Resilience Makes Alexandria Our "Best MN Town" - Minnesota Monthly

Posted: 25 Apr 2020 02:53 AM PDT

Canoeing on North Union Lake, one of 11 forming Alexandria's Chain of Lakes

Two hours northwest of the Twin Cities, Alexandria sits in a chain of 11 lakes that, on a map, multiply farther northwest before exploding into the state's namesake spangling of blue. On a more granular level, it's where Minnesota really earns that friendly, outdoorsy reputation. "It reminds me of a golf-cart community," says Marnie Kopischke, who owns a cabin on the chain's largest, Lake Carlos. But instead of golf carts toddling around Florida, boats beeline from friends' docks to shoreline restaurants.

Alexandria's Big Ole statue stands before the Central Lakes Trail

Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the lakes attract anglers, kayakers, and dauntless paddle boarders and wakesurfers, who take equipment and lessons from Hangloose MN at Lake Carlos Marina. The population, of 13,500, triples in a typical summer, as lake houses refill with retirees and families seeking sunny pursuits and a smaller-town pace.

After online voting and editorial deliberation in 2019, Alexandria, the county seat of Douglas County, became Minnesota Monthly's third winner of its Best MN Town competition. Like the two previous towns—Bemidji and White Bear Lake—the community, oft nicknamed Alex (pronounced "Alec"), combines qualities and values that make year-round residents stay and keep visitors coming back.

One of the converted grain bins at Gathered Oaks

On a recent visit, I stayed at Gathered Oaks, a restored-barn wedding venue that has three renovated grain bins on site. (Clustered together, they now hold eight hotel-style rooms, with queen beds and TVs. Corrugated metal on the outside. But, inside, it's like HGTV's Joanna Gaines cast her spell.) From my bed, I watched sunsets over Lake Louise. But I could've done this dozens of other ways. Resorts dot miles upon miles of lakefront—including waterpark spot Arrowwood Resort—and Lake Carlos State Park offers 1,000-plus acres of campsites.

Multiple residents told me Alexandria has just enough to keep them occupied equidistant from the Twin Cities and Fargo. See: three theaters, two museums, and an expanding beverage scene. Instead of "small town," I heard the term "rural regional center." It's a hub for smaller towns within a 35-or-so-mile radius, like Evansville or Kensington.

Hangloose MN specializes in wakesurfing and paddle boarding rentals and classes on Lake Carlos

Here, the 55-mile Central Lakes bike trail winds up the chain, past downtown's blonde, 28-foot-tall Big Ole statue. Farther north, author Sinclair Lewis once admired the 1,750-foot views atop Inspiration Peak. When snow falls, the joke is: Is that a golf course, or a frozen lake?

To that end, tourism bolsters a lot of town life. Really, this was fated—ever since a railroad tracked through in the late 1800s, tilling the land for resorts and cultivating vacation cred even then. But a lot has changed. And at a time when we're hurling existential questions at small towns—how should they retain younger residents? how can they adapt to a shrinking world?—Alexandria has given the country a prime example.

Atikwa Championship Golf Course at Arrowwood Resort

Down to Business

"If you put all your eggs in one basket—for instance, in agriculture—when agriculture goes downhill, we're in trouble," says Kevin Kopischke, retired president of Alexandria Technical & Community College (ATCC) and Marnie's uncle. Kopischke has worked in economic development across the Midwest. He's watched small towns suffer through decades of diminishing returns, particularly in agriculture. "We haven't been in trouble because we've been very, very diversified," he says.

Alexandria Technical & Community College

In the 1960s, Douglas Machine heralded Alexandria's rise as a center for the design and manufacture of large-scale packaging (think: cartons and boxes for shipping grocery items like cereal or potato chips)—enough that Senator Al Franken once called Alexandria "the Silicon Valley of packaging machines." Other big employers span finance, hospitality, agriculture, a $200 million healthcare industry anchored by the Alomere Health medical and surgical hospital, and other forms of manufacturing (including a 3M plant). Kopischke credits the town's progressive spirit—"progressive" in the old Minnesotan sense of "willing to back new ideas." Also: what he views as an unusually active Chamber of Commerce. (Incidentally, women run much of town: The mayor as well as the whole chamber are women.)

Employable talent comes homegrown. For 10 years, the Aspen Institute has ranked ATCC among the top five two-year colleges in the country. And after a $73.2 million upgrade to the high school, Fast Company dubbed it "the Googleplex of Schools." Industry and education create "the foundation for building the other parts," Kopischke says.

Adam Graf provides a direct example of how those "other parts" materialize. The North Dakota State University grad decided to launch his mechanical engineering career back home, with packaging machine company Aagard. Then, as in much Minnesota folklore, he got hooked on hobby brewing. With fellow Alexandrian Dave Gibbons, he opened Copper Trail Brewing Co., the town's first brewery in more than 70 years.

"It's a super friendly, family-oriented community, so it makes it a really easy choice to come back home," Graf says. "And it's just fun to watch this town grow."

Copper Trail forms part of the region's "Skål Crawl," a punch-card tour that also hits up the award-winning Carlos Creek Winery, 22 Northmen Brewing Co. (which opened next to the winery in 2019), and the state's first whiskey producer, Panther Distillery, in nearby Osakis. (Ida Graves Distillery also opened last summer, rounding out the region's liquor constellation and supplying aquavit, vodka, and gin to retailers statewide.)

Inside Copper Trail's new space—a former lumberyard off Central Lakes Trail, with industrial-woodsman vibes—I immediately noticed the bread for sale. Copper Trail gives some of its spent grain to Roers Family Bakery a couple blocks away, and every batch of the aromatic, honey-tinged loaves sells out.

Chain of Likes

One question I kept asking: What does small-town appeal look like? It's supporting local establishments, knowing your neighbors. And now: trending on social media.

"When I was in high school, I would have thought, 'Oh, this is too boring for a video'—but people love it," Hailey Miller says. She and husband Bryce, both native Alexandrians, chat over wood-fired pizza at 22 Northmen Brewing Co. under antler chandeliers, where it feels like Vikings should prep for Valhalla.

The 18-minute video in question, titled "Thrift Shopping," is on the couple's YouTube channel, Bryce + Hailey, and has been viewed more than 457,000 times since its release in 2017. Sure, their wedding video, on a scenic precipice in Utah, raked in more than 230,000 clicks. But this one stars their hometown.

"OK, so, we live in a small town called Alexandria, and it's known for its historic downtown," Bryce says into a handheld camera, driving a Jeep named Stanley down Third Avenue. Soon, Hailey is triaging thrift-store finds that would make hipsters blanch. They hype a Cuban sandwich at Alexandria's farm-to-table spot, La Ferme. Then, inside Now & Then Antiques & Collectibles, they gawk at old radios, Hailey wears a turkey decoy on her head, and Bryce says they could've spent hours in there.

Video after video, the Millers work a special kind of smallish-town magic: They're adeptly easy-going. In person, they're never "on." That might explain their YouTube channel's nearly 4.5 million views. Hailey has some 345,000 followers on Instagram, and Bryce has over 75,000. They quit their jobs two years ago—Bryce, 26, as a videographer, and Hailey, 25, as a photographer. With brand deals, they have shipped off to Jamaica, California, Switzerland. So, why did their Alex video do so well?

Bryce has a theory: "With these at-home videos, viewers are, like, 'Well, I can't afford to go on a trip right now, but I can afford to hop in my car and drive to all the local spots.'" This "aspirational" content still feels squarely within reach.

That said, during a different meal across town with Andrew Cavers, president of Alexandria's Geneva Capital financial company, I still trip into a sentiment I had, all along, hoped to avoid.

"How is it?" he asks of my seared ahi tuna. "It's really good," I say, before daring to admit, "I'm surprised; I've never had…"

"Not in Alexandria, anyway," Cavers finishes for me, laughing.

But should it come as a surprise that Lure Lakebar serves tuna loin with soy ginger sauce? Or that, nearby, Nice Juicery fresh-squeezes tart pick-me-ups—using beets, apples, carrots, mint—and concocts smoothie bowls that metro lubbers would adore? Or that, next door, the Garden Bar on 6th feels straight out of Minneapolis' North Loop, with live music, locally sourced cocktails, healthy bowls, and inventive sandwiches? (My editor returned from the Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference, held in Alexandria this year, raving about walleye at Interlachen Inn.)

When Graf opened Copper Trail, yes, it did take a little convincing that the outstate palate could handle more than light beer. But that "progressive" spirit came through. "People up here are open to experimenting with stuff, and we'll see a rise, I think, in sours and IPAs out this way as the trends develop," Graf says, noting it's a two-way street: "I think you'll see a shift toward that Coors style of beers, as well."

And while Cavers, who lived in St. Paul in his early 20s, now takes trips with his wife to keep tabs on the Twin Cities' restaurant scene, it's not like they're lacking up in Alexandria.

The Bryce + Hailey channel has the proof. In another video, they roll out of bed, slide into kayaks, and spot an eagle. Bryce just got a mountain bike for the rock-studded course at a new beach on Lake Brophy. They've been fishing at Spruce Creek since the Department of Natural Resources stocked it with trout last summer. And, over the holidays, Hailey gifted so many people Icelandic flake salt that she discovered at the Scandinavian Gift Shop (which also stocks water-resistant merino-wool sweaters from Norway). "They're, like, obsessed with it," she says. "And you can't even find it online anywhere. You'd have to get it special-ordered from this website."

She points out that my hometown of Bloomington (Mall of America land) is their low-impact road trip, while theirs is mine. They can have as much fun in Alexandria, it seems, as they did a year ago in New York—and, here, they don't need to call an Uber. "When we travel," Bryce adds, "I find myself just so excited and eager to come back home."

Fresh air filling the flags in Alexandria

Small-City Resilience

On the morning of February 25, I received an email that said simply, "My town is burning…" It was sent by Patty Wicken, the morning host on Alexandria's local talk radio station. She grew up here and has been on the airwaves since the late '70s. In her email, she included photos of historic downtown buildings spewing smoke. More than 100 firefighters arced ropes of water into the wreckage. When all damage was accounted for, the fire had destroyed six businesses—including a restaurant and a boutique—and the apartments of 20 evacuees.

The community stepped up immediately. Roers Family Bakery, right across the street from where the fire took out four buildings, fed the responding firemen. West Central Minnesota Communities Action sought housing for four displaced families. The Alexandria Area Community Foundation set up a fund to assist those affected. By mid-March, about 100 individuals, businesses, and organizations had donated more than $32,000, according to the foundation's executive director, Holly Witt.

"Alexandria as a community is extremely collaborative," Graf said a day before Copper Trail hosted a fundraiser. "It's insane to see this type of reaction from something so devastating."

Frozen Vows

The weekend before, Wicken had orchestrated my favorite Alex memory. With Minnesotan grit, her family put a wedding on ice. And with Minnesotan warmth, they invited a stranger to it.

I drove offshore from Arrowwood Resort, toward a distant crop of ice-fishing houses on the frozen surface of Lake Darling.

"I think they're getting married," someone said, peeking into Wicken's fish house. "Oh, they are?" Wicken snapped out of droll family memories. It was toasty inside—folks had removed their coats—but it wasn't bad outside, either. Mid-30s, late February. Perfect for an Alexandria wedding.

Wicken moved through the crowd of denim and camouflage. The sun was setting enough, so her son was getting married. Out there, sunsets reorient you, like a brand-new phenomenon.

The bride wore a fluffy coat. The groom, jeans and black jacket.

A rose-shaped mint melted on my tongue before I grabbed a Mich Golden and fessed to never having ice fished, which launched the groom into a quick demo. For my sake, I thought, on his wedding day. After everything, Wicken sent me off with a gooey ham-and-cheese slider and an invite to return in summer.

After the photos of the town in smoke—and before I could even send my thanks for the hospitality—Wicken followed up with a story: Back in 2017, she had started mentoring a girl who arrived in town "with nothing but the clothes on her back."

February's fire left that girl standing in a parking lot with a T-shirt, pajama pants, and socks. Wicken started searching for a new apartment, and her friends took her to Target with $500. "She is so happy tonight," Wicken wrote me, "and considers herself blessed to be in Alexandria. But what a statement after what she's been through in the last 36 hours."

At this point, I may need to postpone my return. The spread of the novel coronavirus has made visiting outstate Minnesota towns a liability; we need to wait, lest we put their populations at risk. As the world prepares for an economic downturn, Alexandria's Chamber of Commerce has distributed resources to businesses and begun tagging updates with #BePositiveDoPositive.

"The storyline we were following was about a thriving community celebrating all kinds of successes, from being named Retail Community of the Year in 2018 and, more recently, being named Best MN Town," said executive director Tara Bitzan in a video posted to the chamber's Twitter account. She noted the fire, then calmly moved on to the virus. "We're all anxiously following the story to see what happens next."

Kevin Kopischke's idea for the next chapter echoes what he told me readers should get out of this story: "There's too much of a split right now," he said, "where the urban folks say, 'We want what we need, and to hell with them.' And the rural people say, 'We want what we need, and to hell with them.' Well, that doesn't work very well when you're trying to build a state that's going to be ready for the kind of change that we're seeing ahead."

World Coronavirus Tracker: Live Coverage - The New York Times

Posted: 25 Apr 2020 10:04 AM PDT

Here's what you need to know:

Britain's Parliament, center right, in London. — Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Demands grow for scrutiny of the largely anonymous group leading the pandemic response in Britain, now the fifth country with more than 20,000 deaths.

As the drumbeat grows for transparency about the secretive group guiding Britain's response to the coronavirus — the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, or SAGE — the government acknowledged that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's most senior aide, Dominic Cummings, has listened in on the panel's meetings.

But a spokesman for Downing Street said on Saturday that Mr. Cummings was not a member of the group and did not influence policy.

"No. 10 officials and officials from other departments attend/dial in to SAGE to listen to its discussions and occasionally ask questions, which is essential at a time the government is dealing with a global pandemic," Downing Street said in a statement.

On Saturday Britain's Department of Health and Social Care said that the number of deaths in the country had surpassed 20,000 and that the number of confirmed cases is nearing 150,000. Britain is the fifth country to record that many deaths, though its tally does not include deaths outside of hospitals.

"It's a very sad day for the nation; 20,000 deaths is clearly 20,000 too many," Stephen Powis, the medical director of the National Health Service in England, said on Saturday at a news conference.

Opposition leaders have demanded more transparency from the group, whose members are largely anonymous and whose meetings are held in private. The British government says it is being "guided by the science" coming from the group, but critics say the science is unclear.

Jonathan Ashworth, who oversees the opposition the Labour Party's health policy, called on the government to publish the minutes of the panel's meetings. "We need to understand whether Mr. Cummings was contributing to the debate or influencing the debate," he told Sky News on Saturday.

The developments came as leaked cabinet briefings to The Guardian newspaper indicated that ministers were warned last year that Britain risked facing an influenza-type outbreak and that the country needed a robust plan to deal with it. A possible pandemic was at the top of a confidential annual national security risk assessment signed off by the government's chief scientific adviser.

In other developments in Britain:

The government's website for essential workers and their families to book coronavirus tests reopened on Saturday after shutting down the day before when tens of thousands of requests flooded it. But the maximum capacity had been reached by 8 a.m. on Saturday, according to a message published on the website.

The Defense Ministry said on Friday that the country's armed forces would be given insect repellent to protect against coronavirus infections, but offered no evidence that the product. containing a lemon eucalyptus oil extract, would be effective.

A 99-year-old charity fund-raiser — Tom Moore, who is also a World War II veteran — has the country's No. 1 song by sales this week, according to the country's Official Charts Company. Like Captain Moore's other ventures, the single — a rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone," featuring the singer Michael Ball — is to raise money for health care charities during the coronavirus crisis.

W.H.O. says coronavirus antibody tests 'need further validation.'

The World Health Organization has warned against using coronavirus antibody tests as a basis for issuing "immunity passports" to allow people to travel or return to work.

Laboratory tests that detect antibodies to the coronavirus "need further validation to determine their accuracy and reliability," the global agency said in a statement on Friday. Inaccurate tests may falsely label people who have been infected as negative, or may falsely label people who have not been infected as positive, it noted.

Countries like Italy and Chile have weighed providing "immunity passports" to let those people who have recovered from the virus return to work, in an effort to begin easing lockdown restrictions and stem the economic fallout.

In the United States, scientists working around the clock in shifts managed to compare 14 antibody tests on the market, and the news wasn't good. Only one test delivered no false positives — and just two others did well 99 percent of the time.

The W.H.O. said it supported the testing of medical workers to determine whether they have antibodies, as that data can add to the understanding of how the coronavirus behaves. But it said that most such tests currently "are not designed to determine whether those people are immune to secondary infections."

The assessment came as the W.H.O. held a virtual meeting on Friday in which global heads of state vowed to cooperate on coronavirus vaccine research and treatments — though neither the United States nor China joined the initiative.

Although leaders like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France were vague in their pledges, the absence of any U.S. representative at the meeting was the latest sign of a withdrawal of the world's biggest economy in tackling the coronavirus on a global scale.

Britain's foreign minister and the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were among those in attendance.

Participants agreed to make innovations against the coronavirus accessible to all, including developing countries. The main challenge, the organization said, will be to bring a vaccine or drugs to fight the virus to billions of people once scientists have found the

Much of the world remains under lockdown.

With the number of confirmed coronavirus infections nearing three million worldwide, the death toll is creeping toward 200,000. And as Saturday dawned, much of the world was still under some form of lockdown.

As Ramadan — the holy month of fasting, celebration and prayer for many of the world's 1.8 billion Muslims — got underway, many mosques across the Middle East were shuttered.

And in Australia and New Zealand, the crowds that usually turn out for dawn services on Anzac Day were notably absent. The holiday commemorates the 1915 landing at Gallipoli and the deaths of roughly 75,000 people from the two countries who fought and died during World War I.

Still, many governments are starting to ease restrictions — or planning to. India, with the world's largest lockdown, loosened constraints in some parts of the country on Friday, allowing markets to reopen in rural areas and outside known hot zones, and easing financial stress for tens of millions of people.

On Friday, the Czech government lifted a ban on travel, and Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès of Belgium said her country would begin a gradual easing of lockdown measures in May.

In other places, people were defying medical advice to stay home. In Pakistan, the government bowed to pressure from clerics and allowed mosques to remain open during Ramadan. And a women's cricket league in the tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu was holding its season final — a rare exception to a near-total shutdown of global sports.

In other news:

The number of new coronavirus cases in Russia has risen by 5,966 over the past 24 hours, bringing its nationwide tally to 74,588, the country's coronavirus crisis response center said on Saturday. It also recorded 66 new deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, bringing the total death toll in Russia to 681.
China's National Health Commission reported on Saturday that 12 more people had fallen ill from the coronavirus and that all but one of the infections had been imported. It also reported 29 new asymptomatic cases, 25 of which were local transmissions.
Nearly 60 new infections were confirmed among crew members of an Italian cruise ship docked in Nagasaki, Japan, the local news media reported. About a quarter of the ship's more than 600 crew members have tested positive for the coronavirus.
In Afghanistan, where the virus threatens to overwhelm a feeble health care system, the Taliban have returned to an all-out offensive, ignoring appeals for a cease-fire on humanitarian grounds.

'There are no viruses here': The leader of Belarus scoffs at lockdowns.

As he headed off the ice after playing a hockey game in an amateur tournament in late March, the leader of Belarus brushed aside reporters' anxious questions about the coronavirus pandemic.

"There are no viruses here," said the Belarusian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, gesturing to the crowded arena. "Do you see any of them flying around? I don't see them either."

At a time when some countries, like Germany and Denmark, having tamped down the initial outbreak of the virus, are experimenting with cautious openings of businesses and schools, Belarus is an outlier. It never imposed any restrictions at all.

Restaurants, coffee shops and movie theaters remain open. Last weekend, churches were packed for Orthodox Easter. Professional soccer is in full swing, though the roaring crowds of earlier this month have thinned. In the capital, Minsk, the subways are crowded. Most businesses require workers to show up.

Neither the raw numbers of infections, nearly 9,000, nor the total deaths, 63, suggest that Belarus's epidemic is grossly disproportionate, though Ukraine with four times the population has fewer reported cases.

However, few people believe the official tallies; there is some evidence that the true numbers are being suppressed.

Without a free press or any viable opposition parties, Belarusians have little recourse to challenge the response. Caught in the grip of an autocrat whom critics are calling one of the world's foremost virus deniers, they have little choice but to accept official policy: The economy will keep chugging along, whatever the cost in human lives.

Drop in migrants' money sent home could upend many lives. Case in point: Mexico.

Migrants and others sent about $689 billion in global remittances in 2018, according to the World Bank — money that relatives and friends back home depend on to survive.

But as millions of migrant workers see their hours cut or lose their jobs because of the economic slowdown from the pandemic, the World Bank said this week that global remittances were projected to plummet about 20 percent this year, in "the sharpest decline in recent history."

And that could have far-reaching effects in some developing and poorer nations like Mexico, which was the third-largest recipient of remittances in 2018 — after India and China, according to the World Bank — and the largest recipient of money sent from the United States.

Amid the U.S. economic slowdown in recent weeks, millions of undocumented Mexicans in the United States, like other immigrant populations, have been left vulnerable without job security and unemployment benefits.

A major decrease in remittances could cause not just economic duress, but also political and social tension, said Roy Germano, who teaches international relations at New York University.

"I don't think governments want to see this money contract, because it functions as a sort of de facto social welfare system," said Mr. Germano, the author of "Outsourcing Welfare," a book about remittances. "In that way, they take pressure off governments to provide welfare assistance and guarantee a certain standard of living."

The world joins Russians in making art parodies.

"Composition VI," an abstract painting by the Russian master Wassily Kandinsky, has now been restaged in the messy room of a Connecticut teenager.

People sheltering in place are seeking new ways to connection online, and amid the pandemic's bleakness, some report a surge in creativity. Maybe this is why a Facebook group featuring lo-fi recreations of famous paintings has more than half a million members, just a few weeks after it was created.

The group — Izoizolyacia, combining the Russian words for "visual arts" and "isolation" — was started in Moscow by a project manager at a tech company. Its predominant language is Russian, but more than a third of its members live outside Russia.

The copying-artworks gag is not new, and several museums — including the Getty in Los Angeles and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam — are encouraging homebound art fans to send in photos of efforts to bring their favorite paintings to life. But in terms of Facebook followers, at least, Izoizolyacia's audience appears to be the most engaged.

U.S. roundup: Trump's remarks on disinfectants are rebuked.

President Trump's suggestion that an injection of disinfectant could help combat the coronavirus prompted warnings on Friday from health officials across the country, as well as the makers of Clorox and Lysol and several Fox News personalities.

Injecting bleach or highly concentrated rubbing alcohol "causes massive organ damage and the blood cells in the body to basically burst," Dr. Diane P. Calello, the medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System, said in an interview. "It can definitely be a fatal event."

The White House spent much of the day trying to walk back Mr. Trump's remarks, which he made at Thursday's press briefing. "Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines," said Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary.

But the president later undermined her argument when he told journalists that he had been "asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen." That was not true — he made the comment to an official who had just made a presentation at the briefing.

Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, abruptly ended Friday's daily briefing shortly after it began, and the president took no questions. Now, Mr. Trump's advisers are encouraging him to skip the daily briefings or field fewer questions from the reporters.

Here's what else is happening in the U.S.:

The president on Friday signed the $484 billion relief bill into law, replenishing a fund for small businesses and providing money for hospitals and testing. The Congressional Budget Office said it expected the federal budget deficit to hit $3.7 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year, which would be its largest size as a share of the economy since World War II.
Georgia, Alaska and Oklahoma began reopening businesses on Friday, though the relaxed rules varied. Georgia recommended that salon owners perform temperature checks. Alaska allowed limited in-store shopping, while Oklahoma reopened its state parks.

Those we've lost: John Houghton, who led the U.N. panel on climate change that won a Nobel Peace prize.

John Houghton, a climate scientist and leading figure in the United Nations panel that brought the threat of climate change to the world's attention and received a Nobel Prize, died on April 15 in Dolgellau, Wales. He was 88.

Tiny Djibouti records an alarming number of cases.

With a population of about one million people and an area of 9,000 square miles, Djibouti is one of Africa's smallest countries. But this week the Horn of Africa nation was listed as having the highest prevalence of coronavirus cases, 986, in Africa.

The figure reflects mass coronavirus testing in the country. But officials have also spoken of people not adhering to social distancing and hygiene rules.

The state has shut its borders, suspended international flights, and closed schools and all places of worship.

"What we are asking of you is to save yourselves, to save your siblings, your mothers and fathers and the old people," President Ismail Omar Guelleh said in a recent televised speech. "I ask you to stay at home."

Djibouti, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, has taken advantage of its location at a busy shipping route and its relative stability in a volatile region to increase its geostrategic relevance. It is home to several foreign military bases, including one of the United States' largest foreign installations and China's first overseas military base. As the coronavirus has spread, these military installations have heightened their safety measures.

On April 23, Maj. Gen. Michael D. Turello, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, declared a public health emergency for the U.S. personnel under his authority in Djibouti.

"Combating Covid-19 is my top priority," he said in a statement, referring to the disease caused by the virus. "By declaring a public health emergency, it keeps our forces, and those of our host nation partner, as healthy and as safe as possible."

To discourage crowds, a park in Japan clips 10,000 lilies.

A park in Okinawa City, Japan, has mowed down sprawling lily fields that usually draw thousands of people, in an effort to prevent visitors from gathering and spreading the coronavirus.

Fears of the virus and a nationwide state of emergency declared this month did not deter people from visiting the Okinawa Comprehensive Athletic Park, where its lilies were approaching full bloom. In response, the park clipped 10,000 of its 16,000 lilies on Friday.

"Our staff spent a whole year growing them," Seiji Fukushima, the park's director, said on Saturday. "They were crying as they cut them off."

Despite the emergency declarations this month, many residents across the country still visited beaches, parks and restaurants, raising concerns about its measures to curb the outbreak. Mr. Fukushima said many service members of the U.S. military bases in Okinawa Prefecture had visited or jogged in the park despite social distancing rules, and residents had complained that many of them did not wear masks.

The flowers are usually harvested in mid-May, when bulbs are collected and stored for planting later. The park said that the cropped lilies had been distributed to people and that it would use the opportunity to improve its soil this year.

As of Saturday, Japan had more than 13,500 confirmed coronavirus cases and 341 deaths.

Leaders in less-affected areas of Spain push to ease restrictions.

As Spain's coronavirus numbers improve, some regional and local leaders are pushing to ease lockdown measures ahead of any central government decision.

The divergences comes as Spain on Sunday prepared to allow children outdoors for the first time since its lockdown came into force in mid-March, to take a stroll for an hour within one kilometer of their home, accompanied by an adult.

But while cities like Madrid are keeping public parks shut, the mayor in the southern city of Cádiz on Sunday reopened beaches and public parks.

Spain on Saturday reported a slight uptick in its daily death toll — 378 dead, compared with 367 on Friday. But its latest figures also confirmed that the country crossed a significant milestone this week, registering more hospital recoveries than new coronavirus cases.

The country's lockdown has been extended until May 9, but politicians in areas less affected by the pandemic have called for restrictions to be lifted sooner. The daily number of coronavirus fatalities has fallen below 10 in half of Spain's 17 regions.

The push has been particularly driven by island administrations, as well as southern regions whose hospitals were never overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients.

Air France-KLM gets a €10 billion bailout as coronavirus hits travel.

France and the Netherlands will provide a bailout of 10 billion euros, about $10.8 billion, to salvage Air France-KLM as the fallout of the coronavirus on the travel industry exacts a devastating toll on global air carriers.

Air France-KLM, one of Europe's biggest airlines, will receive a €4 billion bank loan backed by the French state and a €3 billion direct government loan, France's finance minister, said late Friday. The Dutch government said it would provide an additional €2 billion to €4 billion in public aid.

The aid infusion falls short of nationalizing the company, in which the French and Dutch states each own a 14 percent share. The European Commission — the executive branch of the European Union, which has thrown out restrictions on state support amid a deep economic downturn — swiftly approved the bailout.

It is the third multibillion-euro lifeline extended this past week by the French government to companies battered by the coronavirus.

Since the crisis hit, the French government has backed more than €20 billion in loans for 150,000 companies, part of a huge fiscal package to support the economy and limit mass joblessness until businesses can safely start operating again. The French economy is expected to contract by at least 8 percent this year, the sharpest drop since the end of World War II.

Israel warns against large gatherings for Memorial Day.

In Israel, where nearly everyone has someone to mourn from wars and continuing conflicts, Memorial Day — which is observed from Monday at sundown until Tuesday at sundown — ordinarily draws hundreds of thousands to national cemeteries.

But fears that crowds could spread the coronavirus have prompted the government to plead with people to stay away.

"It causes me immense pain that I won't be with my brother on Memorial Day, but I know the right thing is to stay home," said Frida Shniderman, 72, referring to her sibling, Meir Rozenchtroch, who was killed in the wake of a conflict between Israel and Syria in 1974. "Cemeteries get very crowded every year. It's simply too risky to go now."

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said at a news conference that observing Memorial Day as in past years would create "a coronavirus ticking time bomb." About one and a half million Israelis usually visit burial grounds across the country during the holiday, he said.

Some Israelis, however, have vowed to go to the cemeteries, arguing that they would not threaten public health as long as they maintain social distancing measures.

"My family and I will go," said Moshe Muskal, 64, whose son Rafanel was killed in conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2006. "This day is so important to us."

While the government decided that it would not permit Israelis to go to cemeteries, the police will not use force to stop them, officials have said.

Israel had recorded more than 15,000 cases of the virus as of Saturday, and nearly 200 deaths.

Trump offers ventilators to Indonesia, and a top official says thanks.

President Trump has promised in a tweet to provide ventilators to Indonesia, where a rising number of coronavirus cases threatens to overwhelm the country's poorly equipped and understaffed health care system.

"Just spoke to my friend, President Joko Widodo of the Republic of Indonesia," Mr. Trump wrote on Friday. "Asking for Ventilators, which we will provide. Great cooperation between us!"

In reply, Mr. Joko's spokesman, Fadjroel Rachman, tweeted on Saturday, "Thank you very much for great cooperation between the USA and the Republic of Indonesia Mr. President."

Indonesia, with a population of 270 million, is the world's fourth largest country but has only about 8,400 ventilators to help patients with the coronavirus, which has spread to all 34 provinces.

Indonesia has reported 720 deaths from the coronavirus, the second highest toll in East Asia after China. But some officials say many more deaths have gone unreported.

Mr. Trump also said the United States would send ventilators to three Latin American countries — Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras — that are reeling from the pandemic. He did not say how many ventilators would be sent to any of the four countries or when they would arrive.

Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil, has been especially hard hit. Hospitals and clinics have been so overwhelmed that they have been unable to treat some patients. Bodies have been found abandoned on sidewalks and slumped in wheelchairs.

The Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, also spoke with Mr. Trump and requested help with ventilators and testing. He said he had also asked for assistance in securing debt relief for poor countries and financial aid from international lenders.

In a tweet on Friday evening about his conversation with the Honduran president, Mr. Trump said, "We work closely together on the Southern Border. Will be helping him with his request for Ventilators and Testing."

Vanuatu, with no reported cases, gives sports fans something to watch: cricket.

Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation of 300,000 people, gave sports fans worldwide what they'd been craving on Saturday: something to watch, live, with the outcome unknown.

Cricket may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the Vanuatu Cricket Association livestreamed its Women's Super League final, inviting sports fans everywhere to take a break from the recorded footage that many have had to settle for during the pandemic.

"We thought it's our duty to provide the world with some live sport," said Shane Deitz, the chief executive of the Vanuatu Cricket Association and a former player for the Australian national team. "It's one of the only live sports around the world at the moment. We can showcase a bit of cricket for everyone who is in lockdown."

Vanuatu, like many other small Pacific nations, has managed to keep the coronavirus from spreading, or even arriving, if official figures are correct.

The country went into lockdown late last month as a precaution. After it was hit by a major cyclone on April 6, the lockdown was lifted so that people could recover and rebuild.

During the match on Saturday, small crowds of fans could be seen surrounding the pitch, standing or sitting a few feet apart, clearly enjoying the sight. Comments on the cricket association's Facebook page, where the livestream was shown, thanked Vanuatu for sharing.

Reporting was contributed by Anton Troianovski, Andrew E. Kramer, Kai Schultz, Dera Menra Sijabat, Richard C. Paddock, Tiffany May, Mike Ives, Kirk Semple, Elian Peltier, John Schwartz, Liz Alderman, Tess Felder, Elaine Yu, Hisako Ueno, Adam Rasgon, Adam Nossiter, Evan Easterling, Andrew LaVallee, Damien Cave, Jin Wu, Declan Walsh, Alexandra Stevenson, Raphael Minder, Abdi Latif Dahir, Nicholas Kulish and David Gelles. Wang Yiwei contributed research.

Search This Blog

BC Tourism