Coronavirus Updates: U.K. And U.S. East Coast States Extend Lockdown, 2 Chainz Gives Back To Healthcare Workers, the Royal Couple Donate Meals And More

The U.K. and some U.S. states extend stay-at-home order, Ja Rule and 2Chainz give back to community and more.

The country has entered week five of the coronavirus pandemic, and things are starting to pick up. Many have already received their government-issued stimulus checks – despite some being deposited into the wrong accounts – and numbers of coronavirus cases are slowly but surely lowering over time. In the meantime, communities, celebs, activist, and more are continuing their COVID-19 relief efforts.

The Royal couple, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, have relocated to Los Angeles since departing from the Royal Kingdom, and are getting into community service. Harry and Meghan have partnered with Project Angel Food, a non-profit organization that cooks and delivers special meals to chronically ill people. Last week, the Duke and Duchess dropped off week’s worth of perishable meals and three weeks’ worth of shelf-stable foods to 20 clients on the charity’s list, CNN reports.

Rappers Ja Rule and 2Chainz are also playing their part. On Thursday, 2 Chainz and entrepreneur Mychel “Snoop” Dillard gave hundreds of meals to health care workers of Southern Regional Medical Center. Ja Rule donated face coverings and masks to the homeless in New York City. The act comes as a collaborative effort with David Prince of Prince Mana; both parties are teaming to hand out 3,000 masks and face coverings. “Unfortunately, masks are going to be a new way of life,” Ja told Page Six. “The homeless population are people we often forget about. These are the people who can’t stay home and social distance. But they are part of our society.” He added, “They are hard-working people, but now this is becoming a real situation that they cannot dig out of, and now families can end up on the street.”

While things are starting to get better, east coast states and countries aren’t letting up on their stay-at-orders. On Thursday, Britain’s Foreign Minister Dominic Raab announced the government would be extending its lockdown by at least another three weeks. “Any change to our social-distancing measures now would risk a significant increase in the spread of the virus. That would threaten a second peak of the virus and substantially increase the number of deaths,” Raab said at a press conference. Traveling restrictions have been in place since March 23 in the U.K.

And east coast states are moving in the same direction. New York and other east coast states are extending their shutdown of non-essential businesses to May 15, according to CNBC. The lift was reportedly scheduled originally for April 23. “We have to continue doing what we’re doing. I’d like to see that infection rate get down even more,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

There are currently over 2,182,025 coronavirus cases in the world, more than 145,513 coronavirus-related deaths, and over 547,094 people have recovered from the disease.