Pandemic becomes a patchwork of small successes and setbacks

BEIJING (AP) — The global battle against COVID-19 has become a patchwork of successes and setbacks shaped by the diverging trajectory that the coronavirus is taking in various parts of the world. In China, where the virus was first identified and authorities worried it might surge a second time, Beijing recorded a further daily drop in new cases. But South Korea recorded its largest 24-hour increase in confirmed cases in about three weeks. Most European countries warily shed lockdown measures even as the cases from an outbreak at a slaughterhouse in Germany passed 1,000. In parts of the Americas, the pandemic rages unabated. Brazil now has the second-highest number of confirmed cases worldwide.