|  | | | | | | | | | What you need to know about the coronavirus today | | | | | | The long path to easing
Various countries are now assessing how they wind down stringent social distancing measures without risking a new wave of infections. Ireland’s health chiefs hold meetings on Friday ahead of the current May 5 expiry of stay-home coronavirus restrictions. In Spain, adults will finally be able to exercise and go for walks on Saturday after seven weeks shut indoors, and on the same day Austria will reopen thousands of bigger shops as well as small businesses like hairdressers.
The "R" rate
Those countries will all keep a close watch on the so-called “R”, for reproduction, rate of the virus. It shows the average number of infections one person with the virus causes, and governments around the world will want to maintain it below 1.0. That remains the case in Denmark, the first country outside Asia to ease its coronavirus lockdown, which said on Thursday the spread of Covid-19 has not accelerated since the gradual loosening of restrictions began in mid-April.
Project Restart
Man-to-man marking in the era of social distancing? It was a relatively quick step to suspend Premier League soccer matches but it will prove harder to agree on how exactly to relaunch them. Premier League clubs will discuss plans for resuming the season in a conference call on Friday, but the practicalities of how to even begin training will be the first obstacle they have to overcome with “Project Restart”. A protocol with proposed arrangements - including equipping players with masks - has been circulated to some early controversy.
Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and county map. | | | | | | | | From Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Allianz seems to be succumbing to gravity and Ryanair and Lufthansa have self-interested reasons to be pessimistic. Plus: RBS finally has a good crisis. Catch up with the latest pandemic-related insights. | | | | | | | | Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how. | | | | | | | | | | | | | Life under lockdown | | | | | | Coronavirus patients with light symptoms arriving to stay at several Tokyo hotels are likely to get a lift from a pleasant surprise - a robot greeter in the lobby. Japan is now using hotels to house patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus but whose symptoms are too light to need hospitalization, and several in Tokyo which have just opened feature robots to help lighten the burden on nurses. Japan’s health ministry will introduce a system for health centers to report new coronavirus cases online instead of by hand-written faxes, phone or email - drawing praise from some but scorn from others wondering what took it so long. | | | | | | | | India’s film industry will take at least two years to recover financially from the coronavirus pandemic, which is threatening big-ticket projects, putting at risk tens of thousands of jobs. That was the somber assessment of about a dozen top producers, distributors and actors from Bollywood, the movie industry in India’s commercial capital of Mumbai, during a video conference this week, one of the participants said. | | | | In the battle against coronavirus, Swiss soldiers are using smartphones to test a new contact tracing application that could prevent infections while also protecting users’ privacy. Switzerland hopes to launch the app on May 11 based on a standard, developed by researchers in Lausanne and Zurich, that uses Bluetooth communication between devices to assess the risk of catching COVID-19. | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow the money | | Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has sketched out an altogether bumpier ride for the U.S. economy than many are predicting - one that sees business activity stop and start for months to come, until an effective treatment or vaccine for the novel coronavirus can be found. 5 min read | | | | As lockdown orders force billions of people to work, learn and play from home during the novel coronavirus outbreak, usage has surged for the cloud computing services that power video conferencing, streaming television and online games. 5 min read | | | | The U.S. government’s $660 billion small business rescue program has stumbled on missing paperwork, technology failure, and the misdirection of funds to big corporations. Now, it is lurching toward another hurdle: forgiving those hastily arranged loans. 4 min read | | | | As the coronavirus pandemic engulfed the United States, Joe Shia, a consultant to Chinese medical companies, said he was bombarded with inquiries from American firms who saw a golden opportunity in selling tests to determine coronavirus immunity. 14 min read | | | | | | | | | | | | | Top Stories on Reuters TV | | | | | | | |
