What you need to know today about the virus outbreak

Even as many leaders hope to reopen stores, factories, airplanes and schools quickly and safely to ease economic pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic, health authorities warned that returning to normal is a distant goal.

The wave of layoffs that has engulfed the U.S. economy since the coronavirus struck forced 5.2 million more people to seek unemployment benefits last week, the government reported Thursday.

President Donald Trump wants to ease guidelines on social distancing, but business leaders caution that they need more coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment before people can safely go back to work.

Here are some of AP’s top stories Thursday on the world’s coronavirus pandemic. Follow APNews.com/VirusOutbreak for updates through the day and APNews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak for stories explaining some of its complexities.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY:

— Ten nurses have been suspended from their jobs at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, after refusing to care for coronavirus patients without being provided protective N95 face masks. They are among hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care workers across the U.S. who say they’ve been asked to work without adequate protection. Some have taken part in protests or lodged formal complaints. Others are buying — or even making — their own supplies.

— Dr. Giovanni Passeri has worked every day at a hospital since his ward received its first COVID-19 case on March 7 in hard-hit Parma province in northern Italy. An AP photographer documented his day and night, from his tense 12-hour overnight shift to his drastically altered routine at home with his wife and 10-year-old son. What emerges is an intimate portrait of a doctor from a medical staff that well-wishers have affectionately...