Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The number of U.S. coronavirus infections climbed above 82,000 on Thursday, surpassing the national tallies of China and Italy, as New York, New Orleans and other hot spots faced a surge in hospitalizations and looming shortages of supplies, staff and sick beds.
With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200.
“Any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. He described the state’s projected shortfall in ventilators – machines that support the respiration of people have cannot breathe on their own – as “astronomical.”
“It’s not like they have them sitting in the warehouse,” Cuomo added. “There is no stockpile available.”
RELATED COVERAGE
Trump to receive new coronavirus recommendations this weekend, plans Xi call
How many Americans have coronavirus? New Reuters poll might offer a hint
At least one New York City hospital, New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, has begun a trial of sharing single ventilators between two patients.
While New York was the coronavirus epicenter in the United States this week, the next big wave of infections appeared headed for Louisiana, where demand for ventilators has already doubled. In New Orleans, the state’s biggest city, Mardi Gras celebrations late last month are believed to have fueled the outbreak.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said New Orleans would be out of ventilators by April 2 and potentially out of bed space by April 7 “if we don’t flatten the infection curve soon.”
“It’s not conjecture, it’s not some flimsy theory,” Edwards told a press conference. “This is what is going to happen.”
About 80% of Louisiana’s intensive care patients are now on breathing machines, up from the normal rate of 30-40%, said Warner Thomas, chief executive of Ochsner Health System, the state’s hospital group.
Scarcities of protective masks, gloves, gowns and eyewear for doctors and nurses – reports abound of healthcare workers recycling old face masks, making their own or even using trash bags to shield themselves – have emerged as a national problem.
“Our nurses across the country do not have the personal protective equipment that is necessary to care for COVID patients, or any of their patients,” Bonnie Castillo, head of the largest U.S. nurses union, National Nurses United, told MSNBC.
In an ominous milestone for the United States as a whole, at least 82,153 people nationwide were infected as of Thursday, according to a Reuters tally from state and local public health agencies. China, where the global pandemic emerged late last year, had the second highest number of cases, 81,285, followed by Italy with 80,539.
At least 1,204 Americans have died from COVID-19, which has proven especially dangerous to the elderly and people with underlying chronic health conditions, Reuters’ tally showed.
MORE BEDS NEEDED
For New York state, Cuomo said a key goal was rapidly to expand the number of available hospital beds from 53,000 to 140,000.
New York hospitals were racing to comply with Cuomo’s directive to increase capacity by at least 50%. At Mount Sinai Hospital’s Upper East Side location, rooms were being constructed within an atrium to open up more space for beds.
At Elmhurst Hospital in New York’s borough of Queens, about a hundred people, many wearing masks with their hoods pulled up, lined up behind barriers outside the emergency room entrance, waiting to enter a tent to be screened for the coronavirus.
The city coroner’s office has posted refrigerated trucks outside Elmhurst and Bellevue Hospital to temporarily store bodies of the deceased.
Deborah White, vice chair of emergency medicine at Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the city’s Bronx borough, said 80% of its emergency room visits were patients with coronavirus-like symptoms.
A ventilator shortfall and surge in hospitalizations has already raised the prospect of rationing healthcare.
Asked about guidelines being drafted on how to allocate ventilators to patients in case of a shortage, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told reporters such bioethical discussions “haunted him” but were unavoidable.
Outside New York and New Orleans, other hot spots appeared to be emerging around the country, including Detroit.
Brandon Allen, 48, was buying groceries in Detroit for his 72-year-old mother, who has tested positive and was self-quarantining at home.
“It’s surreal,” Allen said. “People around me I know are dying. I know of a couple people who have died. I know a couple of people who are fighting for their lives. Everyday you hear of another person who has it.”
RECORD UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS
Desperate to slow virus transmissions by limiting physical contact among people, state and local governments have issued stay-at-home orders covering about half the U.S. population. A major side effect has been the strangulation of the economy, and a wave of layoffs.
The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits last week soared to a record of nearly 3.28 million – almost five times the previous weekly peak of 695,000 during the 1982 recession.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said warmer weather may help tamp down the U.S. outbreak as summer approaches, though the virus could re-emerge in the winter.
“We hope we get a respite as we get into April, May and June,” Fauci said on WNYC public radio.
Washington state Governor Jay Inslee said he may extend a stay-at-home order tentatively set to expire April 6, encouraged by what he called a “very modest improvement” in the Seattle area.
Washington experienced the first major U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 and has been among the hardest-hit states. As of Thursday the state reported about 3,200 cases and 147 deaths.
In California’s Coachella Valley, a region rife with retirees who are especially vulnerable, 25 members of the state’s National Guard helped a non-profit distribute food to people stuck in their homes, as most of the regular volunteers are senior citizens.
More than 10,000 troops have been deployed in 50 states to provide humanitarian aid during the pandemic.
TAIPEI (Reuters) – China accused the United States on Thursday of playing a dangerous game with its support for Taiwan, after a U.S. warship passed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait following heightened military tension between China and Taiwan.
China has been angered by the Trump administration’s stepped-up support for the island it considers its own, such as more arms sales, U.S. patrols near Taiwan and last month’s visit to Washington by Taiwan Vice President-elect William Lai.
Anthony Junco, a spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, said the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell conducted “a routine Taiwan Strait transit” on March 25, in line with international law.
“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he added. “The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”
Taiwan’s defence ministry said the ship sailed north through the waterway and was monitored by Taiwan’s armed forces, on what it called an “ordinary mission”, adding there was no cause for alarm.
In Beijing, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang denounced “continued negative actions” by the United States on Taiwan, including sailings through and flights over the Taiwan Strait.
“U.S. moves have seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, severely harmed peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and poisoned Sino-U.S. military ties,” Ren told a monthly news conference.
The actions were “extremely dangerous”, he added.
Taiwan is China’s most sensitive territorial and diplomatic issue and Beijing has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control. The narrow Taiwan Strait that separates the island from China is a frequent source of tension.
In recent weeks China’s air force has conducted several exercises close to Taiwan, prompting its mostly U.S.-equipped military to scramble fighters to intercept and warn away the Chinese aircraft.
Taiwan has called the drills provocative, and urged China to pay more attention to fighting a coronavirus pandemic, rather than menace it.
The United States, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, but is the island’s most important international supporter and main source of arms.
In January another U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait less than a week after President Tsai Ing-wen won re-election by a landslide on a platform of standing up to China.
Nike reported a 5% drop in Chinese sales to $1.5bn in its last financial quarter, which runs to the end of February. It was the first decline in China for the company in almost six years.
But it has seen strong online sales, rising by 36% during the quarter. It hopes this trend will help cushion a fall in sales from store closures.
Nike also saw an “extraordinary rise” in its personal training apps in China, designed for home workouts. User activity was up 80% as China faced a national lockdown with residents staying at home.
The sportswear firm said it would push on with some new product launches originally intended for the Olympics “when the time is right”. Nike has been promoting its sustainable footwear, made from recyclable materials.
On Tuesday the IOC announced it was postponing the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games until next year because of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.
Image copyright PTIImage caption This city of five million people has been under a lockdown since last week
At 05:00 local time (23:30 GMT) of 8 March, the intensive care unit of a private hospital in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan received a 68-year-old man suffering from pneumonia. He was also having problems breathing.
At the Brijesh Bangar Memorial Hospital in Bhilwara, the new patient was examined by 58-year-old Alok Mittal, a doctor of internal medicine, and his team. The patient wasn’t asked about any travel history; nor did he disclose anything. There were six other patients in the ICU.
The man’s condition did not improve much, and two days later, he was sent to a private hospital in Jaipur, some 250km (155 miles) away, for specialised treatment. In Jaipur, he was treated in two hospitals. “We had no idea what was in store,” Shantilal Acharya, an intensive care nurse who received the patient in the Bhilwara hospital, told me.
For reasons that are still unclear, even the hospitals in Jaipur didn’t test a patient with severe pneumonia for coronavirus. His condition deteriorated swiftly and he died a few days later, on 13 March. The news of his death was conveyed to Dr Mittal and his team.
Image copyright SHAUKAT AHMEDImage caption The infection possibly spread from a private hospital in Bhilwara
Strangely enough, the doctors didn’t appear to comprehend the gravity of the situation even though it was clear that India was facing an imminent outbreak of Covid-19. The country has reported more than 460 confirmed cases and nine deaths so far, and testing remains low. On 9 March, according to reports, Dr Mittal and a few others travelled to the city of Udaipur, put up in a resort and played Holi, the Indian spring festival of colours. (Repeated attempts at getting through to Dr Mittal by phone and text yielded no results.)
Days after the death of the pneumonia patient, Dr Mittal and a colleague checked themselves into an isolation ward of a government hospital. Over the next few days, a few more colleagues from the hospital joined them in isolation. Twelve of them, including Dr Mittal, tested positive for Covid-19.
Next day, as news of the infections leaked, all hell broke loose. The private hospital was popular with its residents, and many regularly visited its thriving out-patient department for treatment. As people panicked and began blaming the doctors for spreading the infection, authorities moved swiftly.
Image copyright SHAUKAT AHMEDImage caption People have been stopped from entering or leaving Bhilwara
They imposed a “civil curfew”, prohibiting people from coming out of their homes and banning public gatherings. They shut schools, colleges, offices, and stopped people from leaving or entering the district. The private hospital was sealed and its 88 patients moved to other healthcare facilities in the area. “Officials were telling us the threat was serious and there was a chance of an outbreak,” local journalist Pramod Tiwari told me.
So Bhilwara, fearing a serious outbreak, did everything that India did a few days later. So could this city of 400,000 people and a major textile making hub, turn out to be India’s first coronavirus “hotspot”?
Of the 69 people tested in the city until Sunday evening, 13 people – including doctors and paramedics – aged between 24 and 58, have tested positive. They include three doctors and nine health workers. Thirty-one people – mostly hospital workers – are in isolation. “Most of them are doing fine,” Dr Arun Gaur, the chief medical officer of the district, told me.
But things could get really bad.
Between 20 February and before going into isolation last week, Dr Mittal and his team of doctors at the hospital saw 6,192 patients who came from 13 districts of Rajasthan and 39 patients belonging to four other states. Drawing from the experience in China and Italy, doctors now know that hospitals might turn out to be the “main source” of Covid-19 transmission. Also, both MERS and SARS had high transmission rates within hospitals. The potential for community transmission of the infection across a large geographical area from the Bhilwara hospital is real, officials fear.
Image copyright SHAUKAT AHMEDImage caption The city’s borders have been sealed
So did the virus reach this city through the patient who was treated at three hospitals and went untested before he died? Or did one of the more than 80 patients admitted in the hospital transmit it? Or was it spread by another patient in the intensive care? Or had one of the doctors picked up the infection separately and spread it unknowingly?
Nobody will know until all the contact tracing and testing is complete, and that’s the scary part.
The lack of early credible information on the transmission meant that rumours had a field day. Local media reported that one of the infected doctors had received guests from Saudi Arabia at home and had contracted the infection. He had then gone to the hospital and spread the infection to co-workers, the reports added.
Dr Niyaz Khan had to record a mobile phone video from his intensive care bed to squelch the rumour. With monitors beeping around him, Dr Khan, masked and breathless, implored: “Just to set the record straight, I have no relative in Saudi Arabia. I have a son and a wife. None of them is positive. Please don’t believe what is coming in the media.” Another doctor said it was unfair to blame the hospital: “The patient fooled us and told us he didn’t travel outside the country for the two days he was in the ICU with us.” And Dr Mittal himself – his wife has also tested positive – recorded videos in isolation saying that he had tested positive, and he was doing well. “Please do not panic,” the well-known doctor said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Residents in the city have begun panicking
That is easier said than done.
Realising the gravity of the situation, 300 teams of government workers and volunteers have fanned out in Bhilwara city. They are knocking on the doors of some 78,000 houses, and asking residents whether they’ve had a guest from outside the country, been treated in the hospital or know anyone who has tested positive. The survey began on 18 March and will finish on 25 March. “They are asking if we have cold, cough and fever and telling us if we have any of the symptoms we should report for tests at the government hospital,” a resident told me.
Another 1,900 similar teams have travelled out into neighbouring villages where more than 2.5 million people live. People in homes with suspect cases are being put into quarantine. Seven thousand people have been put into home quarantine so far.
Fearing a surge in infections, 20 more beds are being added to the hospital’s 30-bed isolation ward, which is already full. Six private hospitals have promised to provide an additional 35 beds for isolation. Thirteen places with 450 beds – extendable to 2,000 beds – where people can be quarantined have also been identified, Rajendra Bhatt, the senior-most official of the district told me. “It’s like fighting a war, but we have been agile and alert,” he said.
Meanwhile the residents, like elsewhere in India, are enduring an extended lockdown and curfew. Rajkumar Jain, a professor of computer science, is locked down with 14 members of his joint family in a two-storey home. “We are in complete panic,” he told me. “People are saying here that Bhilwara is going to become India’s Italy.”
Media captionWATCH: Millions of Indians bang pots and pans in support of health workers
Virus was circulating ‘before we were aware of the outbreak in China’, says Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
Italy has now reported more than 4,800 deaths from Covid-19, more than any other country in the world
Italian doctors became aware of a “strange pneumonia” circulating in the Lombardy region in November. Photo: AFP
A “strange pneumonia” was circulating in northern Italy as long ago as November, weeks before doctors were made aware of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, one of the European country’s leading medical experts said this week.
“They [general practitioners] remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,” Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States.
“This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.”
Remuzzi’s comments came as scientists continue to search for the origin of the coronavirus. Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan said earlier that although China was the first to report the pathogen, it was not yet certain where it actually came from.
Remuzzi said it was only recently that he had heard from Italian doctors about the disease, which meant it had existed and been spreading without people’s knowledge.
Despite reporting its first locally transmitted coronavirus infections – in Lombardy – only on February 21 – it had had only imported cases before then – Italy has since had more than 53,000 confirmed cases and 4,825 deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen. By comparison, China has had just over 81,000 cases and 3,261 fatalities.
Italy suspended all flights to China on January 31, the first nation to do so.
Coronavirus vaccine trial volunteers recount their experiences
22 Mar 2020
In the central China city of Wuhan, where the epidemic was first identified, doctors began noticing a “pneumonia with an unknown cause” in December. The first known infection in the city can be traced back to December 1.
The current thinking among the scientific community is that the first infection in Lombardy was the result of an Italian coming into contact with a Chinese person in late January. However, if it can be shown that the novel coronavirus – officially known as SARS-CoV-2 – was in circulation in Italy in November, then that theory would be turned on its head.
The debate over the possible origin of the pathogen has also been at the heart of a war of words between Beijing and Washington, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly referring to it as the “Chinese virus” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling it the “Wuhan virus”, infuriating Beijing in the process.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took to Twitter to contest the claims.
“By calling it ‘China virus’ and thus suggesting its origin without any supporting facts or evidence, some media clearly want China to take the blame, and their ulterior motives are laid bare,” he said.
He then went on to suggest that the coronavirus outbreak might have started in the United States and been carried to Wuhan by the US Army.
The spring session of China’s Canton Fair has been postponed due to fears about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, authorities in Guangdong province say
Premier Li Keqiang had insisted early this month that the fair’s spring session would go ahead as it was crucial for efforts to ‘stabilise’ the global economy
The spring session of China’s Canton Fair has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Xinhua
The spring session of China’s largest trade expo, the Canton Fair, has been suspended over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, Chinese authorities said on Monday.
The announcement comes amid reports that regular foreign buyers were scrapping plans to attend the event, which was due to open on April 15. The fair has held its spring session in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, between mid-April and early May since 1957.
The decision was made after considering the current development of the pandemic, especially the high risk of imported infections, Ma Hua, deputy director of Guangdong’s department of commerce, was quoted as saying on Monday by the official Nanfang Daily.
Guangdong will assess the epidemic situation and make suggestions to the relevant departments of the central government, Ma said at a press conference.
No new date for the fair was announced, but veteran traders who regularly attend the event said the Guangdong government is talking with Beijing about a new time, possibly in May.
Premier Li Keqiang had insisted early this month that the fair’s spring session would go ahead despite the virus outbreak, as it was an important part of Beijing’s efforts to
Authorities of Guangdong, China’s main export and manufacturing hub, joined other large cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, in introducing new restrictions on Saturday that require all foreign visitors be isolated for 14 days at their own expense.
The containment measures, which come as China braces for a second wave
of imported coronavirus cases, would have applied to tens of thousands of foreign merchants attending the fair.
Coronavirus: Chinese companies cut salaries and staff in industries hit hardest by Covid-19
The Canton Fair occurs twice a year and is China’s oldest and largest exhibition. The spring session last year attracted 195,454 foreign buyers from 213 countries and regions across the world. The top five sources of buyers were from Hong Kong, India, the United States, South Korea and Thailand.
But a growing number of regular attendees have recently cancelled plans to take part in this year’s spring session, Chinese exporters said, as concerns mount about possible infection and extra expenses due to a mandatory two week quarantine after arrival.
“About 80 per cent of our firm’s veteran clients told us last month they won’t come this time,” said Jason Liang, a sales manager at a Guangzhou-based exporter of electronic products, who did not want his company identified. “Plus with this new [quarantine], I think at least 90 per cent or almost all of them would drop the trip.
“The costs – time, security and expense – are totally uncontrollable for international travel currently. We also have no plans to attend any exhibition before the summer.”
About 80 per cent of our firm’s veteran clients told us last month they won’t come this time … The costs – time, security and expense – are totally uncontrollable for international travel currently. Jason Liang
Felly Mwamba, a leader of the Congolese community in Guangzhou who has been in the city since 2003, said China’s quarantine measures made it hard for people to visit Guangzhou.
Xie Jun, a furniture and fabric exporter from Zhejiang, said buyers from developing countries that were part of the Belt and Road Initiative would be hard hit if they were forced to pay for quarantine and treatment.
“In February before the pandemic occurred, to cushion the impact some local governments in China’s exporting trade hubs, such as Yiwu and Jinhua, introduced subsidies to attract foreign merchants,” he said. “But now all the subsidies policies are cancelled from what I know.”
Coronavirus and the ‘war economy’: the US and China bicker as the shop goes down
Chinese exporters, traders, and even local residents in Guangdong, have previously voiced concern about authorities’ decision to press on with the even due to the growing number of imported cases to China.
“We strongly call on the government to cancel the spring session of the Canton Fair,” said Zhu Yinghua, a retired teacher in Guangzhou, said before the announcement.
“It’s too dangerous for us local residents if dozens of thousands of foreigners to flock into Guangzhou.”
SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – With more employees working from home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, demand is surging for laptops and network peripherals as well as components along the supply chain such as chips, as companies rush to build virtual offices.
Many firms have withdrawn earnings forecasts, anticipating a drop in consumer demand and economic slump, but performance at electronics retailers and chipmakers is hinting at benefits from the shift in work culture.
Over the past month, governments and companies globally have been advising people to stay safe indoors. Over roughly the same period, South Korea – home of the world’s biggest memory chip maker, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd – on Monday reported a 20% jump in semiconductor exports.
Pointing to further demand, nearly one in three Americans have been ordered to stay home, while Italy – where deaths have hit 5,476 – has banned internal travel. Worldwide, the flu-like virus has infected over 300,000 people and led to almost 15,000 deaths since China first reported the outbreak in December.
“With more people working and learning from home during the outbreak, there has been rising demand for internet services … meaning data centres need bigger pipes to carry the traffic,” said analyst Park Sung-soon at Cape Investment & Securities.
A South Korean trade ministry official told Reuters that cloud computing has boosted sales of server chips, “while an increase in telecommuting in the United States and China has also been a main driver of huge server demand.”
In Japan, laptop maker Dynabook reported brisk demand which it partly attributed to companies encouraging teleworking. Rival NEC Corp said it has responded to demand with telework-friendly features such as more powerful embedded speakers.
Australian electronics retailer JB Hifi Ltd also said it saw demand “acceleration” in recent weeks from both commercial and retail customers for “essential products they need to respond to and prepare” for the virus, such as devices that support remote working as well as home appliances.
CHINA LEAD
China is leading chip demand, analysts said, as cloud service providers such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd and Baidu Inc quickly responded to the government’s effort to contain the virus.
“Cloud companies opened their platforms, allowing new and existing customers to use more resources for free to help maintain operations,” said analyst Yih Khai Wong at Canalys.
“This set the precedent for technology companies around the world that offer cloud-based services in their response to helping organisations affected by coronavirus.”
China’s cloud infrastructure build-up has helped push up chip prices, with spot prices of DRAM chips rising more than 6% since Feb. 20, showed data from price tracker DRAMeXchange.
UBS last week forecast average contract prices of DRAM chips to rise as much as 10% in the second quarter from the first, led by a more than 20% jump in server chips.
It said it expects DRAM chips to be modestly under supplied until the third quarter of 2021, with demand from server customers rising 31% both in 2020 and 2021.
SUPPLY DISRUPTION
Concerns over supply disruption has also contributed to a price rise.
“You’ve got lots of OEMs and systems integrators in the global market who have intense demand for memory now,” said Andrew Perlmutter, chief strategy officer at ITRenew, a company that buys and reworks used data centre equipment for resale.
“Nobody is shutting down their factories – it is still production as normal – but people worry about memory supply in particular, so they want to get out ahead of production.”
About 69% of electronics manufacturers have flagged possible supplier delays averaging three weeks, showed a poll on March 13 by industry trade group IPC International.
Half of those polled expected business to normalise by July, and nearly three-quarters pointed to at least October.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China on Sunday reported 46 new cases of coronavirus, the fourth straight day with an increase, with all but one of those imported from overseas, and further stepped up measures to intercept cases from abroad as the outbreak worsens globally.
While China says it has drastically reduced the number of domestically transmitted cases – the one reported on Sunday was the first in four days – it is seeing a steady rise in imported cases, mostly from Chinese people returning from overseas.
In a sign of how seriously China is taking the threat of imported cases, all international flights due to arrive in Beijing starting Monday will first land at another airport, where passengers will undergo virus screening, government agencies said on Sunday, in an expansion of existing measures.
International flights that were scheduled to arrive in the capital will land instead at one of 12 airports. Passengers who clear screening will then be permitted to reboard the plane, which will then fly to Beijing, the regulator said.
Separately, Shanghai and Guangzhou both announced that all arriving international passengers will undergo an RNA test to screen for coronavirus, expanding a program that previously only applied to those coming from heavily-hit countries.
RELATED COVERAGE
Emirates airline adds Beijing and Seattle to flight suspensions
Among the new cases from abroad reported on Sunday, a record 14 were in the financial hub of Shanghai and 13 were in Beijing, a decline from 21 the previous day.
The new locally transmitted case was in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou and was also the first known case where the infection of a local person was linked to the arrival of someone from overseas, according to Guangdong province.
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times newspaper, called for all cities in China to implement 14-day quarantines for people arriving from abroad.
He also called for quarantine policies to apply to people from Hong Kong and Macau as well, he said on his Weibo account on Sunday.
“I am worried that there are similar cases to the Guangzhou one existing in other parts of the country. There were reports previously that people coming back from abroad returned to their homes in Shanghai without any obstacles,” Hu said.
“It matters to the overall situation of China’s next prevention and control efforts if we can plug the leaks.”
The Global Times is a tabloid published by the Ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily.
The latest figures from China’s National Health Commission bring total reported coronavirus cases in the country to 81,054, with 3,261 deaths, including six on Saturday. On Saturday, China reported 41 new coronavirus cases for the previous day, all of them imported.
Of all 97 imported cases as of end-Saturday, 92 of them are Chinese nationals and 51 are Chinese students returning from studying abroad, said Gao Xiaojun, spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Health Commission during a press conference on Sunday.
The Beijing health commission announced separately on its website it had two more imported cases on Sunday, bringing the city’s total number of imported cases to 99 as of Sunday noon.
BACK TO A KIND OF NORMAL
China is trying to revive an economy that is widely expected to contract deeply in the current quarter, with life slowly returning to normal in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, albeit with everyone wearing masks in public.
Still, numerous shops and restaurants remain shut – many have gone out of business – and factories and other workplaces are still not operating at full capacity.
On Sunday, a central bank official called for stepped-up global policy coordination to manage the economic impact of the pandemic. He said China’s recent policy measures were gaining traction, and it has capacity for further action.
Chen Yulu, a deputy governor at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), also said he expects significant improvement in the Chinese economy in the second quarter.
And while the virus will continue putting upward pressure on near-term consumer prices, there is no basis for long-term inflation or deflation, he told a news briefing.
Globally, roughly 275,000 people have been infected with the virus, and more than 11,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally, with the number of deaths in Italy recently surpassing those in China.
“Now I think the epidemic has been controlled. But this definitely doesn’t mean that it’s over,” said a 25-year-old woman surnamed He who works in the internet sector and was visiting the vast Summer Palace complex in Beijing on Saturday.
“I’m willing to come out today but of course I am still afraid,” she told Reuters.
The central province of Hubei, where the outbreak first emerged late last year in its capital Wuhan, reported its fourth straight day of no new cases.
China has used draconian measures to contain the spread of the virus, including locking down Hubei province.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Many passengers have been wearing masks while travelling on the network
One of the world’s busiest urban rail systems will be shut down for ordinary commuters from Monday morning to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection in Mumbai, one of India’s most populous cities. Only government workers in “essential services” will be allowed to travel on a truncated service.
This was waiting to happen.
Consider this. Eight million people take Mumbai’s crowded suburban train network every day. Packed to nearly three times its capacity, this is one of the busiest railway systems in the world.
The 459km (285-mile) network is the lifeline of India’s financial and entertainment capital, accounting for nearly 80% of all commuting trips in the populous western city. The suburban trains “cover almost the distance up to [the] moon in one week,” the network’s website says.
The 66-year-old network carries 60,000 passengers per km per day, the highest among all the leading commuter rail systems in the world, say officials. The coaches are sturdy enough to carry a “super dense crush load”, a phrase coined by the railways to describe the intense crowding on Mumbai’s trains. This means that a nine-car train designed for 1,800 standing passengers will often carry up to 7,000 passengers, according to Monisha Rajesh, author of Around India in 80 Trains. “Mumbai’s local trains were certainly not for the fainthearted,” she wrote.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Mumbai’s suburban train network carries eight million passengers every day
Now consider this. The western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, has confirmed more than 60 coronavirus infections, the highest in India so far. Scores of long distance trains out of the city have been cancelled, but the suburban network has continued to rumble on, raising fears of the mass spread of the virus on these packed trains. The crowded service was an easy target of a terror attack in 2006 when serial blasts ripped though a number of trains. At least 180 people were killed and more than 800 injured – the high casualty figure was attributed to overcrowding.
“From ports and landing places the local transport networks, particularly the railways, carried the virus from large cities to the smallest, remotest settlements,” said a report on the spread of the flu in Britain in 1918-1919.
So should one of the world’s busiest rail networks be shut down to stop a possible spread of the virus in a city that many fear could turn into a coronavirus hotspot?
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Officials say ridership on the trains has dropped by 17% after the coronavirus scare
Economists like Shruti Rajagopalan believe so.
“India is conducting the fewest tests per million at the moment. If the virus is truly within the community, then given these two issues, the Mumbai outbreak cannot be contained and people will die without healthcare.
“Mumbai trains are the fastest and surest way to spread the virus (if it is within the community) to the densest parts of the city,” she told me.
There is enough precedent: China stopped trains, ferries, planes and buses from leaving the city of Wuhan; and on Thursday, London officials announced that up to 40 stations on the London Underground network are to be shut as the city attempts to contain the outbreak.
Others are not so sure about linking the spread of a pandemic to public transport systems. One study does not support the effectiveness of suspending mass urban transport systems to reduce or slow down a pandemic because, “whatever the relevance of public transport is to individual-level risk, household exposure most likely poses a greater threat”.
“I have not seen any data on the relative risk of public transportation compared with [dense places like] workplaces or schools,” Timothy Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles told Vox.com.
He said data from China suggested that “household contact was an important means of transmission outside of Wuhan, suggesting that prolonged contact [with a sick person] increases the risk of transmission”.
“If correct, then the time spent commuting and the density of people commuting could be important factors in assessing if public transportation is a risk factor for the disease’s transmission.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Trains on the network are being scrubbed clean to avoid the spread of infection
Shivaji Sutar, a senior communications officer of the railways, told me that the network was running an aggressive campaign to ease the rush: awareness announcements, posters and videos containing virus information.
They were also monitoring crowds, scrubbing the trains, taking the temperature of willing passengers and embarking on a drive against public spitting, he said.
A combination of awareness and panic has already led to a 27% drop in traffic on the network. But millions of people continue to take the train to work and home every day.
“This is more because of fear than anything else. Most of us have to take the network because we have to come to work. There is still no government directive to all companies to work from home. And apart from passengers wearing masks, I haven’t seen any other precautions being taken,” Rekha Hodge, who has been using the network for three decades, told me. That is bad news.
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) — Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that the Chinese side is willing to join hands with the British side as the country is in a tough fight against the novel coronavirus epidemic.
Wang made the remarks during his telephone conversation with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.
He said that the epidemic is breaking out in many parts of the world, and the number of confirmed cases in European countries such as Britain is increasing, for which China expresses sincere sympathies with the British side and believes that the British people can come together and ultimately overcome the epidemic.
“When the Chinese people are facing the severe challenges of the epidemic, the British side has extended a helping hand, which we will remember in our hearts,” said Wang, adding that at this difficult time when Britain is fighting the epidemic, China is also ready to join hands with Britain.
China still faces an arduous epidemic prevention and control task, but it will manage to provide a batch of medical supplies to the British side and help facilitate the purchasing through commercial means, he said.
He also said that the top priority for China’s epidemic prevention and control is to avoid a rebound, adding that China is willing to carry out joint prevention and control with Britain, and hopes Britain can strengthen border control, maintain the essential cross-border flow between the two countries, and prevent cross-infection to the greatest extent.
Wang said that the Chinese side has been sharing epidemic-related information and carrying out anti-epidemic cooperation with the international community in an open, transparent and responsible manner since the beginning of its fight against the outbreak, adding that the country is currently providing various forms of support to nearly 100 countries in need.
What is alarming is that some people are trying to politicize the epidemic, label the virus and stigmatize China, Wang noted, adding that such detrimental acts will undermine the solidarity and cooperation of the international community and hinder the joint efforts of all parties to combat the epidemic.
Wang said he believes that all countries, including Britain, will uphold an objective and fair attitude and resist this narrow-minded approach.
Noting that many overseas Chinese, including Chinese students, work, study and live in Britain, Wang called them bridges of friendship between the two countries.
It is hoped that the British side will attach great importance to and protect their health and safety, and provide timely and necessary medical care, he added.
Raab spoke highly of China’s notable achievements in fighting the epidemic, and thanked China for its sympathies with Britain, and for providing medical supplies and facilitating procurement.
Noting that the British side attaches great importance to China’s experience in the COVID-19 fight, Raab said his country stands ready to strengthen coordination with China and other countries in epidemic prevention and control, vaccine research and development, and in assisting countries with fragile medical systems, so as to promote international cooperation and strive for an early victory over the epidemic.
The British government will spare no effort to ensure the health and safety of overseas Chinese in his country, he added.
Voicing opposition to politicizing the epidemic, Raab stressed that the British side totally agrees with China’s position that the origin of the virus is a scientific issue that requires scientific and professional opinions.
He also urged that all sides work together to overcome the hardship amid the epidemic.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 