World Coronavirus Dispatch: What socialising may look like after lockdowns

Pandemic fuels gun buying in America, Tens of thousands of Brazilians demand Bolsonaro's impeachment, and other pandemic-related news across the globe

China’s Guangzhou locks down neighborhood to contain Covid cases

A fresh coronavirus outbreak that has started spreading since May 21 has forced China’s southern metropolis Guangzhou to order a lockdown in neighbouring areas. Most infections are asymptomatic. On Saturday it reported 12 local cases and four imported ones. Residents have been barred from stepping out of their homes except for chosen family members to buy daily necessities. There was no mention of the length of the lockdown, or the number of people affected. Read here

Let's look at the global statistics

Global infections: 169,957,062

Global deaths: 3,533,769

Nations with most cases: US (33,251,979), India (27,894,800), Brazil (16,471,600), France (5,719,877), Turkey (5,235,978).

Source: John Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

Opinion: Will you have fewer friends after lockdown?

Owing to lockdown after lockdown in most parts of the world, what will socialising look like once curbs are lifted? Will we have fewer friends? An opinion piece in Bloomberg aruges that the absence of social contact probably won’t affect our inner layer of intimate contacts. But in our wider communities, “when we meet again in person, there will be just an edge of uncertainty as to whether the relationship is still the same.” Many may no longer be. This could mean that interesting changes are afoot in the coming months and years, within companies, neighborhoods, schools and other communities. Read here

Pandemic fuels gun buying in America at record levels

While gun sales have always been climbing for decades, Americans have been on an unusual, prolonged buying spree fueled by the coronavirus pandemic. Usually, they often spike in election years and after high-profile crimes. Not only were people who already had guns buying more, but people who had never owned one were buying them too. In March last year, federal background checks --- a proxy way to find gun buying --- topped one million in a week for the first time since the government began tracking them in 1998. And the buying continued, through the protests in the summer and the election in the fall, until a week this spring broke the record with 1.2 million background checks. Read more

Tens of thousands of Brazilians march to demand Bolsonaro’s impeachment

Tens of thousands of protesters have poured on to the streets of Brazil’s largest cities to demand the impeachment of President Jair Bolsonaro over his catastrophic response to a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed nearly half a million Brazilian lives. The demonstrators turned out in more than 200 cities and towns for what is the biggest anti-Bolsonaro mobilisation since Brazil’s Covid outbreak began. In Rio many marchers carried homemade placards remembering loved ones they have lost to an epidemic that has killed nearly 460,000 in the country. Read here