SOUTH AFRICA: President Cyril Ramaphosa has tested negative for the coronavirus, just hours before the country began a 21-day nationwide lockdown enforced by the military. It and other African nations—vivid with memories of the 1980s AIDS epidemic and recent Ebola outbreaks—are deploying drastic measures.

IRAN: Ramiel Bet Tamraz is one of seven Christians among 85,000 jailed Iranians temporarily released to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

GLOBAL: A reporter-friend noted to me, “There’s no place to go for outside perspective. Everyone is in this.” So true, and it’s a unique moment in my three decades of journalism, and we’ll try to keep you abreast of some of the too many latest events related to the coronavirus (including some heavenly perspective), plus the usual mix of mayhem and redemption. What it looks like when the world empties.

GLOBAL: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a 30-day restriction on non-essential travel to the European Union, informing leaders in the Group of Seven of the travel ban in a video conference call on Monday—as Europe and the United States become the center of the

NIGERIA: Gunmen abducted the wife of the Anglican bishop of Bari diocese in Kano State, the latest in a string of violent attacks by Islamic extremists on Catholic and Protestant clergy and lay members in the region.

TURKEY: “Europe will never allow itself to be blackmailed,” said European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas after Turkey reneged on a 2016 agreement, and opened its borders to allow Syrian refugees and other migrants to leave the country for Europe.

GLOBAL: The spread of the coronavirus causing the disease COVID-19 has killed at least 2,800 people and left more than 82,000 people infected on every continent except Antarctica. For those who already have been quarantined, the story isn’t over.