HONG KONG — When Shirley Leung, 60, woke up enclosed in Hong Kong’s first coronavirus lockdown, she surveyed the tiny room she shares with her adult son, which fits a single bed and cardboard boxes and plastic tubs for storing clothes. She tried to ignore the smell of the ceiling and walls, which were blanketed […]
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LONDON — Britain on Tuesday surpassed 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus, a tragic milestone that laid bare the missteps in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the pandemic, as well as the tough choices he now faces in trying to keep lethal new variants of the virus out of the country. Britain’s death toll has […]
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There are Covid-19 bubbles — small clusters of friends or family who agree to socialize exclusively with each other during the pandemic — and then there are the kinds of bubbles the Flaming Lips used at recent concerts. Band members and concertgoers rocked out and bounced while encased in large individual plastic bubbles amid bright […]
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LONDON — Britain’s disclosure Friday that a new variant of the virus could be deadlier than the original raised a stir about why such alarming information was put out when the evidence was so inconclusive. But there is little debate over its impact: It has silenced those who called for life to go back to […]
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MELBOURNE, Australia — The intricate ballet begins at sunrise and ends after dark, a complicated series of movements requiring the utmost precision for what has long been a very simple task — getting tennis players to and from the courts so they can practice ahead of a professional tournament. There is a strict routine to […]
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The anger over the decision to teach fall classes remotely was spelled in chalk on Beth Martin’s sidewalk. “OPEN THE SCHOOLS BETH,” an irate parent scrawled in July after ringing the front doorbell and confronting Ms. Martin, a retired librarian of 30 years and member of the local school board. “She didn’t swear at me, […]
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Officials said that in several cases, the virus spread after unsanctioned student social gatherings outside of school, including parent-organized parties for band members and sports teams. The district had no plans to change anything for the spring semester, Barbara Jacoby, a spokeswoman for the schools, said in an email in December. “As long as we […]
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MELBOURNE, Australia — Thump, thump, thump on the ceiling. Thwack, Thwack, thwack on the wall. After seven days restricted to a hotel room as part of a 14-day quarantine ahead of the Australian Open, it’s fair to wonder if paranoia has entered like a stealth intruder. Are the thumps and thwacks my version of Edgar […]
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BAGHDAD — In the upscale shisha lounge of one of Baghdad’s new restaurants, customers puffing on fragrant fruit-scented tobacco sit at gold-rimmed tables flanked by a giant video screen and views of the Tigris River. It’s a weekday night but the Dawa restaurant’s Sky Lounge is crowded with people partying like it’s 2019: no masks, […]
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BAGHDAD — In the upscale shisha lounge of one of Baghdad’s new restaurants, customers puffing on fragrant fruit-scented tobacco sit at gold-rimmed tables flanked by a giant video screen and views of the Tigris River. It’s a weekday night but the Dawa restaurant’s Sky Lounge is crowded with people partying like it’s 2019: no masks, […]
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Skylar Mack, the American college student who was imprisoned in the Cayman Islands last month for violating coronavirus restrictions, said in an interview on Tuesday that she “deserved it.” In a segment that aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Ms. Mack, 18, apologized for breaking the rules and said that any anger toward her was […]
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MELBOURNE, Australia — It was late December, and Craig Tiley was feeling good. After months of negotiations with government officials and the world’s top tennis players, Tiley, the head of Tennis Australia, finally had the green light to stage the Australian Open in the middle of the pandemic. Health officials and government leaders had come […]
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MELBOURNE, Australia — Organizers of the Australian Open faced a rebellion from players Saturday after passengers on two charter flights bringing them to Melbourne tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting orders for everyone aboard to go into quarantine for two weeks. The flights carried 47 players — including several top competitors who had just played […]
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MELBOURNE, Australia — The racing pigeon seemed to have traveled far, from Oregon, when it showed up weak and hungry in a backyard in a Melbourne suburb. Someone decided to name it Joe, after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. But Australian officials, fearing the spread of germs from a foreign bird, would not bend the […]
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When a handful of new coronavirus cases materialized this month in a province surrounding Beijing — apparently spread at a village wedding party — the Chinese authorities bolted into action. They locked down two cities with more than 17 million people, Shijiazhuang and Xingtai. They ordered a crash testing regime of nearly every resident there, […]
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SINGAPORE — Every day, the president of the National University of Singapore scans his online dashboard to see how crowded the cafeterias are. If the real-time map shows that one cafeteria is too packed, the president, Tan Eng Chye, has administrators send out an advisory to avoid it and to remind students that there are […]
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DURBAN, South Africa — Doctors and nurses at a South African hospital group noticed an odd spike in the number of Covid-19 patients in their wards in late October. The government had slackened its lockdown grip, and springtime had brought more parties. But the numbers were growing too quickly to easily explain, prompting a distressing […]
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HONG KONG — Before boarding her flight to Hong Kong for a new job last month, Tanja Cunz made sure she had met all of the government’s stringent entry requirements. Ms. Cunz, a 34-year-old museum curator from Switzerland, took a coronavirus test, paid for two weeks of quarantine at a government-designated hotel and steeled herself […]
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“There’s never going to be another first day like this one.” Announcer: “The largest school district in the United States reopened its doors today.” “Thermometers — this needs to go to every single family today. Grab a box of masks — temperature checks.” Announcer: “First experiment in in-person learning since March.” “That’s not 6 feet, […]
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“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12,” Stephen King writes at the end of his novella “The Body.” “Jesus, did you?” When I was 12, my world revolved around piano lessons, model rockets, a tank of pet seahorses and a boy named Jim Wilson. We spent […]
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Megan Peters, Helena, Mont. “I love to swim at my local Y.M.C.A. Getting into the pool always felt like utter bliss, and I would wonder, “Why don’t I do this everyday?” I dream about gliding, swirling, splashing and plunging in the water again.” Sharene Voelkel, San Jose, Calif. “I cannot wait to go to the […]
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Consider for a moment, in this time of anguish and loss and death, of mass unemployment and flattened national economies, the Twilight Zone alternate reality that is Taiwan. For months and months, life on the island has been, in a word, normal — spookily so. Weddings have been held, worry free. People […]
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I understood, “He was wonderful. God love him.” Jack Cumming, 84, Carlsbad, Calif. My wife and I live in a senior housing complex with a skilled nursing facility on the premises. Our lives are centered on the facility where we live. We are old, and so are our neighbors. Many are deep into those transitions […]
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Politically, it was a perilous situation for both men. As its trade war with China escalated, the Trump administration had all but eliminated a public health partnership with Beijing that had begun after the debacle of SARS and was intended to help prevent potential pandemics. By pulling out, current and former agency officials say, Washington […]
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Most of their European neighbors can only dream of snow-covered slopes while they endure holiday lockdowns, but Austrians are jamming ski resort parking lots and lift lines, defying social distancing rules as they take to the runs of their alpine country. Austrians’ relationship to skiing is deeply emotional. For many it is a birthright and […]
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The coronavirus, which surfaced in a Chinese seafood and poultry market in December 2019, has spread to nearly every country, upending life and derailing the global economy. The virus has killed more than 1.6 million and sickened more than 76 million over the last year. The World Health Organization has declared the situation a global […]
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Still, experts generally believe that fatalities on the continent are far lower than in the West, potentially for reasons beyond demographics. For instance, countries that regularly immunize babies with a tuberculosis vaccine also tend to have lower coronavirus mortality, though a causative link has yet to be proved. To achieve widespread immunity, more targeted vaccines […]
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is charged with safeguarding American lives. But in the 10th month of the coronavirus pandemic, as infections surge to new highs, the agency’s advice about what citizens should do remains confusing — right at a time when we need clarity most. While local governments set their own quarantine rules, […]
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The family of an 18-year-old college student who broke the Cayman Islands’ coronavirus laws on a trip last month has pleaded for her release from prison ahead of a hearing on Tuesday before a panel of judges who will decide whether her appeal can proceed. “She cries, she wants to come home,” the student’s grandmother, […]
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The family of an 18-year-old college student who broke the Cayman Islands’ coronavirus laws on a trip last month has pleaded for her release from prison ahead of a hearing on Tuesday before a panel of judges who will decide whether her appeal can proceed. “She cries, she wants to come home,” the student’s grandmother, […]
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LONDON — Britain was all but cut off from the rest of Europe on Monday, with flights and trains banned by some 40 countries and freight deliveries halted at French ports, as its neighbors tried desperately to stop a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus from leaping across the English Channel. The sudden disruption left Britain […]
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