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Three months ago, public health officials feared that America would be swamped by Covid-19 like Italy. Today, the U.S. would be lucky to swap its coronavirus crisis for theirs. Italy’s sudden surge of coronavirus in March swamped hospitals, pushed the nation into a strict lockdown and forced its doctors to ration life-saving ventilators. About 200,000 Italians were sickened and 29,000 died from the virus by May 1 alone. Global health officials seized on Italy — as the first country outside of China to be battered by the virus — as a disturbing case study for the rest of the world. In private meetings, White House officials worried that Italy was a preview of the storm about to hit the U.S. health system. (Diamond, 6/22)

More than two-thirds of those new deaths were reported in the Americas. In Spain, officials ended a national state of emergency after three months of lockdown, allowing its 47 million residents to freely travel around the country for the first time since March 14. The country also dropped a 14-day quarantine for visitors from Britain and the 26 European countries that allow visa-free travel. But there was only a trickle of travelers at Madrid-Barajas Airport, which on a normal June day would be bustling. (Wilson and Keaten, 6/21)

Beijing will see a “cliff-like” drop in new cases in the current coronavirus outbreak by the end of this week with efforts to control the spread of infections in the Chinese capital underway, said an expert at the national health authority. (6/22)

At an apartment complex in southern Beijing that is under lockdown, residents could not leave their homes in a gated cluster of low-rise brick buildings. Uniformed security guards and medical workers in protective gear watched the gate. Around the corner in the Baizhifang neighborhood lay a different world. Shops were open. A supermarket was doing a brisk business. Residents came and went and seemed unfazed by a new coronavirus outbreak. “It should not be as serious as last time,” said Johnny Zhao, a resident who wore a white face mask as he walked toward the supermarket. “The government is very experienced now.” (Bradsher and Buckley, 6/19)

Italy’s Health Ministry is asking government advisers to evaluate new World Health Organization recommendations saying that people with COVID-19 can come out of isolation before they test negative for the coronavirus. The WHO last week said patients who spent 10 consecutive days in isolation with symptoms can be released if they are then symptom-free for at least three days. People who don’t develop COVID-19 symptoms can stop isolating 10 days after they first test positive, according to WHO’s revised guidelines. (Winfield, 6/21)

When Finland shut its border with Sweden to stop the spread of coronavirus, it felt to Swedish lawmaker Ida Karkiainen like a throwback to the Cold War. Years of integration between her northern Sweden home town of Haparanda and the conjoined Finnish town of Tornio were frozen at a stroke as fences were put up to split the community along an international border that residents had long worked to erase. (Duxbury, 6/21)

It began with a dry cough, weakness and back pain. For Reagan Taban Augustino, part of South Sudan’s small corps of health workers trained in treating COVID-19 patients, there was little doubt what he had. Days later, hardly able to breathe, the 33-year-old doctor discovered just how poorly equipped his country is for the coronavirus pandemic: None of the public facilities he tried in the capital, Juba, had oxygen supplies available until he reached South Sudan’s only permanent infectious disease unit, which has fewer than 100 beds for a country of 12 million people. (Ajak and Anna, 6/22)

When the skies darkened suddenly over Michael Gatiba's 10-acre farm in Nakuru County, Kenya, what came pouring down stunned him: millions of desert locusts. "It was like a storm," Gatiba, 45, said by telephone. "It was like hail. They covered everywhere. Even there was no sun." That was three months ago. Although Gatiba said he was lucky that the damage from the insects was minimal, he fears that the outbreak that has plagued swaths of Africa, the Middle East and Asia for the past two years will return to ravage his maize and bean crops. (Givetash, 6/22)

In Baghdad’s vast exhibition grounds, masked workers lugged hospital beds into rows for makeshift coronavirus wards, as doctors and officials sounded the alarm Sunday over a surge in virus cases in the capital. The long-dreaded scenario is gripping the country amid a severe economic crisis brought on by plummeting oil prices. But with a widening budget deficit, doctors are running low on medical equipment, including key protective gear. A cap on new hires is also expected to strain the already over-stretched system. (Kullab and Abdul-Zahra, 6/21)

The world saw the largest daily increases yet in coronavirus cases, with infections soaring in India’s rural villages after migrant workers fled major cities. India’s coronavirus caseload climbed by nearly 15,000 as of Monday to 425,282, with more than 13,000 deaths, the health ministry reported. After easing the nationwide lockdown, the Indian government has run special trains to return thousands of migrant workers to their natal villages in recent weeks. (Schmall and Kurtenbach, 6/22)

It hasn’t been the longest, nor has it been the deadliest. But the Ebola outbreak that has ravaged a corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for much of the past two years has been one of the most challenging on record. With some long overdue luck, the outbreak will be declared over later this week. (Branswell, 6/22)

Germany’s coronavirus reproduction rate jumped to 2.88 on Sunday, up from 1.79 a day earlier, health authorities said, a rate showing infections are rising above the level needed to contain the disease over the longer term. (6/21)

Health authorities in South Korea said for the first time on Monday it is in the midst of a “second wave” of novel coronavirus infections focused around its densely populated capital, stemming from a holiday in May. (Smith, 6/22)

The coronavirus is spreading in Pakistan at one of the fastest rates in the world, and overwhelmed hospitals are turning away patients. But the government is pushing ahead with opening up the country, trying to salvage a near-collapsed economy where millions have already slid into poverty from pandemic restrictions. Further complicating the dilemma, as the government pins its main hope for stemming the virus’ rampage on social distancing and masks, many in the public ignore calls to use them. (Gannon, 6/22)

Confined to her Paris apartment with three young children, her husband and a dog during the city’s strict eight-week lockdown, Kate Gambey began fantasizing about something she never thought she would: a country house. “I’m such a city girl,” said Ms. Gambey, an American married to a Frenchman. She made Paris her home nearly a decade ago but is now searching for a new home some 30 to 150 miles southwest of Paris. “Right now it’s a question of how and where do we survive this best.” (Bender, 6/21)

Sports leagues around the world have acknowledged that the only way to restart competition is to test all their players for the novel coronavirus. For businesses, the same idea is gaining ground: stepping in with testing where government-run efforts are lagging. In Japan, a telecom magnate, Masayoshi Son, has taken the lead with a combination of antibody and diagnostic tests that offer a model for others as parts of the world look to reopen their economies. (Denyer, 6/21)

Martín Mateo had a cold. Or so he thought: sore throat, body aches, runny nose. “He felt bad but kept working,” said his son, Carlos. The 50-year-old father had labored for decades as a tomatero — a tomato man — at Latin America’s biggest food market.Coronavirus? He didn’t believe in it.Then he started gasping for breath. Within days, he was dead. By then, scores of Mateo’s fellow tomateros also were infected. Workers hoisted yellow signs outside the market reading “High Contagion Zone.” At least 10 tomato men died from mid-April to mid-May. (Sheridan, 6/21)

A study of the wildlife trade in three provinces in southern Vietnam produced startlingly clear confirmation for one of the underlying objections to the wildlife trade in Asia — the trading offers an ideal opportunity for viruses in one animal to infect another. In field rats, a highly popular animal to eat in Vietnam and neighboring countries, the percentage that tested positive for at least one of six different coronaviruses jumped significantly. It increased from 20 percent of wild-caught rats sold by traders, to slightly more than 30 percent at large markets, the next step in the supply chain, to 55 percent of rats sold in restaurants that tested positive. (Gorman, 6/19)

Jeus Joaquin helped New Zealand beat back the coronavirus as the nation’s confirmed cases gradually fell to zero in May. During New Zealand’s 49-day lockdown, the 34-year-old emergency department nurse treated covid-19 patients at Thames Hospital, on the country’s North Island. Essential workers like him were lauded as heroes as New Zealand’s international prestige soared. (New Zealand has since seen three new cases.) But the victory against the virus came at a cost, and Joaquin is among those paying it. (Berger, 6/20)

Europeans are enjoying the gradual easing of coronavirus lockdown measures, but in hospitals they are already preparing for the next wave of infections. Some intensive care specialists are trying to hire more permanent staff. Others want to create a reservist “army” of medical professionals ready to be deployed wherever needed to work in wards with seriously ill patients. (Guarascio, 6/22)

The U.K. government will reduce its two-meter social distancing rule this week, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed, following intense pressure from the hospitality industry that it makes profitable operations impossible. There have been rumors for weeks that the government would ditch the rule in favor of a shorter distance as is the case in several European countries, but ministers have been reluctant to pre-empt the outcome of a review of the measure. Pubs and restaurants are due to reopen on July 4, but the industry has warned that keeping customers 2 meters apart — a little over 6 feet — to reduce the spread of coronavirus is impossible for many establishments. (Randerson, 6/21)

In the gilded halls of the Palais de Versailles, visitors stop to marvel at the crystal chandeliers, Marie-Antoinette’s brocade-hung four-poster bed and the portraits of Napoleon drawn up to his full — if diminutive — height. Then it’s on to the famous Hall of Mirrors, given a good dusting during the coronavirus lockdown for the first time since 2007, and the gory Gallery of Great Battles that, as a guidebook says, “depicts nearly 15 centuries of French military successes.” (Willsher, 6/21)