Summary:
- China imposes new anti-dumping duty on Australia as global trade wars heat up
- WHO’s Dr. Tedros pledges “transparency and accountability” as annual meeting of WHO members begins
- Conn & Mass are last 2 states that haven’t lifted any lockdown restrictions
- 108 million under lockdown in NE China
- Beaches, parks reopen across US, Europe
- New Zealand reopens schools Monday
- Italy plans to reopen most restaurants & businesses by week’s end.
- New cases in Brazil, Russia slow as deaths accelerate
- In US, all but 4 states have “partially reopened”
- WHO annual meeting begins with keynote from President Xi
- South Africa reports largest single-day spike in cases
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Update (0945ET): As we reported earlier, nearly all US states have at least partially lifted the lockdown measures imposed nearly 2 months ago. One map we noted below showed that just four states were classified as “pre-lift” (since NJ and NY have only just lifted restrictions in some areas, while others will probably be among the last areas in the country to reopen).
Now, CNN reports that really only two states have so far refused to lift any restrictions: the New England States of Connecticut and Massachusetts. While both states are typically blue-leaning, Massachusetts is currently led by a Republican governor, while Connecticut’s Democratic Gov Ned Lamont has promised to start lifting restrictions this week.
But what’s even more notable: In a piece published on its website on Monday, even CNN was forced to acknowledge that most US states haven’t seen the spike in cases that liberal ‘blue checks’ on twitter have been screaming about for weeks. The three states that have seen the biggest improvements include New Jersey, Missouri and Idaho, while the states that have seen the “biggest increases” have only seen infection rates climb by 1 or 2 persons per 100,000.
Still, CNN hypes of the ‘stay home, save lives’ angle whereever it can, even as it acknowledges that cases in Georgia have been mostly flat as the state has reopened, despite an acceleration in testing.
And in New York State, Andrew Cuomo is now chastizing residents for being “too lazy” to get tested. A little more than a month ago, he was urging residents that they didn’t need to be tested unless they had rapidly worsening symptoms (despite the fact that researchers suspect up to 47% of patients have few or no symptoms).
