Coronavirus Live Updates: Tangled Border Deals Replace Frictionless Travel
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a California church’s challenge to attendance limits. And the E.U. said it would continue to back the W.H.O. after President Trump announced the U.S. was ending its relationship with the health agency.
A person who attended crowded Memorial Day pool parties at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri has tested positive for the coronavirus, health officials said.
Domino Park in Brooklyn on Monday.Credit...Sarah Blesener for The New York Times
Major U.S. cities are edging back to normalcy. The world is full of cautionary tales.
Many of the most populous cities in the United States moved cautiously toward reopening key businesses on Friday.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said he expected New York City, where more than 20,000 people have diedfrom the virus, to meet several benchmarks that would allow retail stores to open for curbside or in-store pickup, as well as restarting nonessential construction and manufacturing. As many as 400,000 people could go back to work in that initial phase.
Other major cities that have faced death and economic calamity, like Washington and Los Angeles, also announced plans to continue their reopenings by allowing restaurants, hair salons and barbershops to open their doors, with new safety guidelines
Mr. Cuomo joins many officials around the world in deciding that the benefits of reviving economies outweigh the risks of new infections. But as the global coronavirus caseload approaches six million, other countries are learning that the risks don’t vanish overnight:
In South Korea, which successfully brought an early outbreak to heel, more than 800 schools have either closed their doors to students or pushed back reopening. The government also closed museums, parks and many other public facilities in the Seoul area on Friday.
In Canada, a growing number of shop workers are back on the job. But the return to work is likely to be uneasy for many people, particularly those in hard-hit places like nursing homes and meatpacking plants.
In Iraq, all travel between provinces has been stopped for a second time. Baghdad was almost completely still on Friday, and stay-at-home orders were enforced by neighborhood blockades
In Israel, where schools reopened weeks ago, more than 100 new cases were reported on Friday, the level that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned would prompt the reinstatement of a strict lockdown.
In Britain, where from Monday more outdoor social gatherings will be permitted and some schools are scheduled to reopen, at least three members of the government’s top scientific advisory panel have warned publicly against relaxing restrictions.
If the reopening of offices, restaurants and other public places has seemed dizzying, the rules on travel between nations are shaping up to be bewildering.
Travel bubbles and airline corridors to allow free movement between certain cities or countries, quarantines and an assortment of other measures add up to a puzzle for even the most intrepid traveler.
Nowhere are the logistical challenges more daunting than in Europe, where the pandemic brought a sudden return of borders between the 26 countries that are part of the so-called Schengen zone. Optimistic pronouncements about easing restrictions for summer travelers have run into the reality of a patchwork of policies.
It would be great if all this could be compressed into something easy to understand, but it is a very complex picture,” said Adalbert Jahnz, a spokesman for home affairs, migration and citizenship at the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.
For instance, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece are expected to open borders to each other on June 1. Greece, desperate to save its tourism industry, also released an expanded list on Friday of 29 countries from which it will allow travel starting June 15.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have started implementing a similar arrangement.
France, Germany and other West European nations have talked about easing border controls to other E.U. member states on June 15, the day the European Commission’s guidance calling for the suspension of nonessential travel into the E.U. will expire.
Travel from outside the bloc may prove an even more difficult question.
If the European border-free zone is restored, then when one country lets in travelers from outside, it means that every country has effectively done so.
The European Commission, which can only offer guidance, is still discussing what posture to take. But officials said that a middle position — more targeted restrictions on countries based on criteria like virus caseloads — was unlikely to be attractive, because it would create a whole set of scientific, diplomatic and political challenges.
Countries elsewhere are also reviewing travel restrictions. Hong Kong says it will allow airline passengers to transit through its airport from Monday, after suspending the service on March 25. But all passengers connecting to other flights through Hong Kong International Airport will be subject to coronavirus screening, including temperature checks, and they risk being placed into a 14-day government quarantine if they show a high temperature and test positive for Covid-19.
The border between Germany and Belgium.
The border between Germany and Belgium.
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