{"id":22731,"date":"2020-03-23T15:07:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T14:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/?p=22731"},"modified":"2020-04-22T15:08:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T13:08:48","slug":"cultureteca-22-03-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/cultureteca-22-03-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultureteca 22.03.20"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As COVID-19 put the world under lockdown<\/strong>, at the start of the week global cases of coronavirus surpassed those in the former epicentre of China, as the worldwide total beyond China reached 87,000 and cases within the country at 80,860 remained relatively stagnant<\/a>. While the government in the United Kingdom set out broad guidelines on social distancing, advising people to avoid pubs, clubs, and theatres and to work from home<\/a> as a new study shifted the focus from mitigation to suppression of the virus<\/a>, governments in France<\/a> and Germany<\/a> went further by imposing effective lockdowns, closing schools, restaurants, and non-essential businesses and enforcing travel restrictions. Peru and Chile were among the Latin American countries to close borders and order curfews<\/a>, and while the United States set out strict new guidelines on a federal level<\/a>, six counties in the Bay Area including San Francisco issued ‘shelter in place’ orders<\/a> directing people to stay home, Pennsylvania shut down non-essential businesses<\/a>, and Denver closed all restaurants except for takeaway and delivery<\/a>. Meanwhile stock markets plunged, as the S&P 500 in the United States dropped by 12%<\/a>, eclipsing a fall of 9.5% last week which was already the worst daily performance since Black Monday back in 1987<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the European Union confirmed a collective closure of the bloc’s external borders for a provisional thirty days<\/a>, and on Wednesday the United States – which had already halted European travel – agreed that it would suspend non-essential travel between Canada<\/a>. Stock markets continued to slide<\/a>, New York governor Andrew Cuomo ordered businesses to keep half their workers at home<\/a>, Burkina Faso recorded the first death from the virus in sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>, and cultural events including Glastonbury<\/a> and the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> found themselves next in line to be cancelled. On Thursday some upbeat news from China, which recorded no new domestic cases for the first time since the beginning of the outbreak<\/a>, was eclipsed by the rising toll in Italy, which took a distressing lead on the world stage now with 3,405 total fatalities<\/a>. Argentina announced a mandatory quarantine<\/a>, restricting people to their homes as part of the most extensive lockdown in Latin America, and cultural events continued to fall with the postponement of the Cannes film festival<\/a>, but potential new treatments<\/a> and plummeting pollution levels<\/a> offered dimmed silver linings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Friday morning, California governor Gaving Newsom had issued a statewide stay at home order<\/a>, Illinois told its citizens to shelter in place<\/a>, and the United Kingdom followed much of continental Europe in closing pubs and restaurants<\/a>. Italy and Spain registered their highest single-day death totals<\/a>, with 627 and 235 new deaths respectively, as Italy closed parks and called in military assistance<\/a> as the number of new cases hit 5,986. The worldwide death toll had now exceeded 10,000<\/a>, but there was no respite over the weekend as Italy recorded a staggering 793 deaths in one twenty-four hour period<\/a>, and daily deaths in Spain surged beyond 300<\/a>. Despite the stringent measures and technological assistance widely praised for controlling the spread of the virus in Asia<\/a>, cases crept up in places like Hong Kong<\/a>, Singapore<\/a>, and South Korea<\/a>. Australia closed beaches as cases breached 1,000<\/a>, while Colombia<\/a> and later Bolivia<\/a> followed Argentina by enforcing nationwide quarantine measures.<\/p>\n

Spain extended its state of alarm<\/a>, Greece announced an impending lockdown<\/a>, and stricter measures ensued in Lombardy<\/a>, which banned exercise outdoors, even as the daily death total at least subsided across Italy<\/a>. In Germany Angela Merkel announced a ban on gatherings of more than two people<\/a>, before the chancellor isolated herself after learning that she had received a pneumonia vaccination from a doctor now carrying the coronavirus infection. Australia opted to close pubs, clubs, cinemas, gyms, and places of worship<\/a>, Singapore barred short-term visitors<\/a>, and India followed up on a voluntary fourteen-hour curfew with wider lockdown measures extending until the end of the month<\/a>. Lockdowns and flight bans also started to take hold in Africa, as countries recorded their first cases of the virus and infections across the continent topped 1,000<\/a>. The first two cases of COVID-19 were reported in Gaza<\/a>, numbers climbed in Israel<\/a>, and in Iran – still the country with the third-most fatalities after China and Italy – the death tally reached 1,685<\/a>. By the end of the week, cases of coronavirus had passed 300,000 with more than 13,000 deaths around the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n