Go out, socialize and have fun, South Korea's government
told its citizens, announcing the start of "a new everyday life with
Covid-19"—while keeping a watchful eye on any indication of backwardness,
any need for restrictions to snap back into place.
It wasn't long.
On Saturday, the fourth day of the new process, Seoul's
mayor ordered all the bars and nightclubs in the capital to shut down
indefinitely after a cluster of dozens of coronavirus infections was
discovered.
South Korea initially fought the pandemic with such
effectiveness that it became a blueprint quoted internationally, all but
avoiding a massive epidemic without strangling nearly as much of its economy as
other nations. Now it's trying something just as hard: moving gradually, safely
closer to something like everyday life.
Policy leaders, health professionals, and most of the public
are well aware that, once a vaccine exists, easing restrictions would lead to
more illnesses and probably more deaths. The trick is to do so without the
contagion coming out.
After a 29-year-old man tested positive for the virus on
Wednesday, epidemiologists quickly discovered that on May 2, Seoul's famous
nightlife district, Itaewon, had visited three nightclubs. By Saturday night,
they said they tracked 7,200 people who had visited five Itaewon nightclubs
where the virus might have spread ben.
Club-goers and people who had close contact with them have
reported 27 cases so far, said Kwon Jun-wok, a senior disease-control official,
during a briefing on Saturday.
The mayor, Park Won-soon, cited a higher number, saying at
least 40 infections were related to nightclubs. As he closed the clubs, he
scolded patrons who had failed to practice safeguards such as wearing masks,
accusing them of endangering the entire nation's health.
Oil's decline and pandemic force Gulf
states to contend with migrant workers' large armies.
The coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated how many cultures
function lopsidedly.
In the wealthiest societies in the Middle East, everyday
life machinery relies on migrant workers from Asia, Africa, and poorer Arab
countries — millions of "tea people," housemaids, doctors,
construction staff, deliverers, cooks, garbagemen, guards, hairdressers,
hoteliers, and more who often outnumber the native population.
Yet with oil prices cut and tourism gone, the Persian Gulf
countries face big change.
The fallout is bleakly straightforward for their foreign
workers — more than a tenth of the world's migrants — who sent over $124
billion in 2017 to their home countries. Lockdowns have cost tens of thousands
of jobs, leaving them to ration dwindling food supplies as their families
struggle without remittances.
Coronavirus torn into inadequate dormitory-style worker
accommodation. And xenophobia escalates.
Like migrants in Latin America, Eastern Europe, India and
beyond, some go home empty-handed.
Simultaneously, oil-dependent countries with many
middle-class or poor people, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman, can no
longer guarantee the high living standards and subsidies their people take for
granted.
The latest in science: more children
died of coronavirus-related illness; a drug cocktail shows promise for
Covid-19.
Three young kids died of a mysterious coronavirus-related
syndrome in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Saturday, and over 73 were
sickened.
At least 50 cases of rare disease reported in European
countries, including Britain, France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy, and a
handful of cases in other U.S. nations.
The disorder, called "inflammatory pediatric
multisystem syndrome," can send children into a kind of toxic shock with
very low blood pressure and blood inability to efficiently transport oxygen and
nutrients.
Symptoms can include fever, rash, reddish eyes, swollen
lymph nodes, and extreme abdominal pain — but not usually two common Covid-19
characteristics: cough and shortness of breath. Nevertheless, children may
screen positive for the indications of infection with the virus or antibodies.
Treatments included steroids, intravenous immunoglobulin,
high-dose aspirin, antibiotics, supportive oxygen, and a ventilator in the most
serious cases.
Separately, researchers in Hong Kong reported in a new study
published in The Lancet that patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 tend to
improve faster when treated with a combination of antiviral drugs compared to a
group receiving a mix of fewer drugs.
The more effective combination included lopinavir-ritonavir
(two medications sold in one product under the Kaletra brand name); ribavirin
used to treat hepatitis C; and interferon beta-1b, which controls inflammation
and suppresses viral growth and helps cure multiple sclerosis.
The comparison group got only lopinavir-ritonavir, which
some doctors stopped using after a recent clinical trial found that results in
critically ill Covid-19 patients were not substantially improved.
Patients with the broader cocktail tested negative in seven
days on average compared to 12 days on average among those treated with
lopinavir-ritonavir alone. The cocktail also cut Covid-19 symptoms in half,
from eight days to four days.
In a major development that aims to significantly broaden
research capability in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration has approved
the first antigen test that can easily identify a person being infected with
coronavirus. The study, by San Diego's Quidel Company, obtained F.D.A.
emergency use authorization late Friday, according to a notice on the agency's
website.
Experts said authorizing a Covid-19 antigen test would
improve testing efforts by offering medical staff and health authorities a
cheap method for mass rapid research. Further evolved antigen tests also hold
promise for home use, including a home pregnancy kit.
A food line rises in wealthy Geneva.
Beginning before dawn, more than 1,500 people joined a food
line that extended half a mile or more across Geneva on Saturday, marking the
misery caused by steps to contain the coronavirus in one of the wealthiest and
most expensive cities in the world.
"They had to wait several hours to get a bag with food
worth around $20 in it, that's a symbol of the community's people," Djann
Jutzler said. a medical charity spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders, who
funded a local charity distribution.
With the number of virus cases dropping, Switzerland will
begin to ease its lockdown on Monday, enabling primary schools, stores,
restaurants and bars to open and restart public transport.
More than 30,000 Swiss contracted Covid-19 and more than
1,500 died, but on Friday officials reported only 43 new cases of infection,
marking a steady decline.
Demonstrations against Saturday's shutdown in Bern, the
capital, and other cities showed that public frustration; and Geneva's food
lines testify to increasing hardship.
Saturday's food handouts in Geneva were the second in a week
coordinated by Geneva Caravan, a local charity that cares for the elderly and
the needy, drawing much greater crowds than the first. A study of several
hundred people showed those without legal citizenship, and more than half
without medical benefits.
The lines could raise awareness of mounting needs.
Organizers who depend entirely on donations for rice, pasta, vegetable oil and
other essential commodities are seeing a growing public response. "People
are increasingly generous," Mr. Jutzler said.
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