The human and economic toll of the lockdowns againstthe coronavirusmounted Thursday as India struggled to feed the multitudes, Italy shut down most of its industry and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week.
The U.S. overtook China as the country with the highest number of infections. As the number of infections worldwide reached a half-million and deaths climbed past 23,000, the damage to people's livelihoods and their well-being from the effort to flatten the rising curve started to come into focus.