Once the coronavirus epicenter in the U.S., New York City begins to reopen

Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) estimated that between 200,000 to 400,000 workers returned to work throughout the city’s five boroughs.

“All New Yorkers should be proud you got us to this day,” de Blasio said at a news conference Monday morning at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a manufacturing hub.

Here are some significant developments:

• Since the start of June, 14 states and Puerto Rico have seen their highest-ever seven-day average of new covid-19 cases, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.
• Harsh nationwide lockdowns, while widely loathed by those undergoing them, may have saved millions of lives and prevented hundreds of millions of infections, according to a pair of studies published Monday in the medical journal Nature.
• The U.S. economy officially entered a recession in February, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, which announced that a 128-month expansion officially ended then. The World Bank estimates that global gross domestic product will shrink 5.2 percent in 2020 as the pandemic continues to disrupt business, travel and manufacturing.
• A Post review found that several large states are not following federal recommendations to report probable coronavirus cases and deaths. That is partly why government officials and public health experts say the virus’s true toll is above the U.S. tally of about 1.9 million cases and 109,000 deaths.
• Officials from the World Health Organization warned that the coronavirus pandemic is “far from over,” saying "this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal.”
• Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday evening, producing dangerous flooding in communities where residents were forced to weigh the relative risks of staying in the storm’s path and evacuating to shelters where social distancing could be difficult.

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