In fight against coronavirus, the world gives medical heroes a standing ovation

Clapping is now a big thing. With people stir-crazy in their locked-down homes, the phenomenon of stepping onto the balcony in the evening, flinging open the windows, to applaud health-care workers fighting the coronavirus on the front lines has gone global.

Part balm, part defiance, part celebration — we’re still here! — the practice has migrated, alongside the virus and enforced quarantine, from the Chinese epicenter of Wuhan to the medieval villages of Lombardy, from Milan to Madrid, onto Paris, and now London.