What you need to know about the coronavirus right now

Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

As air travel restarts, questions arise around measures to ensure public safety and reassure passengers.

American Airlines, Delta Air and United Airlines have told their flight attendants not to force passengers to comply with their new policy requiring face coverings, but just to encourage them to do so, according to employee policies reviewed by Reuters.

“If the customer chooses not to comply for other reasons, please encourage them to comply, but do not escalate further,” American told flight attendants in a message on Friday that it provided to Reuters.

“Likewise, if a customer is frustrated by another customer’s lack of face covering, please use situational awareness to de-escalate the situation,” it added.

The International Air Transport Association and Airports Council International say they are working with industry partners on a consistent global approach to safety measures.

The European Union will recommend on Wednesday that border restrictions be gradually lifted and travel allowed to restart in order to revive tourism.

At least 17 countries have put emergency border controls in place to contain the coronavirus, even within the Schengen area, comprising 26 EU and other European countries, where frontiers are normally invisible.

The tourism sector suffered an 80-90% loss in turnover in the first quarter of 2020, four hospitality industry lobby groups said, and is braced for a disastrous summer season as the EU faces its deepest-ever recession.

British researchers are starting a study to try to answer one of the most puzzling questions around the novel coronavirus: why does it kill some people but not even give others a mild headache?

The study will sequence the genetic code of 20,000 people who fell critically ill with COVID-19 and compare their genomes with about 15,000 who were mildly ill or not ill at all.

From cardboard cut-outs of real fans to an app allowing supporters to influence the volume of noise piped into stadiums, people are developing ideas for how to put some matchday atmosphere back into stadiums.

But for many, the real problem of “ghost matches” played without fans is the eerie atmosphere with only the shouts of players and coaching staff echoing around deserted arenas.

Cologne coach Markus Gisdol suggested this could even lead to frayed tempers, saying of a March match against Borussia Moenchenggladbach: “Everyone on the sidelines was a little more irritable than usual because you could hear more of what the opposing bench were saying and what the officials were saying to each other.”