Headline News From Around the World on May 15th, 2020

Here is today’s headline news from around the world on May 15th, 2020.  The global coronavirus death toll passed 300,000, with more than 4.4 million confirmed cases around the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. remains the world’s worst-hit country, with more than 86,600 deaths.

Air Travel News

Air travel has largely ground to a halt as people have grown wary about potentially exposing themselves to coronavirus. There’s no guarantee that a liquidated airline will directly reimburse would-be passengers for the cost of their airfare.

Warren Buffett recently revealed that Berkshire had sold off all of its holdings in the airline sector, including stock in Delta, American Airlines, Southwest, and Boeing. Economist say it could take three to five years for the industry to recover to the passenger levels seen before the pandemic.

Travel Restrictions Lifted as of May 15th 2020

• China domestic business travel has resumed
• Shanghai Disneyland has reopened
• Hong Kong has reopened its restaurants
• The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have opened their borders to one another, creating a coronavirus “travel bubble”.

Canada

The Canadian government’s emergency wage-subsidy program will be extended to the end of August to help employers keep their workers on the payroll during the pandemic. Trudeau and other members of his cabinet have been promoting the wage subsidy as a way to keep Canadians employed instead of leaving them to draw on the $2,000 per month Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

United Kingdom

Food banks will be unable to keep pace with increased demand for emergency food parcels from the growing numbers of low-income families struggling with coronavirus-related economic hardship, the UK’s largest food bank network has warned.

The Trussell Trust said although food banks had managed to handle a record 81% increase in demand for food parcels in recent weeks – including a 122% increase in children relying on food aid – maintaining the service through an extended period of economic recession would be unsustainable.

Russia

Upwards of 250,000 people have contracted COVID-19 in Russia so far and government officials continue to come down with the infection. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Education Minister Valery Falkov are both ill, along with at least four other members of the cabinet, including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The nation’s chief doctor, Anna Popova, declared the two-week trend, followed by the one-day drop, shows that “we have stopped growth [of the virus] today.”