Coronavirus latest: Singapore to ease lockdown; France extends emergency; Russia cases hit new high

Spain allows outdoor exercise after 49 days of lockdown; US approves emergency use of experimental drug remdesivir

Russian minister hospitalised with Covid-19; India makes tracing app mandatory for workers

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People exercise on a seafront promenade in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: AP

Published: 1:49am, 2 May 2020Updated: 11:48pm, 2 May 2020

Singapore announced it would ease some of its ‘circuit breaker’ coronavirus restrictions on Saturday, a day after US President Donald Trump’s new threat of tariffs against China over the coronavirus sent a shudder through global markets.

European countries and some parts of the United States have begun to ease the social and economic restrictions that have shut in half the world, joining those in Asia that feel they have already turned a corner.

But giant India, where stringent restrictions on 1.3 billion people have been credited with keeping virus cases low at the cost of hardship for millions, said it would renew the lockdown in many regions for two more weeks.

In New York, Wall Street opened sharply down after Trump alleged on Thursday that the virus might have come from a Chinese lab and raised the prospect of more US trade tariffs. At closing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 622.03 points, or 2.55 per cent, to 23,723.69.

The S&P 500 lost 81.72 points, or 2.81 per cent, to 2,830.71, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 284.60 points, or 3.2 per cent, to 8,604.95.

The markets have also been following the global economic impact of the epidemic, and tech giants Apple and Amazon became the latest firms to announce worrying results as corporations around the world shed staff and slash profit forecasts.