Sweden, almost alone in Europe in rejecting a broad lockdown this spring, has introduced new guidelines to curb a surge in coronavirus infections but is sticking to its largely voluntary approach. The Nordic country, which only had minor restrictions throughout its epidemic, had until recently been spared by the second wave of Covid-19 cases currently … Read more
China’s international image has plummeted amid widespread disapproval over how it has handled the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey of 14 industrialized countries found. Only the U.S. received worse marks on its pandemic response, according to a survey published Tuesday. Pew Research Center, which polled 14,276 residents on four continents, found that 73% on average … Read more
Iran reported its highest daily Covid-19 death toll and its largest single-day rise in infections on Monday, as the country imposed a second lockdown of its capital to contain a resurgent outbreak. The government over the weekend ordered a shutdown of schools, movie theaters, beauty salons, coffee shops, mosques and other businesses and institutions in … Read more
Europe’s second coronavirus wave is spreading, and rising hospitalizations and deaths are prompting governments to impose more restrictions, from travel bans in Madrid to the closure of bars in Paris. Confirmed cases in France, Spain, and the U.K. are now higher on an average day than at the peak of this spring’s emergency, although the … Read more
The U.S. saw 50,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, as President Trump’s doctors said he could be released from the hospital as soon as Monday. The total death toll in the U.S. reached 209,394, as an additional 690 were reported on Saturday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Total infections in the U.S. … Read more
ROME—Pope Francis offered his prescription for a host of ills plaguing societies around the world, including poverty, terrorism and racism, in a major document written in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. “Fratelli tutti” (“Brothers, all”), released by the Vatican on Sunday, is only the third time Pope Francis has written an encyclical, one of … Read more
DUBAI—Emirates Airline powered Dubai’s rise from desert backwater to teeming Mideast metropolis, making the city one of the world’s biggest intercontinental hubs and generating a yearslong economic boom. But now, the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation it has wrought have forced the first major downsizing for an airline that has weathered Middle East conflicts … Read more
Gaining a vaccine to help contain the novel coronavirus would provide a big boost to the global economy in 2021, but the initial geographic distribution of that benefit will likely depend on which vaccine candidate works first. Public health officials around the world increasingly believe at least one of the vaccines now in the later … Read more
President Trump’s contraction of Covid-19 puts him in the company of two other conservative leaders who also made light of the risks of the coronavirus only to fall ill themselves, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. For both of those leaders, getting ill not only didn’t hurt their political fortunes, but … Read more
SCHWERIN, Germany—A sharp difference in the number of coronavirus cases between western Germany and the former communist East has emerged as a new divide, three decades after reunification. The five states that once made up the bulk of East Germany are among the regions of the country least affected by the pandemic. (Berlin, located in … Read more