MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Spain let children go outside and play Sunday for the first time in six weeks as European countries methodically worked to ease their lockdowns and reopen their economies, while in the United States, governors moved at differing speeds, some more aggressive, others more cautious.
Elsewhere around the world, China’s state-run media said that hospitals in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the disaster, no longer have any COVID-19 patients, after a crisis in which the city recorded nearly 3,900 deaths. And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson planned to back at his desk Monday at 10 Downing St. after a bout with the coronavirus that put him in intensive care.
While governors in states like hard-hit New York and Michigan are keeping stay-at-home restrictions in place until at least mid-May, their counterparts in places such as Georgia, Oklahoma and Alaska are allowing certain businesses to reopen. And churches in Montana began holding in-person services again Sunday.
The official death toll from the virus topped 200,000 worldwide, with over 2.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, though the real figures are believed to be much higher, in part because of inadequate testing and differences in counting the dead.
Italy, Britain, Spain and France accounted for more than 20,000 deaths each, the U.S. for about 55,000.