Gaza, already under siege, imposes quarantine
AS BORDERS CLOSE, businesses shut and much of the world adjusts to being locked down, residents of Gaza can only look on with grim amusement. Isolation is nothing new for the territory’s 2m Palestinians. They have been under blockade since 2007, when Hamas, a militant group, seized power after winning a majority in legislative elections.…
Africa is woefully ill-equipped to cope with covid-19
Mar 26th 2020ADDIS ABABA, GOMA, JOHANNESBURG AND KAMPALA“IN THE TOWNSHIP people are not worried at all,” says Lesedi Kgasago, a student from Soweto, Johannesburg. Among his friends “corona” is seen either as something that afflicts white people or a fiction. When life is a struggle it is hard to worry about a threat you cannot…
Supermarket Tosses Out $35K of Food After Customer Purposely Coughs On It
A supermarket in Pennsylvania says it had to throw away roughly $35,000 worth of food after a woman deliberately coughed on items around the store. Co-owner of Gerrity’s Supermarket, Joe Fasula, depicted how their store had a “very challenging day” after a female coughed on some of their bakery section, meat items, and the fresh…
How to pay for the pandemic
The world is entering a new era of sovereign-debt managementMar 25th 2020Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For more coverage, see our coronavirus hubTHIS IS NO time to fret…
India and Pakistan try to keep a fifth of humanity at home
But for many in the subcontinent, the restrictions mean instant ruinEditor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For more coverage, see our coronavirus hubON MARCH 17th Imran Khan, the prime…
Dupe Who Licked Toilet Bowl in ‘Coronavirus Challenge’ Now in Hospital
The ‘coronavirus challenge’ started after a TikTok influencer shared a video of herself licking a toilet seat on a plane as somebody says “it’s corona time.” A man who tapped himself licking a toilet bowl in the dubbed “coronavirus challenge” is reportedly ill now in a hospital with the life-threatening germ. The man can be…
Strip Club Forced To Shutdown, So Dancers Now Do Delivery
Lucky Devil Lounge in Portland was forced to close down. However, the executive order does permit food establishments to offer delivery or take-out. Portland makes it work. Close down her exotic dance clubs, and dancers will still deliver. And thus was born lounge proprietor Shon Boulden’s latest business: Boober Eats. The deliver-to-home service, in which…
It’s official: coronavirus puts off the Tokyo Olympics
Postponement, long inevitable, suits Japan’s prime minister better than cancellationMar 24th 2020Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. “THE PREPARATIONS for the games are, as we have repeatedly stated, making…
Japan’s cherry blossoms in a time of coronavirus
Hanami parties celebrate the beauty, and fragility, of lifeMar 23rd 2020EVERY MARCH and April trees along the banks of the Meguro river in Tokyo fleetingly erupt with fat pink and white cherry blossoms, heralding the arrival of spring. For a few glorious weeks, millions of people across the city flee the drudgery of the office…
The Maldives is threatened by jihadism and covid-19
THE ARRIVAL of covid-19 in the Maldives was hardly surprising, since 1.5m tourists from all around the world visit the Indian-Ocean archipelago every year. By March 18th 13 foreigners had been declared infected, although there have not yet been any confirmed cases among locals.But a no less dangerous contagion—Muslim extremism—is also afflicting the islands. On…