Evening roundupAll of Friday's main national and international coronavirus news in one place

In Luxembourg

• [block type="summary”]The Ministry of Health‘s latest update brought Luxembourg’s total to 3,802 confirmed infections and 92 deaths. 2,252 tests were done in the past 24 hours alone.

  • Meanwhile, the hospitality federation demanded a relaunch date to better prepare themselves for business as usual.
  • Luxembourg’s Education Minister Claude Meisch talked us through the last 7 weeks and what’s to come - see the video interview here.
  • The trade union argued each employee must be tested for virus before resuming work, and that the exit strategy should not come at the expense of the health of employees.
  • Despite thousands campaigning for a delayed school opening in September, the Ministry of Education stands firm: schools will open in May, for all.
  • Bus company Sales-Lentz have transformed a bus into a classroom, which can hold between 10 and 12 desks to accommodate a dozen pupils, with space for a teacher as well as storage for books and documents.
  • Our editor Stephen Lowe opined about the coronavirus and and its impact on us eight weeks after it all began.
  • And lastly, four more border posts are to reopen between Luxembourg and Germany on Monday morning.

  In international news

  • Russia has seen a surge in infections that sent its confirmed coronavirus cases above 100,000 this week. But Russians and companies looking to protect their employees and even medical workers are struggling to find them, thus turning to the black market.

  • US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened China with fresh tariffs as he stepped up his attacks on Beijing over the coronavirus crisis, saying he had seen evidence linking a Wuhan lab to the contagion. Meanwhile the US recorded more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a 24-hour period for the third day running.
  • Workers were forced to scale back May Day rallies around the world on Friday because of lockdowns, although some pushed on with online events and others hit the streets in face masks.
  • Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair said on Friday it planned to axe 3,000 pilot and cabin crew jobs, or 15 percent of staff, with air transport paralysed by coronavirus.
  • Japan‘s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday the government would plan for an approximately month-long extension of a state of emergency declared over the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Spain on Friday said that its gross domestic product (GDP) was projected to fall by 9.2 percent in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, while the unemployment rate would reach 19 percent. The country registered 281 deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, a slowdown.
  • Dozens of journalists have died worldwide from the novel coronavirus in the past two months, a press freedom organisation said Friday, lamenting that media workers often lack proper protection for covering the pandemic.
  • Twenty-three staff at a hospital in Qatar were injured when tents being used to boost capacity in response to coronavirus collapsed in a fierce storm, local media reported Friday.

  • Numbers from the UK Office for National Statistics show that deprived neighbourhoods have twice as many COVID-19 deaths than rich UK neighbourhoods. Between 1 March and 17 April, 55,1 people per 100,000 inhabitants died of the virus in poor areas, whereas only 25,3 people died in richer areas.