Opinion

As the calendar turns to May, we’re likely to see a slow return of growth for some types of economic activity that were wiped out by the coronavirus shutdowns in March and April. That’s the good news. The bad news is, as we’ve seen in the oil industry, much of the economy remains tremendously oversupplied for likely levels of demand ...

The UK’s House of Commons, often called the “mother of parliaments” (although that’s not the original meaning of the term), took a flying leap into the Zoom era this week with its first virtual Prime Minister’s Questions meeting. It was a different look from the usually raucous, crowded chamber of standing speeches, jeers, interruptions, eye-rolls and the suspense-filled votes that ...

As governments in Europe and elsewhere start to look at reopening their economies after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, mass antibody testing has come to the fore as a potential way of making sure the outbreak doesn’t surge again. These serological tests — which are being rolled out in Italy, Germany and the UK, as well as New ...

Covid-19 was only just arriving from Asia when the European Commission, with the technocratic equivalent of fanfare, announced a “Conference on the Future of Europe,” to be kicked off in May. Now, of course, the various seminars, committees and working groups are in lockdown limbo. And the conference title suddenly seems exceptionally ill-chosen. For it raises the question: Does the ...

Across the developing world, the defining images of the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic have been of migrant workers: abandoned, angry, starving. In their zeal to control the spread of the new coronavirus, governments have all too often betrayed their most aspirational citizens — those who move from countryside to cities to build better lives for themselves and their families. ...

First Walt Disney Co’s Bob Iger, and now AT&T Inc’s Randall Stephenson. As two of the world’s most powerful entertainment and communications companies confront the streaming wars and the Covid-19 pandemic — bracing for what may be a new normal brought on by both — they’ll have to venture into the unknown under new leadership. Stephenson, who took a prosaic ...

The results from the first blood surveys that test for evidence of antibodies to the new coronavirus have begun rolling in. They’ve been confirming earlier hints that in hard-hit places a significant share of people — 21.2% in the New York City survey — may have been infected with the virus, and that in most other places the percentages are ...

Remember the Magic School Bus, the animated series in which a somewhat demented school teacher named Ms. Frizzle (catchphrase: “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!”) takes her class on mind-bending adventures? In one episode, she reduces the bus to microscopic size and takes her charges into the bloodstream of an ill classmate. You see the kids swimming around in tiny ...

It’s not just air tickets that are being cancelled as the coronavirus causes global travel to seize up. Purchases of aircraft are also being pulled. Aircraft lessors Avolon Holdings Ltd, China Development Bank Financial Leasing Co, and General Electric Co’s GECAS have rescinded orders for 173 Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft over the past month, worth $17.8 billion at list ...

My son Nick lives in New Zealand, which has done a remarkable job fighting the coronavirus. As of April 24, the nation of 4.8 million people had 1,456 confirmed cases and only 17 deaths. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government is now talking about not just containing the virus but eliminating it. It helps that New Zealand is an island nation ...