Pubs, beauty salons and cinemas across England reopened on Saturday as part of Britain’s biggest move towards post-outbreak normalcy, while South Africa and other parts of the world reported anything less: reporting another day of confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Many people savored the easing of restrictions on public life that UK restaurants and bars had closed, although a trade group estimated that only half of England’s pubs chose to open on the first possible day. Those who decided to start pouring at the earliest time allowed, at 6 am, had clients to serve.
“Let’s not screw it up now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said when some in England rushed to restaurants or barbers for the first time in more than three months.
Critics pointed to the experience in other parts of Europe and in some parts of the US, where the reopening of bars and restaurants is blamed for an increase in infections from customers who lose their inhibitions among strangers and abandon the social distancing after drinking some drinks.
Reinforcing concern, the British government had been too hasty: the World Health Organization said its member countries on Saturday reported more than 212,000 new cases of COVID-19 to the UN health agency, the highest increase in a only day since the start of the pandemic. The WHO said that more than half of new confirmed infections were reported in the Americas region, which includes Brazil and the United States.
In the U.S., where many July 4 fireworks and parades were canceled due to the virus, health authorities warned that Independence Day would be a crucial test of Americans’ self-control. Confirmed cases are on the rise in 40 states, and the United States reported more than 50,000 new cases nationwide on Saturday.
More than 11.1 million people worldwide are known to have been infected with the virus, 2.8 million of them in the U.S., according to a count maintained by Johns Hopkins University. With the shortage of test materials, the actual number of cases is unknown. More than 528,000 people have died in the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins data.
In South Africa, a growing point of growth as the pandemic accelerates in some parts of Africa, confirmed cases have risen to more than 177,000, with a record 9,063 reported in the most recent 24-hour period.
If the most developed country in Africa is struggling to deal with the pandemic, that is sinister for the least prepared African nations. Confirmed cases on the 54-nation continent are now over 433,000.
India also reported its largest increase in a single day, with 22,771 new confirmed cases for a total of more than 648,000, including 18,655 deaths.
Russia marked a milestone when the death toll rose above 10,000. The national coronavirus workforce also reported 6,632 new infections, bringing the total outbreak to 674,515.
Russia’s number of cases is the third largest in the world behind the United States and Brazil, but its reported deaths are lower than in many other countries. Authorities have denied speculation that the figures are being manipulated.
Elsewhere, authorities sought special measures for communities as groups of viruses emerged.
The Australian state of Victoria closed nine public housing towers and three more suburbs in Melbourne after 108 new cases. Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said 3,000 people in the towers will enter a “hard shutdown,” meaning “no one will be allowed in … and no one will be allowed out.”
Authorities in northeast Spain ordered the closure in El Segriá county, around the city of Lleida, home to more than 200,000 people, after health officials recorded a jump in 60 cases in 24 hours. The outbreaks are linked to agricultural workers in rural areas.
And Tokyo confirmed 131 new cases, surpassing 100 for the third consecutive day and hitting a new two-month high, prompting Governor Yuriko Koike to ask residents to avoid nonessential visits outside of the city.
Concerns about the resurgence of infections are mounting as Japan is now almost back to business as usual after its state of emergency was lifted in May.
France said it is sending doctors to its South American territory in French Guiana, where infections have increased as the virus swept into neighboring Brazil.
Of the approximately 5,000 new cases confirmed in France in the past week, 1,400 were in French Guiana, with a population of just 300,000, according to the health agency. The army transports patients from overcrowded facilities to the French Caribbean island of Martinique for treatment.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that “the way our country reacted to the pandemic has proven to be correct.” The country, which has more than 190,000 confirmed cases and five times fewer deaths than Britain, has begun evaluating asymptomatic people in nursing homes.
Merkel paid tribute to the elderly, who, like in other parts of the world, have been particularly affected. “The most painful thing was surely not being able to see the children and grandchildren for many weeks,” he said.
Thousands of tourists, determined to enjoy a vacation after months of uncertainty, waited up to five hours in the scorching sun on the Bulgarian-Greek border after leaving for Greece’s beaches.
