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 Italy's lockdown exit: It's a family affair
Italy is among the countries easing social distancing restrictions
on Monday, including reopening factories, construction sites,
hairdressers and libraries. Others include Spain, Nigeria,
Azerbaijan, Malaysia and Lebanon.
But in Italy, the hardest hit country in Europe with the longest
lockdown, confusion reigns.
Guidelines issued by the government over the weekend noted that
visits to distant relatives will be allowed, including the children
of cousins, or the cousins of spouses, as well as visits to anyone
with whom one has "a stable bond of affection".
But they did not say whether friendship counted as a stable bond of
affection, until an off-the-record message to media outlets from the
prime minister's office explained that visits to friends are still
not permitted.
A warning from India
Agra, famed for the 17th-century marble-domed Taj Mahal, was lauded
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government as a template for
India's battle against COVID-19.
After confirming its first cases in early March, the city of 1.6
million people set up containment zones based on detailed
household-level plans developed for polio control by the World
Health Organization (WHO). It also screened hundreds of thousands of
residents and conducted widespread contact tracing.
By early April, the northern city thought it had the virus beat. But
it turns out a resurgence was already in the works, fuelled by
attendees to a gathering of the Islamic missionary group Tablighi
Jamaat in New Delhi in late March: Agra now has around 600
coronavirus cases and 14 deaths.
Trans-Tasman travel bubble?
New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a
"travel bubble" between the two countries.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will take part in a
meeting of Australia's emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, the
Australian government said, stoking speculation that two-way travel
over the Tasman Sea could be permitted.
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Shopping with a vengeance...
In South Korea, shoppers and travellers crowded malls and beaches on the first
long weekend since the country began easing coronavirus curbs last month.
With early-summer weather helping retail therapy return with a vengeance, the
term "bobok sobi" - revenge shopping - has trended on the nation's social media.
There is no malice intended. The phrase describes the bounce-back in spending as
people rush to make purchases delayed by social-distancing rules.
...vs. #ditchyourstuff minimalism
In marked contrast to the euphoric spending seen in South Korea, for a growing
number of Chinese hit by job losses, furloughs and salary cuts, the consumer
economy has begun to spin in reverse. They are no longer buying - they are
selling.
Instead of emerging from the coronavirus epidemic and returning to the shopping
habits that helped drive the world's second-largest economy, many young people
are offloading possessions and embracing a new-found ethic for hard times: less
is more.
The goat and the pawpaw
Tanzania has pulled from circulation coronavirus test kits that have returned
positive results on samples taken from ... a goat and a pawpaw.
The discovery came after local security forces were asked to check the quality
of the kits. They randomly obtained several non-human samples, including from a
pawpaw, a goat and a sheep.
The kits themselves were imported from abroad - where exactly has yet to be
disclosed.
(Compiled by Mark John and Karishma Singh; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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