New York’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 on Monday even as the absence of fresh hot spots in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world yielded a ray of optimism in global efforts against the disease, though a return to normal was unlikely anytime soon.

Officials around the world worried that halting quarantine and social distancing measures could easily undo the hard-earned progress. Still, there were signs that countries were looking in that direction. Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs, a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions and grim predictions of a virus that would move with equal ferocity from New York to other parts of America had not yet materialized.