It’s already hard to envision the world we lived in one month ago.
Flashback: A WHO report from March 1 shows a total of 7,169 coronavirus cases outside of China, with just seven countries having recorded even a single fatality and the total death toll under 3,000, including China.
The coronavirus is spreading most widely in countries that should be among the best equipped to handle it. There's no reason to expect that to remain the case.
Where things stand: 88% of new coronavirus cases confirmed on Wednesday came within the OECD club of wealthy nations, which together account for just 17% of the world's population. While that data is based on uneven and inadequate testing, Europe and North America are clearly in the eye of the storm.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu re-entered self-quarantine on Thursday after his health minister, Yaakov Litzman, tested positive for coronavirus, according to the prime minister's office.
Why it matters: The development comes less than 24 hours after Netanyahu exited several days of self-quarantine after one of his aides tested positive last week. Litzman's infection is even more damaging to Israeli senior government officials, including Netanyahu's national security adviser and the director of the Mossad, as many were in close contact with him in the past week and now face self-isolation.
A Pakistan appeals court has overturned the murder conviction and death sentence of the man convicted of killing U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reported early Thursday.
The big picture: Pearl, who was the Journal's South Asia correspondent, was abducted in Karachi in 2002. British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh had his sentence reduced to seven years, and three other men, who were originally given life sentences for helping him, were acquitted, per the BBC. A report by the Pearl Project at Georgetown University alleged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being held in Guantanamo Bay over the 9/11 attacks, carried out the journalist's beheading.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
