As coronavirus infections approached 4 million worldwide, and Russia became a new hotspot for the outbreak, Belarus defied worries to hold a parade marking the 75th anniversary of victory over the Nazis, with thousands of people in attendance including elderly veterans.
South Korea, which is trying to relax physical distancing regulations, on Saturday shut down more than 2,100 clubs and bars in the capital after a new cluster of cases emerged, apparently linked to a single individual who had gone out while infected.
The cases are a reminder of how long and challenging the battle against coronavirus is likely to be even in countries that had initial success in containing it.
In Italy, Milan’s mayor has warned he might have to reimpose rules if people did not respect physical distancing. And although Spain’s daily death toll continues to fall, its exit plans at present will only allow half of the population living in less badly affected areas to start moving back towards normal life.
The growing global economic crisis is particularly acute in places where authorities have few resources to support those who have lost work. In Afghanistan at least seven people were killed and more than a dozen injured when police opened fire on a protest against corruption in food distribution projects.
In the US, the worst-hit country in the world, President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Covid-19 would “go away without a vaccine”, but also said he was expecting 95,000 or more deaths.
His remarks came after a week of trauma in the country, which saw deaths top 77,000, unemployment rise to nearly 15% and the disease breach the inner circles of the White House, raising questions about the protection of top officials.
The latest confirmed case was the US vice-president Mike Pence’s press secretary, who is married to a key Trump aide, anti-immigration hardliner Stephen Miller. That news came the day after Trump’s personal valet tested positive.
Globally, Covid-19 has killed more than 275,000 people, and over 3.96 million infections have been confirmed. That total is likely to pass 4 million over the weekend, and does not include many people who have not been able to access testing.
Russia registered more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases in the last day, the sixth in a row at that level. It is now the fifth-worst hit country, approaching nearly 200,000 confirmed infections. However, its death toll of 1,827 is far lower than in European countries with similar numbers of cases, including Italy, the UK, France and Spain.
The crisis led the government in Moscow to cancel 9 May celebrations of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. The festivities would have crowned a historic political season in Russia, including a symbolic referendum to amend Russia’s constitution and reset Putin’s term limits, allowing him to remain in the Kremlin until 2036.
Instead Putin is ruling from a bunker, as plummeting oil prices devastate the economy, and the crisis puts his political plans on hold. The day’s festivities were moved mostly online, and a parade replaced by a flypast.
VE Day celebrations went ahead in Belarus, where president Alexander Lukashenko appeared to relish upstaging Russia and defying Moscow’s warnings that its lax approach could “bring a sharp increase in the number of those infected”.
“Let the parade in Minsk today be the only one in the post-Soviet space,” Lukashenko said. “It will be held in honour of all Soviet fighters who liberated the world from Nazism.”
The coronavirus crisis has inflamed US-China relations, with public disputes over the origin and handling of the pandemic exacerbated by other showdowns, including escalating restrictions on and expulsions of foreign journalists.
Washington on Friday unveiled new rules that will require Chinese nationals working as journalists for non-US publications to renew their visas every 90 days, after Beijing forced US journalists working for prominent publications to leave China.
Tensions are likely to rise further after leaders of the US congressional foreign affairs committee wrote to nearly 60 countries asking them to support Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization.
Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations and is excluded from the WHO because of Chinese objections; Beijing considers the self-ruled island a renegade province.
It has been seeking to join a ministerial meeting this month of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, with backing from Washington and several US allies, citing the need for the broadest effort possible to fight the pandemic.
In South Korea, measures to close nightlife venues in Seoul were imposed by mayor Park Won-soon, after 18 new cases were reported in the 24 hours to midnight on Friday, the Associated Press reported.
South Korea at one point had the highest number of infections outside mainland China but a comprehensive testing programme and rigorous contact tracing allowed it to bring the virus under control while it proliferated elsewhere. However the latest cases show how easily the virus could re-emerge.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or KCDC, said all but one of the new cases were linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three clubs in Seoul’s Itaewon district last Saturday before testing positive days later.
In total, there have been 40 infections linked to club-goers, mostly in Seoul but also in three other cities. The national government has urged entertainment venues to close or step up anti-virus measures including distancing and temperature checks.
Elsewhere:
The Chinese president Xi Jinping has offered the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, support in tackling the coronavirus, state media said on Saturday.
As debates rage in other countries about the return of professional football, games will be played in the Faroe Islands on Saturday for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak.
Indonesia has reported its biggest daily increase in infections, with 533 new confirmed cases, taking the total to 13,645.
A French MP has failed in her bid to to get “love” added to the list of “compelling reasons” that must be given for anyone to travel more than 100km (62 miles) in the country.
Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, approved amendments to the country’s state of emergency that granted him and security agencies additional powers, saying they were needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Friday that he aimed to present plans next week to reopen the economy, as key sectors like car-making look to begin business again after over a month of quarantine measures.
Argentina will extend a quarantine covering its capital Buenos Aires but relax restrictions in the rest of the country.