Charles and Camilla are a couple unto themselves

Welcome to the Maclean's daily newsletter. As the coronavirus disrupts life in Canada, and Canadians get used to the notion of "social distancing" and "flattening the curve," Maclean's has expanded this newsletter to include everything you need to know about the global pandemic. You'll still find our best stories of the day at the bottom of the newsletter, but we'll also catch you up on news and notes from around the world.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Hong Kong has no new coronavirus cases today, and that now feels so normal that I forgot to tweet about it. 17 days without a local case.” — Wall Street Journal reporter Mike Bird. In early April, he detailed his experience of being placed in a quarantine camp for 14 days after a friend tested positive.

The number of Canadians infected with COVID-19 has topped 63,000, while more than 4,200 people have died. Worldwide, 3.7 million people have been infected while 260,000 have died.

Montreal’s effort to beat its massive COVID-19 outbreak depends, in part, on one piece of outdated technology: the fax machine. Every one of the 17,000 lab reports on people who just tested positive for COVID-19 is faxed to the city’s public health department to be manually entered into its database and assigned to a contact tracer, this Montreal Gazette story explains. And yes, Quebec is trying to fast-track plans to go all-digital.

In a bid to quell growing outrage, Italy’s justice minister said that some of the older 376 mafiosi and drug dealers released from jail will soon be re-incarcerated, now that the nation is getting its outbreak under control, Reuters reports. One of those temporarily released was Franco Cataldo, 85, who was part of a gang that brutally killed a teenager.

For those of us contemplating increasingly shaggy hair, the solution may lie in a virtual haircut. Using FaceTime, Vancouver barber Farzad Salehi gives advice, down to the correct way to hold scissors, while someone in the household does the actual chopping. Salehi doesn’t charge, though his clients are buying prepaid cuts to help him pay his rent, the Vancouver Sun reports.

While virtually the entire nation of New Zealand was in very strict self-isolation, a few car thieves pounced. They’d stolen around 100 cars, driving them off the rental car lot in batches, until they encountered a problem they didn’t foresee: there were so few vehicles on the roads that they caught the attention of the police, who promptly arrested them. The rental firm didn’t know anything was wrong until the police called, the BBC reported.

Actor Daniel Radcliffe, famous for portraying Harry Potter on screen, has done a home reading of chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The Harry Potter at Home series will have other famous folk reading more of the beloved children’s series.

—Patricia Treble

As of the latest update, this is the number of confirmed cases in Canada. We're updating this chart every day.