As America tentatively emerges from weeks of lockdowns, the pandemic has taken its toll on workers who have been on the front lines all along. They have been packing and delivering supplies, caring for the sick and elderly, and keeping streets and buildings clean.
Around the world, millions of workers worldwide are marking international labor day trapped between hunger and fear, as more countries and states reopen for business even though the coronavirus pandemic is far from vanquished.
Here are some of AP’s top stories Monday on the world’s coronavirus pandemic.
— Essential workers will strike nationwide on May Day to demand safer conditions during the coronavirus outbreak, while other groups plan rallies against tight stay-at-home orders they say are crippling the U.S. economy.
—— The rent is due again for more than 30 million people around the U.S. who have filed for unemployment benefits after losing work in the coronavirus pandemic.
— Beijing’s parks and museums, including the ancient Forbidden City, reopen to the public after being closed for months by the coronavirus pandemic.
— When Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said the government would relax some parts of a nationwide lockdown, residents entering an eighth week of home confinement to inhibit the coronavirus dove for their dictionaries.
— A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a telecommunications specialist are accused of stealing personal protective equipment, toilet paper and other supplies from an agency warehouse in Florida amid shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.
— New York’s schools and colleges will remain shut through the end of the academic year because of the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.
Here are the symptoms of the virus compared with the common flu.
One of the best ways to prevent spread of the virus is washing your hands with soap and water. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends first washing with warm or cold water and then lathering soap for 20 seconds to get it on the backs of hands, between fingers and under fingernails before rinsing off.
You should wash your phone, too. Here’s how.
TRACKING THE VIRUS: Drill down and zoom in at the individual county level, and you can access numbers that will show you the situation where you are, and where loved ones or people you’re worried about live.
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ONE NUMBER:
— 850. The number of garment factories that have reopened in Bangladesh after nearly one month of closures to fight the pandemic. Critics say the move risks igniting a sharp increase in infections among workers.
— COMICS CONUNDRUM — The comic book shop has long been a wall-to-wall repository for tales of world-threatening cataclysms and doomsday dystopias, but it has never before been drawn into a fight for survival like the coronavirus pandemic.
— PEDIATRIC PATIENT — The parents of a 12-year-old girl from the New Orleans area are overjoyed that their daughter has recovered from a near-death coronavirus infection.
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