Tag: Updates

Here’s what you need to know:

Darwin Albania received a vaccine dose in Miami last week.Credit…Saul Martinez for The New York Times

President Biden will announce Tuesday afternoon that he is directing tens of thousands of pharmacies to offer walk-in appointments for coronavirus vaccine shots, creating more pop-up and mobile clinics and shipping more doses to rural clinics, all aimed at vaccinating 70 percent of American adults at least partially by July 4.

The efforts reflect a shift in strategy by the administration as the pace of the nation’s vaccination effort slows. The federal government has also decided that if states do not order their full allocation of doses in any given week, that supply can be shifted to other states that want more.

In an afternoon address, the president plans to pledge more funding for outreach campaigns designed to convince those reluctant to get shots of the need to protect their own health and that of others. The number of shots administered daily has slowed by about half since a peak in mid-April, despite a flood of vaccine available.

Senior health officials have decided that herd immunity — the point at which the virus dies out for lack of hosts to transmit it — will likely remain elusive. But if the 70 percent to 85 percent of the population is vaccinated, the infection rate will be low enough so that normal life will be within reach, senior administration officials said.

The president will call for about 160 million adults to be fully vaccinated by Independence Day. As of Monday, more than 105 million Americans were fully vaccinated and at least 56 percent of adults — or 147 million people — had received at least one shot. That has contributed to a steep decline in infections, hospitalization and deaths across all age groups, federal officials said.

To increase availability of shots, the White House informed states that if they choose not to order their full allocation of vaccine each week, the doses will go back into a federal pool so that other states can draw on it, according to state and federal officials.

States that do not claim their full allotment one week will not be penalized because they will still be able to request the full amount the next week, officials said.

The shift, reported earlier Tuesday by The Washington Post, makes little difference to some states like Virginia that have routinely drawn down as many doses as the federal government was willing to ship. But it could help some states that are able to use more doses than the federal government allotted to them based on their population. They will now be allowed to ask for up to 50 percent more doses than the government allotted them.

Until now, White House officials had been unwilling to shift doses to states that were faster to administer them out of concern that rural areas or underserved communities would lose out to urban or richer areas where residents were more willing to get shots.

But with the pace of vaccination slowing nationwide, officials have determined that freeing up unused doses week by week will not exacerbate equity issues Some state officials have been arguing for the change for weeks.

United States ›	United StatesOn May 3	14-day change
New cases	50,058	–26%
New deaths	751	–3%

World ›	WorldOn May 3	14-day change
New cases	682,232	+6%
New deaths	10,714	+12%

U.S. vaccinations ›

In Midtown Manhattan last week.Credit…Gabby Jones for The New York Times

Three U.S. states that were once at the center of the pandemic — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — are taking steps to relax nearly all their coronavirus restrictions, raising hopes among many residents that life is returning to normal, but causing angst for others who are still worried about the virus.

Many people who own or work for establishments that have been hard hit by pandemic closures, like restaurants and bars, nightclubs and cultural institutions, expressed optimism.

But for some others, it may be too soon to celebrate.

Felipe Perez, 48, a construction worker who lives in Brooklyn, said that he did not trust Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s move to ease capacity limits for nearly all businesses starting on May 19.

“It’s too fast,” Mr. Perez added.

Mr. Cuomo’s plan says businesses should still abide by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social distancing guidelines requiring six feet of separation between people.

Businesses that monitor whether everyone inside has been vaccinated or has a negative coronavirus test can allow more people inside, as can restaurants that introduce barriers between tables.

Mr. Cuomo said that the New York City subway, which has been closed nightly to allow for thorough cleaning since last May, will resume operating 24 hours a day on May 17.

About 80,000 municipal workers in the city had already returned to the office when the governor announced the reopening plan.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on NY1 Monday night that it was time for remote municipal workers to return, even though some may still have concerns about the virus.

Mr. de Blasio said that returning to the office was a necessary step “so we can supercharge this recovery,” adding that the city would continue safety precautions like requiring workers to wear masks in the office.

The mayor said last week that he hoped to reopen the city on July 1, more than a month after the timeline Mr. Cuomo laid out on Monday. The accelerated reopening is the latest in a series of conflicting announcements and political squabbles between the mayor and governor.

“I don’t tend to be surprised by his particular choices lately, let’s put it that way,” Mr. de Blasio said.

Some major employers in the city, like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, will require that their employees return to the office this summer.

Other industries were somewhat taken aback by the announcement. New York City’s theaters and arts venues, for instance, will now face pressure to expedite productions and will have to work around the social distancing requirements.

Broadway is not expected to reopen until September, the Broadway League said in a recent statement. Many performing arts organizations are waiting for clarity about seating rules before putting tickets on sale.

Across the Hudson River, Al Pilone, who has owned the Our Hero sandwich shop in Jersey City, N.J., for 40 years, was reluctant to leap back to normal.

Mr. Pilone, 72, said the shop had been operating through most of the pandemic, but that he was wary about resuming indoor dining, which New Jersey establishments have been allowed to do with limitations since last summer.

He said he was waiting until 70 to 80 percent of the population is vaccinated, because “I don’t want to subject the staff to anybody if I don’t know they’ve vaccinated.”

According to a New York Times database, the average number of new cases reported daily has dropped by 44 percent or more in all three states over the past two weeks, as of Monday, and more than one-third of each state’s population has been fully vaccinated.

Still, experts have warned that in New York, and some other major cities, the slowing pace of vaccinations, the prevalence of undervaccinated areas and the spread of worrisome variants mean that the pandemic is far from over, and that reopening might be premature.

“It just seems poorly thought through, and almost a little reckless,” Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist at the City University of New York, said Monday.

In the nation’s other large cities, plans for reopening have been mixed amid shifting case counts as vaccinations roll out.

In Chicago, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Tuesday that she plans to fully reopen the city by July 4, officials already have relaxed many restrictions on restaurants, churches, bars and other indoor gatherings, and allowed popular street festivals to resume this summer.

In Los Angeles, restrictions on restaurants were loosened early last month, and in Anaheim, Disneyland reopened on Friday. And that other symbol of California life seems to have returned as well: Traffic is back on the highways.

But in Seattle’s King County, where restaurants and other businesses are still under orders to have a maximum capacity of 50 percent, state leaders are considering a plan to restore more restrictions on Tuesday amid a rise in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

Reporting was contributed by Nate Schweber, Kevin Armstrong, Winnie Hu, Luis Ferré-Sadurní Kate Kelly, Julie Bosman, Manny Fernandez and Mike Baker.

A Covid-19 patient receives oxygen in a parked car while waiting for a hospital bed to become available in New Delhi, as a volunteer checks her oxygen saturation level.Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times

India on Tuesday passed the milestone of 20 million reported coronavirus cases, with many more undetected, according to experts, spurring new calls for a national lockdown.

With those reported numbers, India became the second country after the United States to cross 20 million infections. Although aid has begun to pour in from other countries, hospitals are still unable to help many of those who are critically ill, and families have been left to hunt for much-needed oxygen.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been sharply criticized by many for underplaying the virus earlier this year, and on Tuesday the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said a national lockdown was desperately needed, calling it “the only option.”

Mr. Gandhi accused the authorities of helping the virus spread. “A crime has been committed against India,” he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Modi has been reluctant to impose strict nationwide lockdown measures like the ones last spring, which remained in place for months.

While experts say that the lockdown helped reduce the number of cases in the first wave of the pandemic, it also triggered the biggest internal migration since the partition of the country in 1947. Millions of workers fled the cities, dealing a blow to the economy.

The economy had been recovering in recent months, but the current wave of disease has dampened hopes for a full recovery, and Mr. Modi asked states to consider lockdowns as “a last option.” Many states, including some governed by Mr. Modi’s party and its allies, have issued stay-at-home orders.

The regional authorities in Bihar in eastern India on Tuesday ordered a two-week lockdown. The southern state of Kerala also announced restrictions this week. The states of Maharashtra, Delhi and Karnataka already have lockdowns, and many states have weekend and night curfews.

Amid the scramble to try to contain the virus, the Indian Premier League announced on Tuesday that it was suspending all the remaining matches of the season after several players and staff tested positive. The league had drawn intense criticism for going ahead with its matches in cities that have been among the worst hit.

Made up of eight teams, the Indian Premier League is the biggest cricket league in the world.

Since the league’s season started last month, some of the biggest cricket stars have traveled across the country in so-called bubbles and played in empty stadiums. But even the stringent safety protocols couldn’t stop team members from being infected. At least five people on three teams have tested positive. The competition had been scheduled to finish at the end of the month.

“These are difficult times, especially in India and while we have tried to bring in some positivity and cheer, however, it is imperative that the tournament is now suspended and everyone goes back to their families and loved ones in these trying times,” the league said in a statement.

India reported over 368,000 new cases and 3,417 deaths on Monday. It has reported more than 222,000 Covid-19 deaths, although actual figures are most likely much higher.

With aid being shipped from countries like the United States and Britain, there was hope among weary residents that the situation could start easing.

Eight oxygen generator plants from France, each of which can supply 250 hospital beds, were earmarked for six hospitals in Delhi and one each in Haryana and Telangana, states in northern and southern India. One of the generators was installed at the Narayana hospital in Delhi within hours of being delivered, according to The Times of India. Italy has also donated an oxygen generation plant and 20 ventilators.

As criticism has mounted over the delay in dispatching oxygen concentrators and other equipment, the government announced on Monday that it was waiving all duties and taxes on lifesaving equipment and relief material that had been donated. But the authorities have faced calls for more transparency on the deployment of the international aid shipments.

The Indian Red Cross receives all shipments that arrive by air, then hands them over to a government agency in charge of distributing the supplies based on regional requests. The authorities have released a list of hospitals that received aid shipments, but did not specify which equipment was going where.

Keidy Ventura, 17, received a dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine in West New York, N.J., last month.Credit…Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Medical experts welcomed the news that the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine could be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for use in adolescents ages 12 to 15 by early next week, a major step forward in the U.S. vaccination campaign.

Vaccinating children is key to raising the level of immunity in the population, experts say, and to bringing down the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. And it could put school administrators, teachers and parents at ease if millions of adolescent students soon become eligible for vaccinations before the next academic year begins in September.

Pfizer’s trial in adolescents showed that its vaccine was at least as effective in them as it was in adults. The F.D.A. is preparing to add an amendment covering that age group to the vaccine’s existing emergency use authorization by early next week, according to federal officials familiar with the agency’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and the father of two adolescent daughters, said the approval would be a big moment for families like his.

“It just ends all concerns about being able to have a pretty normal fall for high schoolers,” he said. “It’s great for them, it’s great for schools, for families who have kids in this age range.”

This is big. FDA set to authorize Pfizer for 12-15 year-olds. Soon

About 16 million humans in this age group in US

Getting them vaccinated will help US effort to get high levels of population immunity

I have 2 such humans at home ready to get the shothttps://t.co/aXjYxE8ddL

— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) May 3, 2021

But with demand for vaccines falling among adult Americans — and much of the world clamoring for the surplus of American-made vaccines — some experts said the United States should donate excess shots to India and other countries that have had severe outbreaks.

“From an ethical perspective, we should not be prioritizing people like them over people in countries like India,” Dr. Rupali J. Limaye, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who studies vaccine use, said of adolescents.

Dr. Jha said that the United States now had a big enough vaccine supply to both inoculate younger Americans and aid the rest of the world. As of Monday, the United States had about 65 million doses delivered but not administered, including 31 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to figures collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 105 million adults in the United States have been fully vaccinated. But the United States is in the middle of a delicate and complex push to reach the 44 percent of adults who have not yet received even one shot.

While adolescents so far appear to be mostly spared from severe Covid-19, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top Covid adviser, has repeatedly stressed the importance of expanding vaccination efforts to include them and even younger children. In March, Dr. Fauci said that he expected that high schoolers could be vaccinated by fall and elementary school students by early 2022.

Dr. Richard Malley, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, said that immunizing adolescents was worthwhile because they can spread the virus, even if they transmit it at a lower rate than adults.

A group of activists gathered outside City Hall to call for an extension of the moratorium on evictions and for a roll back of the city’s rents for tenants in New York on Monday.Credit…Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

New York State lawmakers on Monday passed legislation that would extend a statewide moratorium on residential and commercial evictions through Aug. 31.

The extension would provide additional relief for tenants, who have had broad protection from being taken to housing court since the start of the pandemic, just as New York is expected to start distributing $2.4 billion in rental assistance to struggling renters.

That financial aid will provide up to a year’s worth of unpaid rent and utilities, a financial lifesaver for not just tenants but also their landlords, many of whom have endured more than a year of little income.

Together, the moratorium extension and rental assistance comes just as New York State, along with New Jersey and Connecticut, announced plans to lift almost all their pandemic restrictions later this month, offering a chance to boost the economy a year after the region became a center of the pandemic.

The state’s eviction moratorium would extend the state’s previous protections, which expired on May 1, and goes further than the nationwide moratorium, which expires on June 30 and were imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new state eviction order would go into effect once Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signs it into law.

Since the start of the pandemic, nearly 49,000 eviction cases have been filed in New York City Housing Court, the highest number among any American city, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. While most evictions are on pause, cases can still be filed with the courts.

An analysis of court data shows that the areas in New York City hit hardest by the virus — largely Black and Latino neighborhoods in the Bronx and Queens — have had the highest number of eviction cases. On average, renters owe $8,150 in unpaid rent, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, a coalition of housing nonprofits.

Tenants cannot be evicted if they can show a financial or health hardship because of the pandemic. Lawmakers said that without an eviction moratorium, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, if not more, could be at risk of losing their homes.

In addition to protections for renters, the new legislation in New York would also safeguard smaller landlords who have been unable to pay their mortgages, protecting them from tax lien sales or foreclosures. Commercial tenants with fewer than 50 employees can also file a hardship declaration to receive eviction protections.

global roundup

Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia spoke to reporters in Sydney last month.Credit…Joel Carrett/EPA, via Shutterstock

The Australian authorities have faced a growing backlash from human rights groups and opposition politicians after they barred Australian citizens stranded in India from coming home, prompted by India’s record-breaking Covid-19 outbreak.

It is a travel ban with no equivalent in other democratic countries. Introduced on Monday and in place until May 15, it wields a possible punishment of up to five years in prison and a fine equivalent to about $50,000 for anyone trying to return from India. It is believed to be the first time that Australia has made it a criminal offense for its citizens and permanent residents to enter.

Michael Slater, an Australian cricket commentator who was in India covering the sport, said in a tweet on Monday that the ban was a “disgrace” and a form of government neglect. “Blood on your hands PM,” Mr. Slater wrote, referring to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

After the policy was announced, the Australian Human Rights Commission said it raised “serious human rights concerns,” and Tim Soutphommasane, Australia’s former race discrimination commissioner, wrote in The Guardian that the measure “undermines the very status of citizenship.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Morrison said that it was “highly unlikely” that anyone would be fined or go to jail for breaching the ban.

In an interview with the Australian broadcaster 9News, he said that the likelihood of imprisonment under the rule was “pretty much zero” and defended it as a necessary safety measure.

“I’m not going to fail Australia,” Mr. Morrison said. “I’m going to protect our borders at this time.”

In other news from around the world:

• The European Union’s drug regulator has begun a rolling review of China’s Sinovac vaccine for Covid-19. The European Medicines Agency said on Tuesday that it would review laboratory and clinical-trial data provided by the company until it could determine that the vaccine’s benefits outweighed its risks and if it was fit to receive authorization. The World Health Organization has also been reviewing Sinovac’s vaccine and one manufactured by the Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm, with decisions expected this month.

• Tourists traveling to Italy won’t need to quarantine starting after mid-May, Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced on Tuesday, anticipating the introduction of a European Digital Green Pass for travelers. Visitors will be able to enter and travel through the country only if they are fully vaccinated or can show a negative PCR test taken in the 72 hours before traveling to Italy. They will still need to respect restrictions like wearing masks and keeping social distance. “We look forward to welcoming you again soon,” Mr. Draghi said at a news conference.

• After a major dairy product manufacturer in South Korea was accused of deliberately spreading misinformation that one of its drinks could fend off the coronavirus, the chairman and chief executive tendered their resignations this week. Local news media reported that sales of the Bulgaris yogurt drink and stocks for Namyang Dairy Products both soared after a research director claimed at a conference last month that the drink reduced the chances of contracting the coronavirus by more than 70 percent. Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety accused the company of illegally spreading misleading information, and the police raided Namyang’s headquarters and factory last week.

President Xi Jinping on a screen in Beijing last month. The Chinese government’s aggressive brand of “wolf warrior” diplomacy has drawn criticism from other countries.Credit…Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Even in China, where propaganda has become increasingly pugnacious, the display was jarring: A photograph of a Chinese rocket poised to blast into space juxtaposed with a cremation pyre in India, which has been overwhelmed by a wave of coronavirus infections.

“Chinese ignition versus Indian ignition,” the title read.

The image drew a backlash from internet users who called it callous, and it was taken down on the same day by the Communist Party-run news service that posted it. But it has lingered as a provocative example of a broader theme running through China’s state-run media, which often celebrates the country’s success in curbing coronavirus infections while highlighting the failings of others.

Chinese leaders have expressed sympathy and offered medical help to India, and the controversy may soon pass. But it has exposed how swaggering Chinese propaganda can collide with Beijing’s efforts to make friends abroad.

“You’ve had this growing tension between internal and external messaging,” said Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin who studies Chinese propaganda. Ms. Ohlberg said of the Chinese authorities, “They have an increasing number of interests internationally, but ultimately what it boils down to is that your primary target audience still lives at home.”

A woman pleaded for oxygen for her husband at a Sikh temple, in Ghaziabad, India, on Monday.Credit…Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Savita Mullapudi, an international development consultant in Pittsburgh, heard the ping of a WhatsApp message on her phone around 4 p.m. on Thursday. The sender was a former colleague who, like her, was an Indian immigrant who had lived in the United States for years. He had an urgent favor to ask.

With India’s health care system overwhelmed by the nation’s unprecedented Covid-19 surge and hospitals running out of lifesaving oxygen, an Indian charity was scrambling to find oxygen concentrators, which filter oxygen from the air. One manufacturer was based in Pittsburgh. Could Ms. Mullapudi visit the site to vet the equipment?

Like many members of the Indian diaspora who have watched and mobilized from afar as a deadly second wave of the coronavirus has swept across India in recent weeks, Ms. Mullapudi, whose parents and in-laws live there, leapt at the opportunity to help. She called the company a few minutes later but was told the earliest date for a visit was May 8 — far too late.

So Ms. Mullapudi, 44, said she did “the next-best thing.” She asked a few local doctor friends to tap their networks in Pittsburgh and across Pennsylvania for their opinions of the company and the quality of its products.

By 9 a.m. the next day, she had received texts and long emails from medical professionals and hospital executives with “rave reviews” of the manufacturer, she recalled, as well as detailed descriptions of the machines’ electricity costs and how long they lasted.

Savita Mullapudi reached out to medical professionals in Pittsburgh in an effort to help with oxygen supply in India.Credit…Aria M. Narasimhan

“The minute I said ‘India Covid,’ I was inundated with responses,” Ms. Mullapudi said. “These networks of people that we all work with or know as friends just churned it around, and that’s what really gave the organization confidence to go ahead.”

Before noon on Friday, the foundation ordered more than 400 oxygen concentrators to be flown to India. Though Ms. Mullapudi described her role as just “one drop in an ocean,” she acknowledged the profound impact of so many small acts of human kindness in the face of such dire challenges.

“Eventually it’s just people helping people,” she said. “That’s the story of hope.”

Pfizer’s vaccine is disproportionately reaching the world’s rich.Credit…Dado Ruvic/Reuters

On Tuesday, Pfizer announced that its Covid vaccine brought in $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, nearly a quarter of its total revenue. The vaccine was, far and away, Pfizer’s biggest source of revenue, report Rebecca Robbins and Peter S. Goodman of The New York Times.

The company did not disclose the profits it derived from the vaccine, but it reiterated its previous prediction that its profit margins on the vaccine would be in the high 20 percent range. That would translate into roughly $900 million in pretax vaccine profits in the first quarter.

Pfizer has been widely credited with developing an unproven technology that has saved an untold number of lives.

But the company’s vaccine is disproportionately reaching the world’s rich — an outcome, so far at least, at odds with its chief executive’s pledge to ensure that poorer countries “have the same access as the rest of the world” to a vaccine that is highly effective at preventing Covid-19.

As of mid-April, wealthy countries had secured more than 87 percent of the more than 700 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines dispensed worldwide, while poor countries had received only 0.2 percent, according to the World Health Organization. In wealthy countries, roughly one in four people has received a vaccine. In poor countries, the figure is one in 500.

Foreign domestic workers waited to be tested for the coronavirus in Hong Kong on Sunday.Credit…Jerome Favre/EPA, via Shutterstock

The Hong Kong government on Tuesday backpedaled from a plan to require coronavirus vaccinations for all foreign domestic workers after several days of sharp criticism from foreign diplomatic missions and some residents, who called the requirement discriminatory.

Officials had announced on Friday that the domestic workers — largely low-paid, female migrants from Southeast Asia who clean, cook and perform other household tasks — would have to be vaccinated in order to renew their employment contracts. The government has not issued vaccination requirements for any other group in the city, including other foreign workers.

But officials said it was necessary after two domestic workers recently tested positive for variant strains of the coronavirus. Sophia Chan, the secretary for food and health, said that because domestic workers had a habit of “mingling” with each other during their time off — which, under Hong Kong law, is only one day a week — the entire group of roughly 370,000 workers was considered high-risk.

Hong Kong’s vaccine uptake has been slow, and none of its major outbreaks of the coronavirus have been attributed to domestic workers gathering on their days off.

The announcement provoked an immediate backlash, with critics alleging that the government was making scapegoats of the domestic workers, who make up about 5 percent of Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million and have long endured poor treatment.

The consuls general of the Philippines and Indonesia — the two main sources of Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers — said that if there were vaccination requirements, they should be applied to all foreign workers. The Philippines’ outspoken foreign secretary tweeted that the move “smacks of discrimination.”

The government denied that it was discriminating against the workers, but on Tuesday, Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, said that in light of the “discussion and attention” that the plan had elicited, she would ask the labor department to “study the specific situation again” and consult foreign consulates. A decision on the plan would be announced later, she said.

Still, the government has said that all foreign domestic workers who have not been fully vaccinated must be tested for the coronavirus by May 9.

Vaccinations have begun at Castello di Rivoli, a contemporary museum near Turin, Italy. The art installation is a wall painting by Claudia Comte, a Swiss artist.Credit…Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times

These days, visitors to the website of one of Italy’s most renowned contemporary art museums are met with a twofold invitation: “Book your visit in advance” and “Book your vaccination.”

The Castello di Rivoli, once a palace owned by the Savoy dynasty, recently became one of several Italian museums to join the country’s vaccine drive, following in the footsteps of cultural institutions throughout Europe.

With the rallying cry of “Art Helps,” the museum near Turin has set aside its third-floor galleries for a vaccination center run by the local health authorities. During their shots, patients can enjoy the wall paintings by Claudia Comte, a Swiss artist.

Comte worked with the composer Egon Elliut to create a soundscape that evokes “a dreamlike feeling,” the artist said, and lulls vaccine recipients as they move from room to room before and after the shot.

“Art has an extraordinarily important effect on well-being,” said Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the museum’s director. She said that she couldn’t have commissioned “a more perfect” backdrop than Comte’s works for a “space to merge the art of healing the body and the art of healing the soul and the mind,” noting that in Italian the words for “to heal” and “curator” came from the same Latin word, “curo.” In history, she said, some of the first museums were former hospitals.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania has taken a different approach from her virus-denying predecessor, stating that the nation could not ignore the pandemic.Credit…Associated Press

Less than two months after Tanzania’s first female president took office, the government on Monday announced new steps to tackle the pandemic, in what could be the start of a shift for the East African nation, whose former leader had denied the seriousness of the virus before he died in March. His political opponents said he had died from Covid, but his government denied it.

Beginning Tuesday, all travelers arriving in Tanzania are required to present proof of a negative coronavirus test taken in the previous 72 hours and must pay for a rapid test after they land, the health ministry said.

The new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, who was sworn into office in March, formed a committee in her first weeks in office to advise her on the status of pandemic in the country, and the steps needed to keep people safe.

Ms. Hassan, however, has not spoken publicly about whether she supports vaccinations or whether vaccines are even available in the country. She has also drawn criticism at times for not wearing a mask, including at her own swearing-in ceremony, and for addressing large gatherings of unmasked supporters. But she has worn one during foreign trips.

Under the previous president, John Magufuli, Tanzania stopped sharing data about coronavirus cases or deaths with the World Health Organization in April 2020. Ms. Hassan’s government also has not submitted any data to the World Health Organization on new cases and deaths, and has not said if, or when, Tanzania would change course.

Ms. Hassan has stated, nevertheless, that Tanzania could not ignore the virus.

“We cannot isolate ourselves as an island,” she said in a speech last month.

The new measures announced on Monday appear to be focused on stopping coronavirus at the country’s borders. The health ministry said that foreigners arriving from countries with new Covid-19 variants would be placed in a mandatory 14-day quarantine at a government-designated facility, while returning residents would be permitted to isolate themselves in their homes.

Truck drivers crossing borders will be permitted to stop only at designated locations and could be tested for the coronavirus at random while in Tanzania.

The moves signal a departure from the blithe approach taken by Mr. Magufuli, the former president. He long opposed masks and social distancing measures, promoted unproven treatments as cures, argued that vaccines didn’t work and declared that God had helped Tanzania eradicate the virus.

Two weeks before he died, Mr. Magufuli changed course and told citizens to take precautions against the virus, including wearing masks and observing social distancing.

Cafes and restaurants have reopened in Greece for sit-down service for the first time in nearly six months.Credit…Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press

Greece has reopened to many overseas visitors, including from the United States, jumping ahead of most of its European neighbors in restarting tourism, even as the country’s hospitals remain full and more than three-quarters of Greeks are still unvaccinated.

It’s a big bet, but given the importance of tourism to the Greek economy — the sector accounts for one quarter of the country’s work force and more than 20 percent of gross domestic product — the country’s leaders are eager to roll out the welcome mat.

In doing so, Greece has jumped ahead of other European countries. On Monday, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said it would recommend its member states to allow visitors who have been vaccinated. But it remains up to individual countries to set up their own rules.

“We welcome a common position” on restarting tourism in the European Union, Greece’s tourism minister, Harry Theoharis, said in an interview. “All we’re saying is that this has to be forthcoming now. We cannot wait until June.”

Park Avenue between 46th and 59th Streets will go through renovation over the next few years, giving the city a unique opportunity to rethink the famed malls.Credit…Oscar Durand for The New York Times

At a moment when the pandemic has unleashed demand for open space, plans could transform the medians of Park Avenue in Manhattan and restore them to their original splendor.

Among the options New York City is considering: bringing back chairs and benches, expanding the median, eliminating traffic lanes and carving out room for bike and walking paths.

The revamping of Park Avenue is being driven by a major transit project below ground. A cavernous shed used by Metro-North commuter trains that travel in and out of Grand Central Terminal is over a century old and in need of major repairs.

The work requires ripping up nearly a dozen streets along Park Avenue, from East 46th to East 57th Streets, making possible a new vision.

Removal of traffic lanes is likely to elicit backlash from drivers who complain that pedestrian plazas and bike lanes across the city have made it difficult to get around.

But others say the city would be more livable with fewer cars, making streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as polluting less.