data compiled by The New York Times. And it was only last Thursday that the world crossed the dispiriting threshold of five million cases.
Each day is bringing more grim tallies. Through May 20, there had been just one day when the world learned of at least 100,000 new cases. Since then, six-figure case increases have been reported four times, a signal of the virus’s still-devastating reach even as more of the world’s most powerful economies sputter into reopenings.
Outbreaks have accelerated especially sharply in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, with caseloads doubling in some countries about every two weeks. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said it considered the Americas to be the new epicenter of the pandemic.
And although much of the Middle East seemed to avert early catastrophe even as the virus ravaged Iran, case counts have lately been swelling in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea reported 79 new cases on Thursday, the highest daily count since April 5. The Philippines reported a single-day record of 539 new cases, even as President Rodrigo Duterte said the country would ease its lockdown rules in greater Manila by June 1. And India reported more than 6,500 new cases, bringing its known case tally to nearly 160,000.
The increases in some countries can be attributed to improved testing programs. But elsewhere, the virus has only now arrived with wide scope and fatal force. Indonesia, for example, has nearly 25,000 known infections, and experts there are bracing for runaway transmission that could break the health system.
Many of the world’s wealthiest countries have slowed their outbreaks, if only marginally in some instances. In the United States, which has recorded more than 100,000 deaths, more than any other country, the growth rate has stabilized. But experts believe that its known infections — at least 1.7 million so far — are still being undercounted.
New cases are decreasing in France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom after outbreaks that left them with some of the world’s highest death tolls, with a total of more than 126,000 fatalities.
Yet new studies suggest that even in some of the world’s hardest-hit cities, the vast majority of people remain vulnerable to the virus. Researchers said it is possible that the percentage of people who have been infected so far is still in the single digits.
In tourist-friendly Thailand, the pandemic hurts hotels, airlines and elephants.
Image
Thailand could lose as many as 8.4 million jobs this year, many of them in the hard-hit tourism industry, officials said on Thursday, reflecting how much the pandemic has hurt a country that received nearly 40 million visitors last year.
The government hopes to stimulate employment through government spending, including a plan to boost domestic travel starting in July. But it has banned all foreign visitors until at least July because of the coronavirus, and the number of tourists in 2020 is expected to fall dramatically.
The plan to increase domestic tourism in the third quarter could include hotel room subsidies, according to local news reports. “Tourism should be a fast economic stimulator,” the head of the National Economic and Social Development Council, Thosaporn Sirisumphand, told reporters earlier this week. “If the situation improves, we may open for tourists to come in.”
Thailand, the first country outside China to report a case of the virus, has handled the pandemic better than most with measures such as closing schools, limiting business activity and imposing a nighttime curfew. It had 3,065 infections as of Thursday, including 57 deaths, and most new cases are Thais returning from abroad.
But before the virus struck, travel and tourism accounted for more than 20 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product and employed nearly 16 percent of its work force. The nation’s flagship airline, Thai Airways, which was already suffering financially before it halted international flights in March, is now seeking rehabilitation in bankruptcy court.
Not only people have been out of work. More than 1,000 elephants also have lost their jobs because of the decline in visitors, and their owners now struggle to feed them.
A French study found 1 in 10 diabetic patients with Covid-19 died within a week of being hospitalized.
Image
One in 10 diabetic patients with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, died within a week of being hospitalized, according to a study published on Thursday by French researchers in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.
Another 20 percent were put on ventilators to assist with breathing by the end of their first week in the hospital. Just 18 percent were discharged within a week.
“I don’t want to scare people, but what is true is we did not expect to see such high mortality, with 10 percent of people admitted dying in the first seven days,” said Dr. Samy Hadjadj, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Nantes in France and one of the authors of the paper.
A majority of patients in the study had Type 2 diabetes. Many people with diabetes also have a cardiovascular disease, which raises the risk of death in Covid-19 patients.
The new study, which included 1,317 patients at 53 French hospitals, found that microvascular injuries — involving tiny blood vessels supplying the eyes, kidneys and peripheral nerves — were also linked to a higher risk of death.
Obstructive sleep apnea also raised the risk of early death in these patients, while obesity and advanced age were linked to a greater likelihood of severe disease, the study found.
“This is serious,” Dr. Hadjadj said. “If you have diabetes and are elderly or have complications, be very careful. Keep away from the virus. Go on with social distancing, wash your hands carefully, keep people away who can bring you the virus.”
Dr. Hadjadj added, “You are not the kind of person who can afford to disregard these rules.”
Pandemic relief programs, a lifeline for Americans, could run out this summer.
Image
For millions of Americans left out of work by the pandemic, government assistance has been a lifeline preventing a plunge into poverty, hunger and financial ruin. This summer, that lifeline could snap.
The $1,200 checks sent to most households are long gone, at least for those who needed them most, with little imminent prospect for a second round. The lending program that helped millions of small businesses keep workers on the payroll will wind down if Congress does not extend it.
The latest sign of the economic strain and the government’s role in easing it came Thursday, when the Labor Department reported that millions more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week. More than 40 million people have filed for benefits since the crisis began, and some 30 million are receiving them.
Image
Eight dancers from the Ballet du Rhin were partway through a class at their studio in eastern France, recently, when the director, Bruno Bouché, asked them to perform a short routine, heavy on pirouettes, in socially distanced pairs.
Alice Pernão, 22, one of the first dancers to try, performed the spins with the relish of a dancer moving her limbs fully for the first time in months.
But as soon as she finished, Ms. Pernão performed a little extra routine that dancers worldwide might soon have to get used to: She flipped her face mask off an ear, and, breathing heavily, rushed back to her place at the barre to gulp down some water.
She then disinfected her hands with gel, put the mask back on, and tried to catch her breath for the next exercise.
The Ballet du Rhin, which is in Mulhouse, this month became the first company in France to return to work, having agreed on measures with the local authorities. Across Europe, other dance companies have also started practicing again to varying degrees.
Performances are still a long way off for most, although some theaters are reopening with social distancing. Austria is allowing events of up to 100 people starting Friday. On Tuesday, Bavaria announced that theaters in the German region could reopen on June 15, albeit for a maximum 50 people.
A young man deals with grief and regret in Wuhan.
The residents of Wuhan, China, are cautiously feeling their way toward an uncertain future. Here is one of their stories.
In the months after his mother died from the coronavirus, Veranda Chen searched daily for new distractions. He read Freud and experimented in the kitchen. He joked on WeChat about opening a restaurant. Its signature dish, he said, would be called “remembering past suffering, and thinking of present joy.”
But recently, cooking has lost its appeal. His mother used to ask him to cook for her, but he had said he was too busy applying for graduate school.
“I thought, ‘I’ll focus on getting into my dream school, and then after that, I can put all my time into doing the things they’d always asked me to,’” Mr. Chen, 24, said of his parents.
“Now, there’s no chance.”
Mr. Chen’s mother fell sick when the outbreak was at its height. An overwhelmed hospital turned her away on Feb. 5. She died in an ambulance on the way to another. She was 58.
She and Mr. Chen had been close, though they had often struggled to show it. She had insisted on saving money for his eventual wedding, rather than indulging a trip to the tropical island of Hainan. He considered her old-fashioned and often felt smothered.
Image
After she died, he realized he had so many questions he had wanted to ask her — about her childhood, about his childhood, about how she had seen him change.
Mr. Chen had to learn to grieve in lockdown, when the usual rituals of mourning were impossible. He couldn’t see his friends. His father wasn’t around, either; he had tested positive and was in a hospital.
Mr. Chen turned to Tinder — not for romance but for conversation. “Sometimes, talking to strangers is easier than talking to friends,” he said. “They don’t know anything about your life.”
Now that Mr. Chen and his father are reunited, they, too, are searching for new ways to talk.
They don’t discuss his mother; his father finds it too painful. But Mr. Chen wants to invite his father to go fishing, and to ask him the questions he never asked his mother. He also wants to learn from him how to stir-fry tomatoes and eggs, a traditional dish his parents used to make.
He is most fixated on getting into a psychology program. After his mother’s death, that plan feels more urgent than ever. “I want to use it to ease other people’s suffering,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Vivian Wang, Richard C. Paddock, Roni Caryn Rabin, Jason Gutierrez, Choe Sang-Hun, Jin Wu, Alex Marshall and Jenny Gross.
