The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.
TOP OF THE HOUR:
— Major Raphael exhibition in Italy to reopen, extend run.
— Venice Biennale postpones architectural festival; film festival still on.
— Britain pledges to trace contacts of everyone who tests positive for COVID-19.
— German foreign minister pledges cooperation on European summer travel.
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ROME — Rome’s blockbuster exhibition of masterpieces by Renaissance artist Raphael will reopen to the public on the day it had been due to close.
Only three days after it had opened in early March, the exhibition at the Scuderie was forced to hastily lock its doors as part of pandemic containment measures ordered by the Italian government.
Organizers said on Monday that art lovers can see the works, including 120 paintings, drawings and sketches by Raphael, starting on June. 2. That day, a national holiday, was supposed to be the final date of the run.
Instead, lenders, including the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, which has the world’s largest collections of Raphael works, agreed to let their pieces stay until Aug. 30, allowing for a significant extension of the show.
Under gradual easing of COVID-19 lockdown measures, Italians can resume traveling between regions on June 3. With tourism a key revenue-maker, Italy hopes other countries will allow their citizens to soon travel for pleasure. Italy is where Europe’s coronavirus began, and it is one of the world’s most stricken countries.
The Raphael exhibit, marking the 500th anniversary of his death as a young man from a fever, will stay open until late at night to reduce crowding risks.
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SOAVE, Italy — Given the uncertainty of travel and safety precautions because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Venice Biennale said Monday that the architectural exhibit won’t take place this year after all.
The event has instead been delayed until 2021, forcing the postponement of the contemporary art exhibit to 2022.
The postponements are ‘’an acknowledgement that it is impossible to move forward — within the set time limits — in the realization of such a complex and worldwide exhibition,’’ the Biennale said.
The Venice Biennale still plans to hold the 77th annual film festival from Sept. 2-12, as well as festivals dedicated to theater, contemporary music and contemporary dance scheduled between September and October.
The Biennale had originally postponed the architecture show, titled “How will we live together?” to late August for a three-month run, half the usual. The new dates are May 22-Nov. 21, 2021, while the contemporary art show will run from April 23-Nov. 27, 2022, one month longer than usual.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s health ministry has announced just two new coronavirus infections were detected in the last 24 hours, and two new deaths, as the country entered the third phase of easing lockdown restrictions.
The number of confirmed infections in Greece now stands at 2,836, although the true number is believed to be higher. The country’s coronavirus-related death toll is 165.
The news came on the day that Greece reopened shopping malls and archaeological sites, while high school students returned to classes and Greeks were allowed to travel outside their home region across the mainland and to the islands of Crete and Evia.
The government imposed lockdown measures early in Greece’s coronavirus outbreak, a move that has been credited with keeping the number of deaths and critically ill people low. Over the past few weeks it has been easing lockdown restrictions faster than originally predicted, in part with a view to safeguarding its tourism industry, which accounts for a major part of Greece’s economy.
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LONDON — The British government says it will soon be able to trace the contacts of everyone who tests positive for the coronavirus.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock says the government has recruited 21,000 contact tracers, including 7,500 health care professionals and thousands of call handlers. He says the team will “help manually trace the contacts of anyone who’s had a positive test and advise them on whether they need to isolate.”
A robust contact-tracing effort is a key part of plans to lift Britain's lockdown.
Britain initially lagged behind many countries in testing but now has the capacity to do more than 100,000 a day for the virus, though the target is not always met. The government is now aiming for 200,000 a day, and Hancock says anyone over the age of 5 who has coronavirus symptoms is now eligible for a test.
A mobile phone app that will alert users if they have been in contact with an infected person is being tested on the Isle of Wight, an island off England’s south coast with a population of 140,000. The government says the trial has revealed some issues with the app, including a failure to work on some phones, but that these are being addressed.
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TIRANA, Albania — Albania's Muslim community has decided to reopen mosques and resume religious activity, with major restrictions.
A statement Monday said Muslims may resume using mosques for prayers while staying there no longer than 10 minutes, not in groups, wearing gloves and maintaining social distancing. The statement says mosques should be disinfected regularly. Children under age 12 and people 65 and older are still being told to avoid mosques.
Muslims have been performing rituals at home during the fasting month of Ramadan, which ends Saturday.
Mosques and churches have been shut down in Albania since mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic. The country has reported 31 deaths from COVID-19 and 948 confirmed cases.
Also on Monday, some 30,000 high school seniors returned to classrooms in Albania.
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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia’s government has announced more steps to ease the restrictive measures it adopted to control the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Igor Matovic says live performance spaces and movie theaters can reopen on Wednesday while limiting capacity to 100 people. At the same time, shopping malls can return to business while allowing no more than one shopper per 15 square meters (161 square feet). All people inside will have to wear face masks.
Also, restaurants will be allowed to serve customers indoors.
As of June 1, nursery schools are reopening while children up to the fifth grade can go back to school on a voluntary basis. No more than 20 can be in one class.
Matovic says that starting on Thursday, Slovak citizens and those who have permanent or temporary residency in Slovakia will be allowed to travel to eight countries and won't have to be quarantined if they return within 24 hours.
Slovakia has recorded 1,495 cases of COVID-19 with 28 deaths.
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LONDON — First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says Scotland could begin easing its lockdown measures by the end of the month.
Scotland has clashed with the government in London over the lifting of restrictions, with Sturgeon taking a stricter approach on topics including when to reopen schools.
Sturgeon said Monday that if progress is made in reducing the spread of the coronavirus, Scots may be allowed to meet people in other households, and some sporting events may be permitted. She added a “route map” to paths out of lockdown will be published Thursday.
She said: “Within two weeks, my hope is that we will be taking some concrete steps on the journey back to normality.”
A total of 2,105 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for COVID-19, up by two from 2,103 on Sunday.
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BERLIN — Germany’s foreign minister says European countries will work over the next two weeks on criteria that would help make international vacations on the continent possible this summer.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas consulted Monday with counterparts from 10 countries that are popular with German tourists, most in southern Europe.
Maas stressed the need for a coordinated safety-first approach rather than a bilateral “European competition for tourists.”
He said the ministers likely will meet again in two weeks, and officials will work on details before then — addressing issues such as whether vacationers who become infected with the coronavirus while away should be quarantined at their destinations or transported home.
Maas said “it will be necessary to tell people clearly … that there will be restrictions everywhere, on the beaches, in restaurants, in city centers.”
At present, many European borders are at least partly closed and some countries require all or most people arriving to go into quarantine for two weeks.
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GENEVA — The head of the World Health Organization says he will begin an independent evaluation of the U.N. health agency’s response to the coronavirus pandemic “at the earliest appropriate moment.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the pledge Monday after an independent oversight advisory body published its first interim report about the U.N. health agency’s response to COVID-19 from January to April.
The 11-page report raised questions such as whether WHO’s warning system for alerting the world to outbreaks is adequate, and suggested member states might need to “reassess” WHO’s role in providing travel advice to countries.
The advisory body’s review and recommendations appeared unlikely to appease the United States administration, which has been scathing in its criticism of WHO — in part over President Donald Trump’s allegation that it had criticized a U.S. travel ban that he ordered on people arriving from China, where the outbreak first appeared late last year.
Trump ordered a temporary suspension of funding for WHO from the United States — the health agency’s biggest single donor — pending a review of its early response. But the review panel, echoing comments from many countries, said such a review during the “heat of the response” could hurt WHO’s ability to respond to it.
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BRUSSELS — A senior European Union official is warning EU countries that they face legal action if they do not lift restrictive measures on the movement of medicines and food products inside Europe’s single market.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told EU lawmakers Monday that he is “concerned by recent measures introduced by certain member states, notably on food products and medicines.”
Breton says he’s been talking to ministers and officials from 18 countries concerning around 30 restrictive measures that have been put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.
Vowing a “zero-tolerance” policy, Breton says such restrictions are “not acceptable, and the commission will not hesitate to act.”
He did not name any countries, but the EU commission launched infringement proceedings last week against Bulgaria for obliging retailers to favor local food producers.
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GENOA, Italy — Hundreds of steelworkers protested outside a factory in the port city of Genoa on Monday in what they billed as Italy’s first industrial protest since the country locked down due to the coronavirus in early March.
As restrictions eased significantly, workers gathered to protest ArcerlorMittal’s decision to put another 1,000 workers at plants throughout the country on short-term unemployment schemes at a fraction of usual pay. The company has already put more than 3,000 workers in its beleaguered Taranto plant in southern Italy on temporary unemployment.
Many Italian steelmakers stopped producing during the lockdown, although ArcelorMittal’s plant in Taranto — Italy’s largest — remained open throughout.
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SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Thousands of people in Bosnia who lost their jobs over the past two months due to the coronavirus lockdown in the country have been blocked by cumbersome and lengthy application procedures from accessing unemployment benefits they had been promised by the government.
Hundreds can bee seen daily waiting in long queues outside the government employment offices around the country. The offices are where all who had lost their jobs must report to start the application procedure.
According to the incomplete official statistics, over 30,000 people have lost their jobs in Bosnia since March when the authorities ordered all nonessential businesses, schools and public venues to close as part of measures to stem the spread of the virus.
Experts warn that many of those jobs will be lost for good, dealing a heavy blow to the country of some 3.5 million people where nearly 40% percent of the labor force was unemployed prior to the pandemic. So far, the economic upheaval has not hit public-sector jobs in Bosnia. But this could become a source of popular outrage since Bosnia’s oversized public sector is funded by a relatively small, but highly taxed private sector. Almost a quarter of government spending in Bosnia is used on salaries of nearly 100,000 public administration workers.
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GENEVA — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says countries need to work together to overcome the coronavirus pandemic.
In a video address Monday to the annual World Health Assembly, Merkel said that “no country can solve this problem alone.”
She backed the World Health Organization’s efforts to combat the outbreak but added that countries should “work to improve procedures” at the global body and ensure its funding is sustainable.
Merkel made no direct reference to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to cut funding for WHO over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
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Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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