Coronavirus updates for May 21

As the global COVID-19 case count crosses five million and the number of cases in India reaches 114,000, the country is gradually easing travel restrictions. After the airspace opening up to domestic travel in a calibrated manner, Indian Railways also announced that it will run 200 more trains from June 1. Around 1.5 lakh tickets were booked within two hours of opening the bookings for 100 passenger trains.

The Civil Aviation Ministry and DGCA came out with a set of guidelines for passengers, airlines, and airports to be followed after the resumption of services. Around 30-35 percent of the routes will be made operational, and airlines will have to adhere to the lower and upper limit of fares as prescribed by the government.

The number of COVID-19 fatalities across the world touched 331,000, according to Worldometer. The World Health Organisation warned that the pandemic was far from over, as 106,000 new cases were recorded worldwide in the last 24 hours — the biggest single-day spike. With 2.4 million Americans filing for unemployment insurance, close to 39 million people have reportedly lost their jobs in just nine weeks.

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