- Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that “where we stand now means not everyone can return to work as they did before the corona crisis.” The Scandinavian country has slowly reopened by allowing some classes to return to school and hairdressers, physiotherapists and tattoo parlors, among others, as well as courts of law to reopen
- The Singapore Government is setting up on-site community care facilities in the most affected dormitories for Covid-19 positive migrant workers who are clinically well or display mild symptoms, health authorities said on Friday. Patients will be moved to the Community Care Facilities (CCFs), set up by the Inter-agency Task Force, immediately after diagnosis instead of waiting to be transferred to an off-site medical facility, they said
- Spain’s Government expects that the Eurozone’s fourth largest economy will shrink by 9.2 per cent this year and that unemployment will reach 19 per cent of the working-age population. Deputy Prime Minister Nadia Calviño announced the grim forecast on Friday when she explained Spain’s economic stability plan that it has presented to the European Union
- South Africa began easing one of the world’s strictest lockdowns on Friday, with runners and dog-walkers returning eagerly to the streets but not all wearing the face masks that are now mandatory in the country with Africa’s most coronavirus cases. In Johannesburg, Cape Town and elsewhere, people took a breath of fall air and some headed to the malls to buy warm clothes for winter, which brings a new challenge in combating the virus: flu season
- Under Japan’s coronavirus state of emergency, people have been asked to stay home. Many are not. Some still have to commute to their jobs despite risks of infection, while others continue to dine out, picnic in parks and crowd into grocery stores with scant regard for social distancing. On Wednesday, the first day of the “Golden Week” holidays that run through May 5, Tokyo’s leafy Shiba Park was packed with families with small children, day camping in tents
- Iran’s death toll from the outbreak of the new coronavirus increased by 63 in the past 24 hours to 6,091, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said in a statement on state TV on Friday. The total number of diagnosed cases of the new coronavirus in the Islamic Republic, one of the Middle Eastern countries hardest hit by the outbreak, has reached 95,646, including 2,899 in critical condition, he added