Six months into the Covid-19 pandemic and there is some good news about countries easing lockdown measures meant to fight the coronavirus. But just as a semblance of what was “normal life” seems about to return, there is bad news about a surge in global infection numbers.

During the months it has taken for Covid-19 to emerge as a global pandemic, most people around the world have been waiting in hope for a vaccine or other intervention to stop the spread of the disease for good. But some are confronting the worrying possibility that the coronavirus might become endemic, meaning that with no effective countermeasures it would never go away, forever changing life on Earth.

Tai Kwun on Hong Kong's Hollywood Road is a popular arts and shopping hub that attracts tourists and locals alike. But the complex was once a place no one wanted to visit. It was the first prison in colonial Hong Kong, a complex that started with a few cells before it was expanded into a law and justice centre for the city over the years from 1841 until 2006. Tai Kwun was more recently redeveloped into the cultural hub that still preserves details of its rich history and culture dating back nearly 180 years.

China normally holds its most important annual political meetings in March, when the top political advisory body and national legislature gather. But in 2020, the meetings were postponed to May 22, 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Although the “two sessions” take place only days apart on the political calendar, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC) are two very distinct gatherings.
Here’s a closer look at how the two sessions, known as lianghui in Chinese, shape the nation’s policies.
 

The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019, and took only a few months to spread into a global pandemic. The Hong Kong government was quick to impose strict measures on inbound travellers to contain the spread of the coronavirus after most infections were confirmed to be imported. Since spiking in late March 2020, the number of new infections continues to fall. The measures keep people away from others so they don’t unknowingly infect anyone. But how does Hong Kong’s tough quarantine system exactly work?

China declared the central city of Wuhan, the initial centre of the Covid-19 pandemic, to be free of the disease on April 26, 2020, after the last patients being treated in hospital there were discharged. As the first country to battle the new coronavirus which causes Covid-19, China is hoping to take the lead role in helping the rest of the world overcome the pandemic. But critics are suspicious of the motives behind Beijing’s offers of assistance. 

The first outbreak of the coronavirus could have happened further south of the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where it is widely thought to have originated, and as early as September 2019, according to a team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge.

At least 15 veterans and supporters of the Hong Kong’s political opposition camp were arrested on Saturday April 18, 2020. They were arrested on suspicion of organising and taking part in “illegal assemblies” during protests in the city in 2019. The Chinese central government’s foreign affairs office in Hong Kong hit back at international criticism that has followed the arrests. 

China’s economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on April 17, 2020. The contraction is the first in the world’s second-largest economy since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, as well as since official quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) records were started in 1992. The plunge confirmed the economic damage done by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has paralysed China’s production and spending.

The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019,  and took only a few months to spread into a global pandemic. Health experts say modern advanced transport including air travel has greatly increased the pace of the pandemic. Though governments around the world imposed lockdowns, isolations and quarantines for travellers, such measures also had a devastating impact on the global economy and many industries including aviation. Airline tracking site Flight Radar 24 documented a massive reduction in the number of aircraft flying around the world, and the International Air Transport Association predicts that air traffic in 2020 may fall by at least 38 per cent. What do the numbers tell us about the future for global aviation? 

Scientists have identified more than 200 types of coronaviruses, seven of which are known to affect humans. Four of these coronaviruses are endemic respiratory viruses which cause 15-30 per cent of the common colds people experience each year. Covid-19 is caused by a deadly new type of coronavirus that has spread to the point of becoming a global pandemic, infecting 771,104 people and taking 36,944 lives as of March 31, 2020. Here are some more facts about the coronavirus officially known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was first detected in December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

The deadly coronavirus which causes Covid-19 was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on December 31, 2019. As it rapidly spread around the country, the first death from the virus was reported on January 11, 2020. Over the two months since then, it emerged as a global epidemic despite efforts by Chinese authorities to lock down major cities and delay the return of workers from the Lunar New Year holiday. By March 11, the epidemic had spread to at least 100 countries and regions, sickened more than 119,027 people worldwide and was declared a pandemic.

The coronavirus, which continues to steadily spread to many parts of the world, has evolved into at least two major types, according to Chinese researchers. In a study published on March 3, 2020, in the National Science Review, the journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the scientists from Peking University and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai said the mutations have distinct rates of transmission and geographical distributions.

As coronavirus cases surge worldwide, US President Donald Trump said his administration has done an “incredible job” preventing the spread of Covid-19 in the country. A US health official from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has meanwhile warned it is not a question of “if” but rather “when” America will face a community spread of the virus. California has been monitoring 8,400 people for signs of infection after it reported a coronavirus case of “unknown origin”, potentially the first instance of community transmission in the US.

The United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) says the coronavirus disease Covid-19 is not yet a pandemic, but it could turn into one if governments don't take effective measures to contain its spread. Here is a breakdown of what a pandemic is, and how the world has coped with them in the past.

Hong Kong’s flagship airline Cathay Pacific Airways is scrambling to ride out a financial storm caused by the coronavirus outbreak, coming right on the heels of months of anti-government protests in its home city as well as the US-China trade war. As the region tries to prevent the spread of the virus that causes the deadly Covid-19 illness, Cathay Pacific has cancelled more than a half of its scheduled flights in February and March  2020. Aviation experts say that as the outbreak wreaks havoc on air travel, Hong Kong’s international airport is also likely to be struggling to take off again at a pace even slower than was after the 2002-2003 Sars outbreak.

It is the 2020 Lunar New Year holiday, and 11-year-old Xiaoxiao and her little brother are at home with their grandparents in a remote part of central China. They are anxiously waiting for the Spring Festival reunion dinner when their parents return from their jobs in southern Guangdong province. Like hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers in China, Chen and Liu travel home only once a year. The travel rush over the holiday period, which lasts up to 40 days, is considered the largest annual human migration in the world.

“One country, two systems” is the arrangement under which China rules Hong Kong. 

Tensions between Iran and the United States have been simmering for 40 years since the Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis after the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran.

With its burgundy cover and coat of arms, the British National (Overseas) passport or BN(O) might look like a regular “full” British passport. 

The Chinese-American film and television superstar Bruce Lee was a disciplined athlete with legendary martial arts skills. 

A teenage protester was hit by a live police bullet and required multiple surgeries during one of many clashes in 13 locations across Hong Kong on Tuesday, October 1, 2019. 

Hong Kong has long thrived as one of the freest economies in the world, thanks in part to an absence of taxes and duties on goods. 

Violent clashes broke out between anti-government protesters and riot police at Hong Kong International Airport after thousands occupied the departures area, triggering the closure of check-in counters on August 13, 2019.

The long-running territorial dispute over Kashmir dates back to the partition of India in 1947, when Pakistan and India each staked claims to portions of the Himalayan region. The Muslim-majority territory has been the focus of three wars between India and Pakistan and ongoing unrest.

Hong Kong was gripped by commuter chaos on Monday, August 5, 2019, as transport systems including the MTR railway and international airport were disrupted by anti-government protests and street violence. 

Chaos continues as a general strike in Hong Kong evolves across the city on August 5, 2019. The usual bustling commercial areas and streets are mostly empty. Eight MTR lines have been fully or partially suspended. Protesters have been seen blocking roads and preventing MTR train doors from closing, stopping trains from departing. 

The recent violence at a shopping centre in Yuen Long has focused attention on the bustling district in Hong Kong’s New Territories, where less than a century ago visitors found little more than a cluster of agricultural villages. 

Public protests in Hong Kong date back to British colonial rule and have evolved from the bloody riots of the 1960s into the recent protests of up to two million people marching. Here is a look back at some of Hong Kong's biggest civil movements and an explainer about what citizens are demanding in these most recent demonstrations.