Daily Times

A raft of EU nations reopened their borders to fellow Europeans on Monday after months of coronavirus curbs, but China was battling a new outbreak that has stoked fears of a second wave.

As caseloads have declined in recent weeks across many parts of Europe, governments have been keen to ease punishing lockdowns that have saved lives but devastated economies and wearied confined populations.

Belgium, France, Germany and Greece were among those lifting border restrictions Monday, while Spain experimented with a pilot project that saw a planeload of German tourists fly into the Balearic islands. In England, shops and outdoor attractions welcomed their first customers since March, while in Paris, cafes and restaurants were allowed to fully reopen. “I’m happy to be able to shop again after all this time,” said Precious, an 18-year-old student on London’s crowded Oxford Street. The pandemic is gathering pace in Latin America, and Iran, India and Saudi Arabia have reported worrying increases in deaths and infections — adding to concern over challenges the world will face in the long fight against COVID-19.

Mass testing

China, where the virus emerged late last year, was the first country to implement extreme restrictions on movement early this year, driving local transmission down to near-zero as the crisis hammered the rest of the world.

The World Health Organization said there were more than 100 new confirmed cases in Beijing where the fresh cluster has been linked to a wholesale food market.

“The origin and extent of the outbreak are being investigated,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference. Streams of people queued in a Beijing stadium as mass testing was carried out, and a strict lockdown was extended across 21 Beijing neighbourhoods. Almost 433,500 people worldwide have died from COVID-19, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have been upended and the global economy ravaged by the crisis. The United States is by far the hardest-hit country, with more than 115,700 recorded fatalities. But while some states have seen new flare-ups, President Donald Trump’s administration insists there will be no shutdown of the economy even if a new wave arises.