China s major manufacturing rivals in the region Japan and South Korea also reported sharp declines in output on Thursday. "It s too early to tell, but today s print suggests that a sequential uptick in growth activity in the third quarter could still be possible," said Louise Loo, senior economist with Oxford Economics.
The director of the World Health Organization declared Friday that the coronavirus emergency was “over,” after three years of a world transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed at least 7 million people.