Good morning.
New Zealand has “won the battle” against widespread, undetected community transmission of the coronavirus, said the country’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, who announced the lifting of some lockdown measures on Monday after just one death and one new confirmed case of Covid-19 was recorded in the preceding 24 hours.
Hospitals in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began, have discharged the last coronavirus patients, while some of Europe’s worst-affected countries are preparing for the cautious easing of restrictions. But worldwide confirmed cases of Covid-19 are approaching 3 million, while at least 206,000 people have died after contracting the disease.
Boris Johnson is back in No 10 after recovering from Covid-19, and once again taking charge of the UK government’s faltering response to the pandemic.
Germany’s Covid-19 expert explained his country’s more successful approach, telling Laura Spinney how Angela Merkel rose to the challenge of the pandemic:
Maybe one of the distinguishing features of a good leader is that they are not using this present situation as a political opportunity.
Trump’s virus chief says social distancing is here to stay
Several more US states have announced they will follow Georgia by lifting certain lockdown measures to try to prevent their economies crumbling further. But Deborah Birx, Donald Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, told the Sunday shows that Americans should expect social distancing restrictions to continue at least through the summer months. The country needs a “breakthrough innovation in testing” before it can confidently reopen, she added.
Is Azar in Trump’s firing line? After skipping his daily coronavirus briefing two days in a row, the president took to Twitter to deny reports that he plans to fire Alex Azar, his health and human services secretary, whom he insisted was doing an “excellent job!”
Without federal leadership, US states are working together
It’s the nation’s founding idea: states working together towards a common goal. But with a leadership vacuum in Washington, smaller groups of US states have formed to tackle the pandemic among themselves. There’s the western states pact formed by Washington, Oregon and California; an east-coast alliance stretching from Delaware to Massachusetts; and a coalition comprising seven midwestern states, which the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, described as taking “a loose Articles of Confederation approach”.
Also in the US…
California care homes. In Los Angeles, Sam Levin hears from victims’ relatives and experts about how the state’s nursing homes were ill-equipped to face the outbreak.
The anti-vaxxer threat. Last year, an FBI-connected non-profit research group warned that America’s anti-vaxxer movement could pose a threat to national security in the event of a pandemic.
A Missouri town divided. The small town of Odessa faces deep economic suffering if the lockdown goes on, but its residents are split over the risk of reopening, finds Chris McGreal.
Trump has a new election strategy: tie Biden to China
A few short weeks ago, Trump thought he could win re-election in November by campaigning on a strong economy against a self-declared socialist. Instead, the US faces its direst economic outlook since the Depression, and his opponent is Joe Biden. So now, writes David Smith, the president plans to fall back on a familiar strategy: xenophobia. As Lauren Gambino explains, “Sleepy Joe” will soon become “Beijing Biden”, with Trump hoping to tie the former vice president to the country he blames for the pandemic.
Biden, meanwhile, is vetting potential running mates from his basement. What he most needs, he said last week, is:
Someone who, if I were to walk away immediately from the office for whatever reason, that they can be president and the public could look at that person and say: ‘She is capable of being president of the United States tomorrow.’
In other news…
Kim Jong-un is “alive and well”, according to South Korea’s top security official, who said the North Korean leader has been staying at a coastal resort for the past two weeks, contrary to rumours that he was gravely ill – or even dead.
Saudi Arabia has changed its death penalty laws to end the practice for crimes committed when the perpetrators were minors, sparing the lives of at least six men currently on death row for having taken part in anti-government protests during the Arab spring, when they were under 18.
Jair Bolsonaro is facing yet another political crisis after his son was named by federal police as an alleged key member of a “criminal fake news racket” that has threatened and defamed the country’s authorities. Carlos Bolsonaro, 37, tweeted that the accusation was “garbage”.
Great reads
How Laurie Nunn turned teen dorkiness into Sex Education
At her Australian high school, Laurie Nunn was “the biggest dork” and sex ed was “practically non-existent”. “I feel like I’m only now starting to get the right language to talk about my own body,” the creator of Netflix smash hit Sex Education tells Rebecca Nicholson. “I think, ‘God, I wish I’d known this stuff when I was in my 20s.’”
Lockdown is changing the nature of cities
Pumas roam the streets of Santiago. Wild boar wander through Haifa. Red-crowned parrots squawk in Pasadena. The absence of humans has coaxed nature back to civilisation, writes Phoebe Weston, while Karen McVeigh reports on how quieter oceans are helping scientists study life beneath the surface.
Opinion: Isolationism won’t cure coronavirus
Trump has tackled Covid-19 by blaming other countries and cutting funding to the World Health Organization. But to solve this crisis, the US must take up its traditional role as a world leader, say the congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the writer and organiser Leah Hunt-Hendrix.
We might also re-examine what global leadership should look like today. It should mean leadership in health, not just military superiority. It should mean supporting global institutions that facilitate coordination, information sharing, and distribution of resources, not because it’s profitable, but because it is necessary.
Last Thing: Stars get romantic for Wordsworth’s birthday
Poetry has been enjoying a burst of popularity under lockdown. Now, actors including Brian Cox, Ruth Wilson and William H Macy have recorded their interpretations of the works of William Wordsworth, to mark the 250th birthday of the great Romantic.
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