Experts believe that changes in behavior, waning immunity from prior infections and the spread of new variants are all contributing to the dramatic rise in cases. In the western state of Maharashtra — the epicenter of the surge — a new “double mutant” variant has been detected in about 20 percent of cases.
Correction: An earlier version of this report said India was the second country to record 100,000 coronavirus cases in a day. It was the third. The error has been corrected.
Converting office buildings into housing may become the new, post-pandemic normal
Life during the coronavirus has been abnormal for most of us. But even as the pandemic ebbs, a new “normal” inevitably will replace some of the old “normal,” especially in the office building real estate market. Many Americans are buying desks to work at home, suggesting that millions of square feet of previously leased space in office buildings may no longer be needed.
This could be a problem-solving opportunity in the future if excess commercial office space can be converted into housing, with some being affordable. But accomplishing conversion feasibly has challenges in design, technology, regulations, and costs and financing.
The pandemic has revealed that, whether by necessity or choice, some people can work productively and collaboratively without being in the same space. This possibility was predicted years ago by real estate developer Jay Hellman, who dubbed it “virtual adjacency.”
Groups in D.C. are working to vaccinate people in hard-hit Ward 8
The line for the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on Saturday morning wrapped around several blue and green tennis courts in Southeast Washington and was more than two dozen people deep.
“I’m prayerful and anxious, but at the same time, I’m ready to just get it done so I can protect myself and others who are around me,” said Lezora Arter, 53, who wore a mask bearing civil rights icon John Lewis’s famous “Good Trouble” quote.
Cora Masters Barry, a longtime D.C. civic leader, got the idea for the “Don’t Miss Your Shot” event at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center one morning in February. She woke up about 6 a.m., turned on CNN and saw statistics about Black people getting vaccinated at lower rates than White people. She grabbed her computer, clicked into the D.C. Health website and saw that the stats were mirrored in the District.
French authorities investigate whether ministers dined at secret restaurants in violation of restrictions
French prosecutors are investigating claims that senior ministers attended secret dinners in Paris in defiance of the nation’s coronavirus restrictions.
The government ordered restaurants closed in France in October as coronavirus cases surged and the country recently entered a third national lockdown to beat back a growing outbreak.
Authorities opened the inquiry after a report aired by the M6 channel Friday that included an unidentified man bragging about his recent clandestine dinners “with a certain number of ministers.”
“We are still in a democracy,” the man said in the report. “We do what we want.”
He later retracted his remarks, French media reported, but prosecutors said that the investigation would continue. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had asked police in Paris to look into the claims and prosecute the organizers, France’s Le Figaro newspaper reported.
In the M6 report, the journalists secretly filmed as they entered a venue in an upscale Parisian neighborhood. Wait staff showed them an expensive menu including champagne and caviar and warned them that they were not allowed to wear face masks inside.
“People who come here take off the mask,” one man said. “Once you walk through the door, there is no more covid-19.”
France has recorded a total of 4.8 million coronavirus cases and more than 96,000 deaths.
Prices expected to surge as vaccinated people start traveling again
Long-grounded travelers are revving their engines.
Travel numbers are already up steeply in recent weeks — an upward trend expected to accelerate before the announcement even came. According to travel experts, we’re likely to see a bump in prices as customers start booking trips again.
As demand spikes, supply will struggle to keep up, causing travel to become more expensive. Many hotels, bars, tours and attractions are still operating at reduced capacity; rental car agencies downsized their fleet to cut costs; and more people are clamoring for all of the above.
We spoke to six travel insiders on what happens next and why.
As Ivory Coast falls behind its vaccination schedule, health workers fear thousands of doses could expire
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Health leaders in Ivory Coast were thrilled when the first half-million coronavirus vaccines arrived in late February. But that excitement cooled to concern as the West African country’s rollout collided with a lack of demand.
By March 30, the nation of 26 million had doled out 40,153 shots — well short of the monthly output needed to stay on schedule before the AstraZeneca vials expire in September.
“I admit that I am stressed,” said Daniel Ekra, the epidemiologist in charge of Ivory Coast’s vaccination program. “There is pressure. Because if you look at our country and say, ‘You had 500,000 doses that you didn’t use,’ it is not worth sending you another 1.5 million doses.”
Ivory Coast was the second African nation to receive shipments this year from Covax, the global effort to equitably distribute vaccine doses, and is expecting another batch in May.
Britain’s plan to reopen will include at-home tests and vaccine passports
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected Monday to unveil details of his government’s plan to fully reopen the nation’s economy amid the ongoing pandemic. The plan, according to British media, will include proposals for frequent mass testing, resuming international travel and a possible pilot program for “vaccine passports.”
Britain suffered a devastating winter surge in coronavirus cases, fueled by a more contagious and deadly variant first identified there. In recent months, as authorities embarked on an aggressive vaccination campaign, cases and deaths due to the virus have fallen sharply. The government has lifted some restrictions on daily life but remains cautious as the pandemic still rages elsewhere.
“Massive efforts have been made by the British public to stop the spread of the virus,” Johnson said in a statement released by his office. “As we continue to make good progress on our vaccine program and with our road map to cautiously easing restrictions underway, regular rapid testing is even more important to make sure those efforts are not wasted.”
ُThe rollout of rapid, at-home test kits will be a cornerstone of the government program to restart the economy, and authorities plan to make the tests available to residents on a twice-weekly basis. Critics, however, have said the rapid tests, which provide results in about 30 minutes, are flawed and shouldn’t be relied on to tame the pandemic.
Perhaps most controversial will be the plan to potentially introduce what officials are calling “coronavirus status certifications,” or vaccine passports. The certificates would show whether an individual has been vaccinated, recently tested negative for the virus or has natural immunity due to previous infection within the past six months.
The proposals would need to be passed by Parliament, where 70 members recently launched a campaign to oppose the covid-19 certifications.
Most U.S. schools won’t quite be totally normal by the fall
Parents, students and teachers, exhausted by the false starts, union battles, quarantines and remote learning that have upended this school year, are looking around the bend with an urgent, fretful question: Come fall, will school at last be back to normal?
The likely answer: Sort of, but not really. And not for everybody.
School districts across the country are planning to return to full-time, in-person classes this fall. But some also are planning for hybrid systems that combine in-person and remote learning as a fallback. All teachers and staff who want vaccinations will have them, but children will not. Masks and other virus mitigation measures will remain in place in much of the country.
Some administrators anticipate lunch in the cafeteria again, but others say students probably will have to eat in their classrooms. Some say sports and choir can return. Others aren’t sure.
After spending $15,000 to go to Disney World, man arrested after refusing temperature check
Kelly Sills paid a small fortune for an enchanting trip to “the most magical place on Earth.”
Instead, the Baton Rouge resident — like several other Disney World guests who have defied coronavirus restrictions — visited the Orange County jail.
Amid heightened precautions for the virus at the major Florida tourist attraction, Sills, 47, skipped the temperature screening required of guests, authorities said. He was confronted by security about it at a Disney Springs restaurant, the Boathouse, when he yelled and refused to leave, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest report from Feb. 13. When deputies insisted he would be charged with trespassing, he pointed to how much he spent on his vacation, according to body-camera footage released this week.
China moves to vaccinate entire city on Myanmar border as covid-19 outbreak grows
More than 100 people have now tested positive for the coronavirus in the Chinese city of Ruili, the country’s health commission said Monday, in a rare outbreak that authorities are seeking to quash through mass testing and vaccinations.
Local officials last week launched a five-day campaign to inoculate all 300,000 residents of Ruili, which is located in Yunnan province on the Myanmar border, after the first reported cases emerged.
Some of those infected include Myanmar nationals, and authorities have offered free vaccinations to foreigners living and working in the city, the Associated Press reported. China has also increased security along the border to prevent what it says are illegal crossings into its territory.
The outbreak in Ruili is the worst in recent months in China, where authorities have stepped up immunizations with a target of inoculating 40 percent of its population of 1.4 billion people by the end of June.
So far, China has administered about 140 million vaccine doses domestically, according to official figures. It has sent tens of millions of doses of its homegrown vaccines abroad, even as experts have criticized Chinese vaccine makers for failing to release data from their late-stage clinical trials.
The coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Since then, China says that it has largely tamed the outbreak, confirming just about 100,000 total cases and less than 5,000 deaths.
Surging covid variants in Canada prompt new restrictions
TORONTO — Several Canadian provinces are imposing new restrictions on social gatherings and businesses in a bid to blunt a resurgence of the coronavirus that is hitting more young people with severe illness than before and straining some health-care systems.
Infectious-disease experts say the resurgence is being fueled in part by pandemic fatigue, the premature easing of curbs and the spread of more transmissible and dangerous variants, particularly the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in Britain. And, worryingly, they say a bumpy vaccine rollout is not helping to temper the resurgence.
“We’re very concerned with the variants becoming an increasing proportion of cases,” Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, said Thursday, imploring Canadians to not gather in person with those who live in other households.
Is it a fourth wave of the virus or the beginning of the end? Experts disagree.
The data doesn’t look good. After weeks of decline, the average number of new coronavirus infections reported each day is higher than it has been in a month. The number of people in hospitals with covid-19 has been stubbornly stagnant since mid-March. And even as highly contagious virus variants spread, state leaders are relaxing safety precautions.
By now, this is a familiar script. But this time around, the country’s leading epidemiologists disagree about what to call this latest phase of the pandemic. Is the United States on the cusp of a “fourth wave”? Or are we instead seeing the last gasps of a crisis in its 14th month?
Most recently, the debate played out on the Sunday morning news shows. Michael T. Osterholm, an adviser to President Biden’s coronavirus task force, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the next two weeks will bring “the highest number of cases reported globally since the beginning of the pandemic.”
He declared the pandemic a ‘no-politics zone,’ but behind the scenes, Cuomo was burnishing his own standing
On April 14, 2020, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took time out of one of his regular coronavirus news conferences to castigate President Donald Trump for politicizing the crisis.
“This is too important for politics,” the governor said, citing mounting death rates and hospitalizations in New York. “It’s a no-politics zone, right?”
A few hours later, an administration aide was instructed to print a list of poll questions for the governor to approve before they went into the field the next day, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
The survey would quiz New Yorkers on whether they supported sending emergency medical equipment downstate, when schools and businesses should reopen and whether Cuomo (D) had been “too cooperative, too hostile, or just about right” in dealing with Trump on the pandemic, among other topics, according to a copy obtained by The Post.
A tired Italy can’t escape the virus in another locked down Easter
ROME — In one Italian diocese, three priests contracted the coronavirus in the days leading up to Easter, forcing another 10 clerics to isolate. In another diocese, an infection has pushed 15 priests into isolation. At a parish 20 miles southeast of Rome, both of the priests got sick, forcing the cancellation of days of proceedings, including Easter Mass.
“There will be no celebration,” one parishioner said, in an audio message sent to the community.
This was supposed to be the point when Europe had beaten back the virus, allowing a return to semi-normalcy for Catholicism’s holiest week. But Italy, like much of Europe, is still besieged by infections, and the Easter mood this year feels nowhere near celebratory. Whether through lockdowns, sickness or canceled church ceremonies, the pandemic is still finding ways to interfere.
Carnival is canceled in Mexico, but lavish costumes live on
While Carnival season may be better known in places such as Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans, Mexico has celebrations of its own.
In the state of Veracruz, some communities celebrate Carnival from February to May, during the end of the sugar-cane-cutting season. But this year, because of the pandemic, celebrations have been canceled to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. Still, people have found a way to celebrate at home.
The town of Tuzamapan, located in the center of Veracruz, and Almolonga, an Afro-Mexican community, have celebrated Carnival for more than 100 years.
The main character of the Tuzamapan Carnival is the “Bonetero,” named after a large hat made of paper and wood. Men wear the hat with a wooden mask that covers their identity and carry a large, wooden machete as part of their costume.
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