BitGou: Monday Morning Briefing: Spain loosens coronavirus lockdown, death toll passes 17,000 but pace slows

Coronavirus

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Restarting crucial industries
India is planning to restart some crucial manufacturing to ease the difficulties of the poor, despite expectations it will extend a 21-day lockdown beyond April 15, two government sources said.

Spain lifts restrictions on some businesses on Monday after shutting down all non-essential operations nearly two weeks ago. This will allow businesses that cannot operate remotely, including construction and manufacturing, to reopen. The move has been criticized by some as risking a resurgence in the spread of the virus.

Patients testing positive again
The World Health Organization said on Saturday that it was looking into reports of COVID-19 patients testing positive again after clinically recovering from the disease. South Korean officials had reported on Friday that 91 patients cleared of the new coronavirus had tested positive again. Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a briefing that the virus may have been “reactivated” rather than the patients being re-infected.

Russian border becomes China’s new frontline
China’s northeastern border with Russia has become its new frontline in the fight against a resurgence in the epidemic, as new daily cases rose to a six-week high. Half of the imported cases from the daily tally involved Chinese nationals returning home from Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District through border crossings in the Heilongjiang province.

Widespread testing needed
The United States needs to ramp up testing for the coronavirus as the White House considers when and how to lift stay-at-home restrictions and lockdowns triggered by the pandemic, U.S. health experts said on Sunday. Diagnostic testing determines if somebody is infected with the virus and antibody testing shows who has been infected and is therefore immune. Both will be important in getting people back into the workplace and containing the virus as that happens, the experts said.

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World

South Korea plans to send kits designed to run up to 600,000 coronavirus tests to the United States on Tuesday after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, a Seoul official said. Trump made the request in a telephone call with President Moon Jae-in on March 25, as the United States was grappling with fast-growing outbreaks in many states.
South Korean companies have previously shipped test kits to U.S. cities including Los Angeles, but this would mark the first bulk order from the U.S. federal government.

Senior politicians in Germany have begun debating a potential easing of restrictions imposed over the coronavirus epidemic ahead of a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday. Merkel and premiers of Germany’s 16 states expect to get recommendations from the German National Academy of Sciences that the chancellor has said will weigh heavily in considerations for a possible loosening in movement and social distancing rules in place since around mid-March.

To Belgrade and beyond: Last month, six Chinese medical professionals stepped off an Air Serbia jet in Belgrade to a red-carpet welcome from President Aleksandar Vucic and an array of cabinet ministers. After elbow-bump greetings, Vucic kissed Serbia’s flag, then China’s. In Serbia, one of Beijing’s closest European allies, and a handful of other friendly countries, China is providing on-the-ground guidance to help battle the coronavirus that has swept around the world.

'God is with us': Sabir Durrani says he offers prayers almost every day at a mosque in the central Pakistani city of Multan. He says that often a dozen or more men are in attendance - none of them wearing protective face masks. Durrani, 52, is among thousands of devout Muslims flouting Pakistan government orders issued late last month banning religious congregations of five or more people to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Business

Record oil output cuts fail to make waves in coronavirus-hit market

Falling oil prices showed that oil producers still have a mountain to climb despite record output cuts in an effort to restore market balance as the coronavirus pandemic shreds demand and sends stockpiles soaring, industry watchers said.

6 min read

Smithfield shutting U.S. pork plant indefinitely, warns of meat shortages during pandemic

Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers. Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock.

5 min read

Amazon stops accepting new online grocery customers amid surging demand

Amazon will begin to put new grocery delivery customers on a wait list and curtail shopping hours at some Whole Foods stores to prioritize orders from existing customers buying food online during the coronavirus outbreak.

4 min read

'Elbow to elbow:' North America meat plant workers fall ill, walk off jobs

At a Wayne Farms chicken processing plant in Alabama, workers recently had to pay the company 10 cents a day to buy masks to protect themselves from the new coronavirus, according to a meat inspector. In Colorado, nearly a third of the workers at a JBS USA beef plant stayed home amid safety concerns for the last two weeks as a 30-year employee of the facility died following complications from the virus.

7 min read