockdown in their respective nations, as well as an outpouring of support for the health care workers who are caring for those infected with COVID-19.In Britain on Thursday, a war veteran completed his mission of walking 100 lengths of his 25-meter back garden ahead of his 100th birthday to raise money for the country’s National Health Service.An online fundraising campaign initially aimed to get donations of about $624,000.  By the time Tom Moore finished his final trip down the course, an event broadcast on live television, the initiative had brought in more than $15 million.He said he was inspired to take on the challenge by the care he received when he underwent treatment for a broken hip and for cancer.”You’ve all got to remember that we will get through it in the end, it will all be right, it might take time,” Moore said. “At the end of the day, we shall all be OK again.”When and how people will emerge from stay-at-home orders, as well as the restarting of businesses around the world, is a huge question facing governments.Getting economies moving againLeaders have expressed a desire to get their economies moving again, and along with health experts they have cautioned there is a need to not move too early and risk a spike in infections in places that have started to bring the virus under control.German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to allow some schools to reopen beginning May 4, following similar plans in other European countries. She said some shops could reopen next week.In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country is not yet ready to loosen restrictions. He urged Canadians to be patient, saying they still “a number of weeks away.”U.S. President Donald Trump is among those who have been most vocal in pushing to restart the country’s economy, which is the largest in the world. He is expected to announce new guidelines Thursday, though health officials have said dropping restrictions in early May would be too soon and ultimately those decisions will be up to individual state governors.Trump is also set to take part Thursday in a video conference with other G-7 leaders to discuss a coordinated response to the pandemic.He drew fresh criticism Wednesday from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and U.S. billionaire Bill Gates about his decision to suspend funding for the World Health Organization.Carter issued a statement saying the WHO “is the only international organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus.” Gates, a major funder of the WHO, said the decision was “as dangerous as it sounds.”The United States is the world’s largest contributor to the WHO, with its more than $400 million contribution in 2019 amounting to about 15 percent of the organization’s budget.Trump accused the Geneva-based organization of failing to obtain independent reports about the coronavirus originating from China’s central city of Wuhan and relying instead on China’s official reports. Beijing officials initially tried to downplay the dangers of the new strain of coronavirus. Trump said the funding will be suspended pending an investigation into the WHO’s handling of the outbreak.The United States is now the worst-hit country with nearly 640,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Thursday, out of more than 2 million infected people worldwide. 
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One Brazilian governor said he has increased security for his wife and relocated his children after receiving threats he says are tied to his criticism of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.São Paulo Governor João Doria told the Associated Press he is continuing to battle both the coronavirus in his state and Bolsonaro policies while other governors are backing away from criticizing the president out of concern that federal funding to help them counter the virus in their respective states could be diverted.Doria’s advocacy for strong restrictions is likely tied to São Paulo reporting 11,000 COVID-19 cases and almost 800 deaths, the highest in the country.Bolsanaro has argued that imposing lockdowns and placing restrictions on businesses would adversely affacet the economy.Meanwhile, The Guardian newspaper said Brazil’s Congress is demanding that Bolsonaro release the results of his own coronavirus test within 30 days.There is rampant speculation the president could be infected with the virus after 23 people who accompanied Bolsonaro to the United States last month tested positive for the virus, including the press secretary who accompanied Bolsonaro to a dinner with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. 
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Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega appeared on Wednesday in a live broadcast on national television after being absent from public life for a month, raising questions about his health and whereabouts as the world reels from the novel coronavirus.Ortega, a 74-year-old former leftist guerrilla with chronic illnesses, gave no explanation for his 33-day absence but said that the Central American country is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak responsibly.”We have not stopped working, because if the people do not work, they die,” said Ortega. “We are a country of working people, people that will not die of hunger.”Ortega’s health has been a closely guarded secret and his absence from public life led to speculation about it.Over the years, Ortega has suffered two heart attacks and developed high cholesterol and other ailments, an official told Reuters last week. Since then, the president has been increasingly protective of his health, the official said.Now in his second stint as president after orchestrating a constitutional change to allow for reelections, Ortega said that Nicaragua has the lowest number of coronavirus infections, registering only nine cases and one fatality.”We have the capacity to attend to coronavirus patients,” Ortega said.Public health experts have questioned the accuracy of the official figures and urged the government to report how many people have been tested for the coronavirus.Nicaragua is one of the few countries that does not have social distancing measures, does not prohibit mass gatherings and has not canceled school and university classes as recommended by the World Health Organization. 
  
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After more than two weeks of forced quarantine, hundreds of refugees in Turkey have been released haphazardly in recent days, with many being left on the streets in locked down coastal areas.Thousands more are expected to be let go in the coming days and weeks.”A bus dropped us off near the coast,” said Samer Alahmad, 45, a Syrian refugee and father of four. “The driver told us to go find a boat to Greece.”Samer Alahmad sold his furniture to get to the border to try to enter Greece, pictured April 15, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Alahmad)But what Alahmad found was more refugees. They were sleeping outdoors in the middle of a 48-hour coronavirus lockdown.The families could neither find nor afford boats. Even if they could, Greece has been aggressively repelling refugees from its borders since late February, when Turkey announced plans to open the border to refugees trying to get to Europe.After that announcement, as many as 12,000 refugees flocked to Turkey’s land border with Greece hoping to cross. Greece never said it would open its side of the border, and never did. And when refugees tried to cross the small river separating the countries on boats or by swimming, Greek soldiers pushed them back with tear gas, batons and paddy wagons.”I left Syria because of the bombings,” Alahmad said. “Then I sold all my furniture in Turkey to get to the border.”Evacuation and quarantineAlahmad stayed in a squalid camp by the border for 27 days. In the camp, everyone lined up for hours each day, just to get a single serving of soup and bread.By the end of March, the coronavirus was beginning to spread in Turkey, and Turkish authorities sent buses to evacuate the camp.In late March, Turkish authorities evacuated thousands of people from a make-shift camp along the Greek border, as the coronavirus began to spread in Turkey. (Photo courtesy of refugees)Alahmad was brought to a quarantine center, where he was photographed and fingerprinted before surrendering his phone and other belongings. He was crowded into a room that was built for 20 people and holding 25. They were given cleaning materials to try to protect themselves from the virus.Fourteen days later, he was bused to a coastal town where he and hundreds of others walked for five hours before they were arrested for violating lockdown orders, Alahmad said. Later, he was permitted to travel to Istanbul. Now, Alahmad is trying to raise the money to shelter in a family home.”I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a month-and-a-half,” he said, adding, “I will try again to get to Europe.” Caught in the middleCrossing into Greece from Turkey nowadays is almost impossible, according to Mohammad, a volunteer in Izmir, a city long known for being a starting point for refugees trying to cross to Europe on smugglers’ boats.Since the beginning of the year, Greece has said clearly and often that it will not tolerate new refugees, sending military forces to back up the statements.Children sleep in the streets after being released from quarantine in Izmir, Turkey, April 13, 2020. (Photo courtesy of refugees)”I think everyone knows it. Greece won’t let them in,” said Mohammad. “But they will not stop trying.”Greece accuses Turkey of trying to flood Europe with refugees, contradicting a 2016 statement in which Ankara said it would block refugees from Europe in exchange for aid for the roughly 3.5 million Syrian refugees in the country.Turkey maintains that Europe has never fully delivered on the 2016 promises and accuses Greece of human rights abuses against tens of thousands of refugees detained in overcrowded and dangerous camps.As the international community squabbles, refugees continuously risk their lives for even the hope of getting to Europe, according to Mohammad.On Sunday night, he met about 120 refugees near the bus station in Izmir. They were sleeping on the streets after being released from quarantine.”All of them were hungry,” he said. “Women and children were lying on the sidewalks.” Desperation and deceptionBut it’s not always desperation alone that makes families continue to try to get into Europe, according to Abdo Alsad, 37, a refugee from Damascus. He and about 20 other people swam across the river to Greece last month, only to be beaten, robbed and deported the following day.Families crowd together in the streets despite coronavirus fears, in Izmir, Turkey, April 13, 2020. (Photo courtesy of refugees)In the quarantine camp, when officials told the refugees they could go to Europe or stay put, they all said, “Europe,” thinking it could be possible, Alsad said.”We thought maybe Turkey and the European Union made a deal,” he added. “And we didn’t have phones, so we had to believe them.”Now he’s hiding out in a relative’s home, afraid he will be deported if police see him. Like most people in Turkey, Alsad wears a mask if he steps out to buy something, but he said he is not concerned about the coronavirus.”I’m not worried because I’ve nothing to lose anymore,” he said.  
 
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A 106-year-old British woman who believed to be the United Kingdom’s oldest person to survive COVID-19 was released from the hospital Tuesday.Connie Titchen was discharged the Birmingham City Hospital as the staff applauded her.Titchen, who lived through two world wars, was admitted to the hospital in mid-March with suspected pneumonia and was diagnosed with COVID-19 soon afterward.As she departed the hospital, she told a nurse she felt lucky to survive, and that she was looking forward to seeing her grandchildren.
 
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Nations around the world reacted with alarm Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a halt to the sizable funding the United States sends to the World Health Organization. Health experts warned the move could jeopardize global efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic.  At a briefing in Washington, Trump said he was instructing his administration to halt funding for WHO pending a review of its role “in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” The United States is WHO’s largest single donor, contributing between $400 million and $500 million annually to the Geneva-based agency in recent years.Trump has repeatedly labelled COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and criticized the U.N. health agency for being too lenient on China, where the novel virus first emerged late last year.Outside experts have questioned China’s reported infections and deaths from the virus, calling them way too low and unreliable. And an investigation by The Associated Press has found that s ix days of delays between when Chinese officials k new about the virus and when they warned the public allowed the pandemic to bloom into an enormous public health disaster.The European Union on Wednesday said Trump has “no reason” to freeze WHO funding at this critical stage and called for measures to promote unity instead of division. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the 27-nation bloc “deeply” regrets the suspension of funds and added that the U.N. health agency is now “needed more than ever” to combat the pandemic.Borrell said “only by joining forces can we overcome this crisis that knows no borders.”Even though they have been traditional allies for decades, the EU has increasingly been critical of the Trump administration over the past years.Worldwide, the pandemic has infected nearly 2 million people and killed over 127,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The virus is spread by microscopic droplets expelled into the air or left on surfaces when people sneeze or cough.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he sympathized with some of Trump’s criticisms of WHO and China but that Australia would continue to fund the U.N. health agency.  “We work closely with them so that we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here,” Morrison told Perth Radio 6PR. “But they’re also not immune from criticism.”Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, pushed back at Trump’s announcement.  “Placing blame doesn’t help,” he wrote on Twitter. “The virus knows no borders. We must work closely against COVID-19. Strengthening the U.N., in particular the underfunded WHO, is a better investment, for example, to develop and distribute tests and vaccines.”Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, called Trump’s decision “extremely problematic,” noting that the chronically-underfunded WHO is leading efforts to help developing countries fight the spread of COVID-19.  “This is the agency that’s looking out for other countries and leading efforts to stop the pandemic,” Sridhar said. “This is exactly the time when they need more funding, not less.”  Sridhar said Trump’s move was a short-sighted political decision that would likely have lasting consequences.  “Trump is angry, but his anger is being directed in a way that is going to ultimately hurt U.S. interests,” she said.  In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian says the country is “seriously concerned” about the U.S. government’s decision to suspend funding.  “As the most authoritative and professional international institution in the field of global public health security, the WHO plays an irreplaceable role in responding to the global public health crisis,” he told reporters Wednesday.The WHO did not respond to repeated requests from The Associated Press for comment, but its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other top WHO officials were expected to attend a news conference on the pandemic later Wednesday.  Many analysts have praised the initial response to the pandemic by WHO, which is being challenged as national interests collide with the international cooperation that U.N. agencies must rely on.  But recently, many governments have split with its advice on issues of public health policy, notably on travel restrictions and whether the public should wear masks. 
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Denmark eased its coronavirus lockdown on Wednesday by reopening schools and day care centers, but concerns they might become breeding grounds for a second wave of cases convinced thousands of parents to keep their children at home.
 
The rate of new cases is falling, but the government’s decision has led to a heated debate over how to balance the needs of the economy and the safety of the population – in this case its youngest citizens.
 
“I won’t be sending my children off no matter what,” said Sandra Andersen, the founder of a Facebook group called ‘My kid is not going to be a Guinea Pig’ that has more than 40,000 followers.
 
“I think a lot of parents are thinking, ‘Why should my little child go outside first’,” said the mother of two girls aged five and nine.
 
The month-long lockdown in Denmark, where the virus has infected more than 6,600 people with close to 300 deaths, has also closed shops, bars, restaurants, cinemas and gyms.
 
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen defended the move, undertaken on health authority recommendations, to ease it by resuming teaching up to fifth grade, saying this would allow parents to return to work and “get the economy going again.”
 
Christian Wejse, a scientist at the department of infectious diseases at Aarhus University, said he understood people’s concerns “because we’ve spent a month trying to avoid contact.”
 
But any new infections would be unproblematic in an age group “where few fall ill, and those who do won’t get very sick.”
 
Looking at neighboring Sweden, which has kept schools open without a drastic rise in infections, children also appeared not to be a major driver for transmission of the virus, he said.
 
Teaching staff are under instruction to keep social distancing in place between children and, with many school buildings staying closed, in some cases preparing chalk for pupils to write with on the playground tarmac.
 
“I don’t think it’s right for the kids not to hug their friends,” said Nonne Behrsin Hansen, a mother of two aged two and four.
 
“We keep the kids home, because the situation in the day cares before the COVID-19 outbreak were not okay, and the conditions they are setting up now are even worse.”
 
For now at least, most members of Momster, an online network of thousands of Danish mothers, do not believe authorities have things under control, according to its founder and CEO Esme Emma Sutcu.
 
“Suddenly, these moms feel like they just have to throw their kids to the frontline and I think their reaction is: ‘Don’t mess with our kids’,” she said. (Reporting by Nikolaj
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Guatemala’s health minister said Tuesday that deportees from the United States were driving up the country’s COVID-19 caseload, adding that on one flight some 75% of the deportees tested positive for the virus.
Health Minister Hugo Monroy’s comments were dramatically out of line with what the government had previously said about infected deportees. Later, presidential spokesman Carlos Sandoval told reporters that Monroy was referring to a March flight on which “between 50% and 75% (of the passengers) during all their time in isolation and quarantine have come back positive.”  
Before Tuesday, Guatemala had only reported three positive infections among deportees flown back by the United States.  
Joaquín Samayoa, spokesman for the foreign affairs ministry, confirmed a fourth positive case for a migrant who arrived on a flight Monday. At least three of the migrants who arrived Monday were taken directly to a hospital for COVID-19 testing.  
President Alejandro Giammattei addressed the nation later, but made no mention of the deportees. It remained unclear why before Tuesday the government had only reported three deportees who tested positive and how many more would have been among the high percentage who tested positive aboard that March flight. Giammattei said Tuesday there were a total of 175 people who had tested positive in Guatemala and five who had died.  
“There are really flights where the deportees arrive … citizens who come with fever, and they get on the planes that way,” Monroy said. “We automatically evaluate them here and test them and many of them have come back positive.”
He added that the United States had practically become the Wuhan of the region, referring to the Chinese province where the pandemic began.
Guatemala again began receiving deportation flights from the United States Monday after a one-week pause prompted by three deportees testing positive for COVID-19.  
The Guatemalan government had asked the United States to not send more than 25 deportees per flight, to give them health exams before departure and to certify that they were not infected.
However, the flights resumed Monday with 76 migrants aboard the first and 106 on the second. Guatemala’s foreign ministry did not immediately clarify why the U.S. had not complied with its requirements, but the flights came on the same day that the U.S. State Department announced that aid would continue to Guatemala and the other Northern Triangle countries.
One of Monday’s flights also included 16 unaccompanied minors, according to the Guatemalan Immigration Institute.
Since January, the U.S. has deported nearly 12,000 Guatemalans, including more than 1,200 children.  
Citing the epidemic, the U.S. has started swiftly deporting unaccompanied minors rather than holding them in protective settings as specified by law. 
Also on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that he had informed Congress that the U.S. government would continue assistance for Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in order to continue to lower illegal immigration and accomplish other policy objectives.
Pompeo said that since illegal immigration from those three countries peaked in May 2019, “encounters” with migrants from those countries had fallen by 76%. The U.S. government has effectively ended any possibility of seeking asylum at the southern border with emergency restrictions applied in the face of the epidemic.
Before the epidemic, the U.S. had also started sending Hondurans and Salvadorans to Guatemala and similarly had agreements in place to begin doing so in Honduras and El Salvador.
Deportations from the U.S. have continued despite the outbreak. The United States holds about 34,000 people in immigration detention, down from about 37,000 last month.  
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says 77 detainees have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Acting Deputy Homeland Security Director Ken Cuccinelli told reporters Tuesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released nearly 700 people from immigration detention around the country because their age or health conditions made them vulnerable to the virus. He also said authorities were taking steps to ensure that people who may have been exposed in custody are kept separate from other detainees.  
“ICE is certainly committed to ensuring that comprehensive medical care is provided for all of their detainees from the moment they arrive in ICE custody through the entirety of their state,” Cuccinelli said.  
The administration on Friday issued a memo authorizing the use of visa sanctions to punish any nation that “denies or unreasonably delays” taking its citizens as they are deported from the U.S. amid tightened border enforcement imposed last month as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.Officials have declined to identify any countries that may have prompted the announcement.  
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. 
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German prosecutors announced Wednesday the arrest of four Islamic State members accused of planning attacks against U.S. military sites in Germany. A statement said the group had guns and ammunitions needed for their attacks, along with some materials for building explosive devices. The prosecutors said the group had already scouted U.S. Air Force bases in Germany. They identified the four, along with a fifth person in custody since last month, as nationals of Tajikistan who founded a terror cell in Germany after joining the Islamic State group last year. Authorities said they were in contact with and received instructions from high-ranking Islamic State leaders in Syria and Afghanistan. 
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the U.N. is going to flood the internet and social media with facts and science to counter what he says is a “dangerous epidemic of misinformation” about the coronavirus pandemic. Guterres said the huge amount of falsehoods surrounding the illness is a “misinfo-demic,” full of bad health advice, lies, wild conspiracy theories and “snake oil solutions.” He says all of this is a “poison that is putting lives at risk.” He also spoke out against those who are “stigmatizing and vilifying people and groups” because of the pandemic, and he thanking “journalists and others fact-checking the mountain of misleading stories and social media posts.” “Together, let’s reject the lies and nonsense out there,” Guterres said. “With common cause for common sense and facts, we can defeat COVID-19 — and build a healthier, more equitable, just and resilient world,” Guterres said.  The top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told the Associated Press that when it comes to reopening the economy, the country “is not there yet.”  In the interview, Fauci said the nation still lacks what he describes as the critical testing for suspected cases and ability to track down everyone who came in contact with an infected patient.   “We have to have something in place that is efficient and that we can rely on. … I’ll guarantee you, once you start pulling back there will be infections. It’s how you deal with the infections that’s going count,” Fauci said.  President Donald Trump is eager to reopen shuttered stores and businesses and get locked-down people back to their jobs.  He originally envisioned this week to restart the economy. He now says he would like to get things rolling again by May 1. Fauci calls that target “a bit overly optimistic” at least for many parts of the country. He told the AP that once the outbreak peaks, he “would not be surprised” to see a second wave in the fall. But he said that is not inevitable.Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 13, 2020, in Washington.A new report from the U.S. government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says as many as 20% of coronavirus patients are doctors, nurses, and other health care providers. It says Italy and Spain are among the countries reporting similar numbers. The CDC reports 27 medical professionals have died from COVID-19.  Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says more than 60 coronavirus vaccines are in development around the world.  It says research groups, who normally prefer to work independently, are teaming up with others to help speed up the processes. China’s CanSino Biologics said Tuesday it started its second phase of testing a potential vaccine.  The U.S National Institutes of Health has teamed up with the health science firm Moderna to also develop a vaccine. The first test subject received a second dose Tuesday.  Fauci of the NIH told the Associated Press that there are no “red flags” so far in the testing and that it may be expanded to more subjects in June.  Fauci had predicted that a COVID-19 vaccine could be ready within 18 months. But says it is possible that it could happen sooner.  “Please let me say this caveat: That is assuming that it’s effective. See, that’s the big ‘if,’” Fauci stressed. “It’s got to be effective and it’s got to be safe.” If it’s a hot summer in New York City this year, it may be hard to find a place to cool off.  Reports say Mayor Bill de Blasio could order beaches to remain closed if the coronavirus outbreak remains dire.  De Blasio did not directly comment on the report Tuesday but said “we’re going to take this very slow and carefully to make sure we get it right. I’m always going to first focus on how do we guarantee the health and safety of New Yorkers and make sure we don’t take our foot off the gas too soon.” The Czech government says it will slowly begin to reopen stores starting next Monday, but all Czechs will still be required to wear face coverings.  Austria allowed thousands of shops to reopen Tuesday, but India has extended its nationwide lockdown through May 3. 
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Healthcare workers in Mexico City are demanding more protective gear as hospitals take in more patients infected with the coronavirus. Scores of doctors, nurses, and other medical workers rallied in the streets of the capital Monday, pleading for assistance from those in charge of the public healthcare system. Health officials recently said 329 doctors and nurses in the country’s public medical system have tested positive for COVID-19. The Associated Press spoke with a nurse, who complained she only had access to one mask each day while caring for many covid-19 patients. The federal government says it is getting more protective gear for hospitals, but the timetable for delivery is not clear. The latest outrage from Mexican health workers came on the same day President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the private health sector will make available just over 3,000 hospital beds, about half of their inventory, to help offset the demand for covid-19 patient beds at public hospitals. Mexico says it has just over 5,000 cases of COVID-19 and 332 deaths are linked to the virus. 
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday the European Union will create a strategic reserve of ventilators for countries “most in need” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.In remarks recorded from EU headquarters in Brussels, von der Leyen said Romania has agreed to host this reserve, and the first 150 ventilators paid for by the EU are in production and will be sent immediately to the nations in need.  Von der Leyen cited Italy and Spain as the European nations hardest hit by the pandemic and said EU support for them was “crucial.” She noted that Denmark has already pledged to send ventilators and a field hospital to Italy.Ventilators have proven crucial in the most severe cases of COVID-19 to help patients breathe.Von der Leyen said the EU is also procuring protective equipment such as masks to be shared as needed with member nations. 
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The small Italian village of Celleno thought it had escaped the coronavirus — nearly a month into Italy’s national lockdown. No confirmed cases of the potentially deadly virus had been recorded. The more than one thousand residents of the village on the outskirts of Rome breathed a collective sigh of relief.But in the past week all that has changed. First there were seven cases — stemming from a dinner friends had on the eve of the lockdown announced last month by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. And then came a big shock last week when a nursing home in the village for the elderly, Villa Noemi, recorded more than 30 cases among the frail residents. The virus has now spread. One of the nursing-home residents died midweek from coronavirus, shocking the closely-knit village. Celleno and its modest little farms dotted around the rugged northern Lazio hills has now been sealed off by alarmed regional authorities with police checkpoints mounted on the four roads leading in and out of the village to prevent anyone leaving or entering, except for emergency workers.“The situation is quite tough,” says Moira Emidi, a 36-year-old restaurant worker.Celleno’s mayor, Marco Bianchi, says the whole crisis feels “surreal” and that village is fearful.  The cases at the nursing home have “shaken the entire community.” And he added: “Currently, 35 of the residents are positive for the virus; another four are negative and they have been transferred to a nearby farmhouse where they are being looked after.” He says he finds comfort from how Celleno is pulling together, though, saying the village “has never been so united.” He adds: “The beautiful solidarity of many, many citizens comes as a great relief.”Celleno: the hilltop Lazio village on Rome’s outskirts thought it had escaped the coronavirus — nearly a month into Italy’s national lockdown, no confirmed cases of the potentially deadly virus had been recorded. (Dettmer/VOA)Death still lurksThe village of Celleno is unlikely to be the last in Italy to discover that the virus has been lurking in nursing homes, only belatedly to reveal itself. Italian authorities are now engaged in what they call a “mapping exercise” of the country’s residential homes for the elderly as fears mount that what is found could reverse Italy’s declining numbers of confirmed cases and deaths. Officials worry that an unseen surge in fatalities in nursing homes has been happening unnoticed with the old dying untested for the virus.As things are now, only patients who are hospitalized with severe symptoms are normally being tested for the virus. Two weeks ago, the mayor of the north Italian city of Bergamo, a coronavirus hotspot, issued a warning about nursing homes. “There are significant numbers of people who have died but whose death hasn’t been attributed to the coronavirus because they died at home or in a nursing home and so they weren’t swabbed,” Giorgio Gori, Bergamo’s mayor said.Worst may not be overNurses and relatives say they believe there has been an unnoticed spike in nursing home deaths, which is not showing up in the official coronavirus statistics. Emilio Tanzi, director of a 460-bed residence in the northern Italian town of Cremona, told Reuters that nursing homes are on the front lines of a crisis that predominantly affects the elderly but that, nonetheless, nursing homes have been overlooked and not adequately supported.He said there had been a significant and “anomalous” increase in deaths since early March in nursing homes. “We don’t know if there have been coronavirus deaths because the swabs haven’t been done. We’ve certainly seen high fevers and breathing difficulties. If we’d been in a position to know, we could have isolated these patients properly and avoided the epidemic,” Tanzi said.Researchers are now trying to get to the bottom of where nursing homes fit into the coronavirus crisis. According to incomplete data analyzed by researchers at the London School of Economics, about half of all coronavirus deaths in parts of Europe may be happening in care homes for the elderly. In this photo taken on April 1, 2020, 103-year-old Ada Zanusso, poses with a nurse at the old people’s home “Maria Grazia” in Lessona, northern Italy, after recovering from Covid-19 infection.Death trapsThe researchers are warning that a greater effort must be put into fighting the virus in nursing homes, otherwise deaths may keep climbing. Homes are ill-equipped to deal with the crisis, they say, because of chronic staffing shortages, lack of protective gear and the paucity of testing for the virus.“Care homes are places where physical distancing is almost impossible. It’s like a perfect storm: a susceptible population, not being able to implement the measures and the staff are not well supported and trained enough. Many of the staff are care assistants with very little medical knowledge,” said Adelina Comas-Herrera, one of LSE’s data researchers.A government survey in Italy suggests 45% of all deaths in the country from the virus may end up having originated in residential homes for the elderly. Tricky numbers    Italy reported a lower number of new coronavirus cases Monday — although daily fatalities rose — three days after the government decided to extend a lockdown. There were 3,153 new cases, the fewest documented since April 7, compared with 4,092 on Sunday, according to the country’s civil protection officials. Italy recorded 566 deaths linked to the virus Monday compared with 431 the day before. The total number of fatalities from the virus late Tuesday stood at 20,465.A woman wearing a protective mask walks her dog in Piazza Navona, as Italians remain under lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Rome, Italy, April 4, 2020.Italian officials are not the only ones in Europe wondering how a full accounting of nursing homes may alter the picture. Earlier this month, French officials abruptly revealed 1,416 nursing-home residents had succumbed to the virus since the pandemic emerged. French health officials have made clear the number of cases and fatalities they report every day does not include deaths in nursing and care homes.Cases have also been reported this month in more than a hundred care homes around Stockholm, Sweden’s capital. The authorities there have not given actual case figures, but the country’s public broadcaster SVT estimates more than 400 residents have been infected and around 50 have died.In Britain, official counts do not include virus-linked deaths outside hospitals, such as those in care homes. A former regional public health director, John Ashton, has publicly warned that the number of people officially recorded as dying from the virus could be double what is officially being announced. “We need to be able to see the data and crawl over it and really see what’s going on,” he told British broadcaster Sky News.Meanwhile, as national authorities try to understand the full impact of the epidemic in nursing homes, the villagers of Italy’s Celleno had some good news this week. Test results of residents in another nursing facility in the village have all come back negative.An earlier version of this story attributed one more death in Celleno to the coronavirus. It turned out to be not related to COVID-19.
 
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Guatemala again began receiving deportation flights from the United States this week after a one-week pause prompted by three deportees testing positive for COVID-19.The Guatemalan government had asked the United States to not send more than 25 deportees per flight, to give them health exams before departure and to certify that they were not infected.However, the flights resumed Monday with 76 migrants aboard the first and 106 on the second. Guatemala’s foreign ministry did not immediately clarify why the U.S. had not complied with its requirements, but the flights came on the same day that the U.S. State Department announced that aid would continue to Guatemala and the other Northern Triangle countries.At least three of the migrants who arrived Monday were taken directly to a hospital for COVID-19 testing. One of the flights also included 16 unaccompanied minors, according to the Guatemalan Immigration Institute. Citing the epidemic, the U.S. has started swiftly deporting unaccompanied minors rather than holding them in protective settings as specified by law.  Also on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that he had informed Congress that the U.S. government would continue assistance for Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in order to continue to lower illegal immigration and accomplish other policy objectives.Pompeo said that since illegal immigration from those three countries peaked in May 2019, “encounters” with migrants from those countries had fallen by 76%. The U.S. government has effectively ended any possibility of seeking asylum at the southern border with emergency restrictions applied in the face of the epidemic.Before the epidemic, the U.S. had also started sending Hondurans and Salvadorans to Guatemala and similarly had agreements in place to begin doing so in Honduras and El Salvador. 
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Russia is ready to discuss hypersonic missiles and other arms control issues with the United States as part of wider discussions about strategic stability, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.Cold War-era arms control agreements have been in jeopardy as Russia’s relations with the West have soured in recent years.In August 2019, the United States pulled out of a landmark strategic arms accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), citing Russian non-compliance.Both countries are developing hypersonic missiles to expand their defense capabilities, with Russian President Vladimir Putin overseeing a test in Crimea in early January.Such missiles, which fly several times the speed of sound and can be steered in flight, are harder to stop than other generations of weapons. Some experts fear their deployment could trigger a new nuclear arms race.Lavrov said he wanted to speak to U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again after receiving a call from him a couple of days ago during which he said Pompeo touched on resuming talks on arms control and strategic stability.”We welcome such interest from our American partners because we have encouraged them to address these problems more actively for a long time,” Lavrov said.”We are open to talks about new promising developments, including hypersonic weapons in the context of, and I emphasize this especially, taking into account all aspects and factors that influence strategic stability, without exception.”Moscow has taken steps to mend ties with the West since the coronavirus outbreak.Russia has flown medical supplies and equipment to the United States and Italy to help them fight the epidemic. Lavrov said Moscow was prepared to fly over more supplies should Washington request them. 
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Spain is following Italy in talking about scaling back coronavirus restrictions as its numbers start to recede.  The nightmare is far from over in the country’s nursing homes, where the virus has claimed its largest percentage of victims.  In this report from Barcelona narrated by Jon Spier, Alfonso Beato tells us Spain is shocked by reports that elderly coronavirus patients have been found dead in their beds and some facilities have been abandoned.
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India, France and Nigeria are among several countries whose leaders are extending lockdowns aimed at stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus, as the number of confirmed cases worldwide topped 2 million. With the number of infections in his country at more than 10,300, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Tuesday a nationwide lockdown would run through May 3. French President Emmanuel Macron gave a late Monday televised address saying France’s lockdown would last through May 11, at which time authorities will begin to reopen schools. “On the French mainland and in France’s overseas territories, the system is under tension and the epidemic is not yet under control. We must therefore continue our efforts and continue to apply the rules. The more they are respected, the more lives will be saved,” he said. Nigeria also is adding two more weeks to lockdown orders in three states – Lagos, Abuja and Ogun – while Turkey’s president says a 48-hour weekend lockdown will be repeated this week. By far the most cases have been found in the United States, which accounts for about 600,000 known infections with the hardest-hit area being New York. There are about 106,000 cases in New York City and 195,000 cases in the entire state, more than Spain or Italy. But Governor Andrew Cuomo declared Monday the “worst is over,” but only if New Yorkers “continue to be smart going forward.”  California was one of the earliest states to tell people to stay home. Governor Gavin Newsom plans to announce Tuesday his administration’s plans for starting to resume normal life. Giuseppe Fonsino, listens to the speech of French President Emmanuel Macron on TV, in Ville d’Avray, near Paris, Monday, April 13, 2020. Macron said that the country’s coronavirus lockdown will be extended till May 11.Tuesday also brings small steps away from a total lockdown in Italy, which is allowing some shops to open again. The country has seen steadily improving numbers of critically ill patients after being a hotspot of the outbreak. The pandemic has battered the world economy, leading many governments to enact massive rescue packages. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been among those pushing for help for poorer nations that need to focus limited resources on health responses. The International Monetary Fund gave its approval Monday to a $500-million effort to help 25 countries by canceling six months of their debt payments. Some of those nations include Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Mali, Sierra Leone and Yemen. In the United States, part of the government’s plan to boost the flagging economy is sending cash payments to households to either help people cover their bills amid massive job losses, or to encourage people to spend money and boost business activity. 
 
Those payments are in the process of being distributed, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he expects some 80 million Americans will have the funds in their bank accounts by Wednesday. 
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Healthcare workers in Mexico City are demanding more protective gear as hospitals take in more patients infected with the coronavirus. Scores of doctors, nurses, and other medical workers rallied in the streets of the capital Monday, pleading for assistance from those in charge of the public healthcare system. Health officials recently said 329 doctors and nurses in the country’s public medical system have tested positive for COVID-19. The Associated Press spoke with a nurse, who complained she only had access to one mask each day while caring for many covid-19 patients. The federal government says it is getting more protective gear for hospitals, but the timetable for delivery is not clear. The latest outrage from Mexican health workers came on the same day President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the private health sector will make available just over 3,000 hospital beds, about half of their inventory, to help offset the demand for covid-19 patient beds at public hospitals. Mexico says it has just over 5,000 cases of COVID-19 and 332 deaths are linked to the virus. 
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Some European countries, including Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic, are starting to lift the tight restrictions they imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The countries say their quick actions in locking down earlier than their neighbors give them the opportunity to relax their rules.With the number of confirmed cases and deaths decreasing, Spain on Monday allowed some nonessential workers to return to their jobs but is keeping much of its lockdown. Workers in industry and construction will be allowed to return after a two-week shutdown, which closed all sectors apart from health care and food. The tentative relaxation comes as the country, one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus, reported its lowest daily growth in confirmed infections in three weeks. Health officials say 517 new deaths were recorded on Monday, falling from 619 on Sunday.  Commuters wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus at Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, April 13, 2020.Those who return to work are being told to maintain social distancing, said Maria Jose Sierra, deputy head of health emergencies. “If there is a person who shows the slightest symptom, they should contact the health system and remain in self-isolation,” she added. Other countries remain cautious, warning that any loosening of restrictions is still weeks away.  The different approaches reflect the struggle all countries are having — and not just in Europe — deciding between nation wealth and public health.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his government must balance its response to the pandemic which “threatens to destroy lives and at the same time destroy the economic and social fabric of our country.” FILE – Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen addresses a press conference on the novel coronavirus COVID-19 at the State Department in Copenhagen, Denmark, April 6, 2020.As Denmark prepares to lift its lockdown, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that the decision is “a bit like walking the tightrope.” “If we stand still along the way, we could fall. And if we go too fast, it can go wrong. Therefore, we must take one cautious step at a time,” she said. The 46-year-old politician credits Denmark’s prompt lockdown for the gradual reopening of the country but says the number of infections must remain stable. The Danish government will reopen day care centers and elementary schools on Wednesday, but bars, restaurants, hair salons and shopping malls will remain shuttered until at least May 10. Bans on large gatherings will remain until August. There has been criticism from some Danish parents about the reopening of elementary schools and kindergartens. More than 35,000 have joined a Facebook group, saying their children will be serving as guinea pigs. Some are refusing to send their children to school. FILE – Austrian ministers arrive for a news conference about the coronavirus situation in Austria, in Vienna, Austria, April 6, 2020.Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz also credited his decision to impose early tough restrictions for “the opportunity to get out of this crisis faster.” He has warned Austrians to continue to minimize personal contact. On Tuesday, small shops and businesses in Austria will be allowed to reopen.   Department stores and shopping malls will join them in May. Restaurants and hotels can start working again in mid-May. “We will very closely monitor the number of new infections and immediately pull the emergency brake if need be,” Kurz said in a news conference.  Much of the drive to begin a cautious unlocking rests with rising alarm about the economic impact of the shutdowns. Governments are coming under mounting pressure from businesses to loosen up. In some countries, desperation is sparking official concerns about a social revolt. News of supermarket looting and customer refusal to pay for food at checkout counters have been reported in Italy’s south. Impatience with the lockdown is greater in Mezzogiorno, the underdeveloped southern part of Italy that has long trailed behind the country’s wealthy north. “In the south the concern is greater, because this crisis is combined with a fragility of the economic and social fabric. In the south, the wounds of the earlier crisis of 2008 to 2009 have not yet healed,” Giuseppe Provenzano, Italy’s minister for the south, warned recently. Police officers pull over cars at a road block on a main road leading out of the city, in Rome, April 13, 2020.The Italian government explored the possibility of loosening restrictions, but a full lockdown will remain in place at least until May 3 to stem the tide of new infections, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced Friday.  “If we gave up now, we would put all the positive results achieved so far at stake and restart with a new rise in the death toll,” he said.  On Friday, Italy’s Civil Protection Department announced that deaths rose by 570 within 24 hours to 18,849 — an increase of 3.1% and the lowest daily growth since the lockdown went into effect a month ago.  The numbers of people being treated in intensive care units has also fallen, from 4,068 people a week ago to 3,497.  The rising economic damage will also figure into a review of the lockdown by German officials Wednesday when Chancellor Angela Merkel will try to plot a path out of the shutdown with leaders of the country’s 16 partly sovereign states. Health department employees in protective clothes measure the body temperature of around 160 Romanian seasonal workers after landing at Hahn Airport in Hahn, Germany, April 13, 2020.Germany’s influential Academy of Sciences Leopoldina favors following Denmark’s route with a gradual reopening of schools — high schools first — where pupils can be trusted more to wear face masks.  Another research group, the German Institute for Economic Research, says the government should identify industries with the highest economic value — telecommunications and carmakers — and start reopening them. Regions with low infection rates could also start a gradual reopening, the institute has recommended in a report.  On Wednesday, the British government will review exit strategies from the lockdown. The COVID-19 death toll passed 10,000 Sunday, and British disease modelers and epidemiologists have warned that the country will not hit the peak of infections for another week at least.  Polling data being gathered by the government suggests Britons want a tight lockdown to continue, fearful that any easing could worsen the health crisis, officials say.  
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A total of 11,329 people have died in hospitals across the United Kingdom after testing positive for coronavirus, up by 717 in a day, the health ministry said on Monday. The number of confirmed cases has risen by 4,342 to a national tally of 88,621. The deaths numbers are as of 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Sunday, while the confirmed cases numbers are as of 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Monday. 
 
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Crowds swarm Stockholm’s waterfront, with some people sipping cocktails in the sun. In much of the world, this sort of gathering would be frowned upon or even banned.Not in Sweden.It doesn’t worry Anders Tegnell, the country’s chief epidemiologist and top strategist in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.The 63-year-old has become a household name in Sweden, appearing across the media and holding daily briefings outlining the progression of the outbreak with a precise, quiet demeanor.As countries across Europe have restricted the movement  of their citizens, Sweden stands out for what Tegnell calls a “low-scale” approach that “is much more sustainable” over a longer period.President Donald Trump has suggested that a rising number of COVID-19 deaths indicate Sweden is paying a heavy price for embracing the idea of herd immunity — that is, letting many individuals get sick to build up immunity in the population. He said: “Sweden did that — the herd. They called (it) the herd. Sweden is suffering very, very badly. It’s a way of doing it.”But Swedish Health Minister Lena Hallengren recently told The Associated Press: “We have never had a strategy for herd immunity.”So far, Sweden has banned gatherings larger than 50 people, closed high schools and universities, and urged those over 70 or otherwise at greater risk from the virus to self-isolate.The softer approach means that schools for younger children, restaurants and most businesses are still open, creating the impression that Swedes are living their lives as usual.Yet as Johan Klockar watches his son kick a ball around a field during a soccer practice in Stockholm, the 43-year-old financial analyst says it’s not like that. He and his wife work from home and avoid unnecessary outings. They socialize in a very small circle, and limit their son’s contacts to people he sees at school or soccer practice.”Society is functioning, but I think it’s quite limited,” Klockar said. “Other than this sort of situation — schools, soccer practice — we basically stay at home.”And while most businesses in Sweden are still operating, the economic cost of the pandemic is already being felt. Last week, 25,350 Swedes registered as unemployed, according to the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce — a larger increase than during the 2008 financial crisis.In contrast, just across a narrow strip of sea, neighboring Denmark is already talking about reopening society. They imposed a much stricter lockdown four weeks ago, closing borders, schools and businesses. This week, the prime minister said by acting early, Denmark averted the tragedy that struck hard-hit nations like Italy and Spain, which together have seen at least 37,000 virus-related deaths, and will be ready after Easter for a slow return to normal life that starts with reopening preschools and primary schools.For weeks, the numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities were proportionally similar between Sweden and Denmark, but while the economic results of the strict isolation are being felt in Denmark, Sweden’s mortality rate has reached more than 88 dead per million, compared with around 47 dead per million in Denmark.Sweden, with a population of 10 million, has registered 899 deaths, while Denmark, with 5.8 million people, has 273 deaths. Worldwide, the virus has infected a reported 1.8 million people  and killed 114,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Still, due to limited testing, different ways of counting the dead and deliberate under-counting by some governments, experts believe those numbers vastly understate the pandemic’s true toll.After a sharp spike in deaths in Sweden, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven proposed an emergency law allowing the quick closure of public venues and transportation if needed. Lofven also warned citizens to prepare for possibly up to thousands of deaths.Nevertheless, Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist, insists that Sweden’s approach still seems to make sense, though he also acknowledges that the world is in uncharted territory with the virus.
He argues that while Sweden might have more infections in the short term, it will not face the risk of a huge infection spike that Denmark might face once its lockdown is lifted.”I think both Norway and Denmark are now very concerned about how you stop this complete lockdown in a way so you don’t cause this wave to come immediately when you start loosening up,” he said.He said authorities know that the physical distancing Swedes are engaging in works, because officials have recorded a sudden end to the flu season and to a winter vomiting illness.Lars Ostergaard, chief consultant and professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, agrees it is too soon to know which approach is best.”Every day a person is not being infected because of the strict lockdown, we are a day closer to a cure,” Ostergaard said, underlining the advantage of the Danish approach. But he acknowledges that the long-term consequences of a locked-down community could also be “substantial.””There is no right or wrong way,” Ostergaard said. “No one has walked this path before, and only the aftermath will show who made the best decision.”
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