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Coronavirus

A tentative easing

Very gradually, a handful of European countries start this week easing restrictions imposed to halt the spread of the pandemic. Spain has allowed construction and manufacturing activities to restart, while Austria and Italy are from Tuesday letting certain categories of shops reopen. Danish children in the first to fifth grade can return to school from Wednesday.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has appealed for measures to be “lifted slowly”, and only when countries are sure they can isolate new cases and trace their contacts.

Yet there is no clear consensus on how to move forward and national governments are going their own way: Authorities in France and Britain say the current measures are to be extended.

Putin's admission

Until now, official figures had showed Russia emerging in better shape from the crisis than most - and even in a position to help its Western neighbors fight the spread.

Yet President Vladimir Putin has finally acknowledged Russia might need to call in the army to help tackle the coronavirus and warned the contagion was now getting worse after the number of confirmed cases rose by a record daily amount.

The hotspot is Moscow: There, authorities have said they may run out of hospital beds in the next two to three weeks.

"Total" authority

Even by the White House's recent standards, Monday's media briefing was a contentious one. With the aid of a specially compiled video to reinforce his points, President Donald Trump again lashed out at critical media coverage and asserted he had the ultimate authority to re-open the economy when he wanted.

As reporters repeatedly questioned him on whether the constitution actually gave him the final say, Trump hit back: "When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be. ... It's total. The governors know that."

The lifeline pipeline

While a safe, effective vaccine to combat the coronavirus disease is more than a year away, researchers are rushing to repurpose existing drugs and non-drug therapies and test promising experimental drugs that were already in clinical trials.

Even moderately effective therapies or combinations could dramatically reduce the crushing demand on hospitals and intensive care units, changing the nature of the risk the new pathogen represents to populations and healthcare systems.

Hiking up meal delivery prices

GrubHub, DoorDash, Postmates and Uber Eats were sued in New York on Monday for allegedly exploiting their dominance in restaurant meal deliveries to impose fees that consumers ultimately bear through higher menu prices, including during the coronavirus outbreak.

In a proposed class action, three consumers said the defendants violated U.S. antitrust law by requiring that restaurants charge delivery customers and dine-in customers the same price. This sticks restaurants with the "devil's choice" of charging everyone higher prices as a condition of using the defendants' services, the consumers said.

The 'essential business' of wrestling entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment has been deemed an "essential business" in Florida, the mayor of Orange County said, allowing the company to resume live tapings of its shows in the state during the coronavirus outbreak.

"We believe it is now more important than ever to provide people with a diversion from these hard times," said WWE.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Carlyle/Pioneer, AB InBev, Credit
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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World

India extended a nationwide lockdown for its 1.3 billion people until May 3 as its prime minister warned of economic sacrifices to save lives as the number of coronavirus cases crossed 10,000. Sharp downward revisions to economic growth forecasts in the wake of the pandemic point toward sickening levels of unemployment, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to maintain the discipline shown in the first three weeks of the country’s lockdown.

A huge blaze that tore through forests around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant has been put out, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, saying hundreds of emergency workers had used planes and helicopters to douse the flames. Environmental activists warned that the fire, near the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, posed a radiation risk.

Amazon said it terminated two employees, who criticized the working conditions at the e-commerce giant’s warehouses in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, for “repeatedly violating internal policies”. The termination of Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, who worked as user-experience designers in Seattle, came in a couple of weeks after the company fired another employee Christian Smalls for raising health and safety concerns.

North Korea launched multiple short-range anti-ship cruise missiles into the sea and Sukhoi jets fired air-to-surface missiles as part of its ongoing military exercises, South Korea’s military said. The missile tests came on the eve of a national holiday in North Korea to celebrate the birthday of Kim Il Sung, the founder of the country and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un.