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.
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s biggest listed banks posted higher profits in the first quarter despite the wider impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy, though margins shrank.
The world’s largest commercial lender Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC) (601398.SS)(1398.HK) on Tuesday reported a 3.04% rise in first quarter net profit compared to a year earlier, while Bank of Communications Co Ltd (BoCom) (601328.SS)(3328.HK) reported a 1.8% rise.
Meanwhile at Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (AgBank) (1288.HK)(601288.SS) and China Construction Bank Ltd (CCB) (601939.SS)(0939.HK), first quarter net profit rose 4.79% and 5% respectively from the same period last year.
Following suit, Bank of China Ltd (BOC) (601988.SS) (3988.HK) posted on Wednesday a 3.17% rise in first-quarter net profit.
The growth came despite China’s economy posting the first quarterly contraction since at least 1992 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The government restricted people from travelling and going back to work to contain the spread of the virus, reducing revenue for companies and income for residents.
China’s largest banks are historically more resilient than their smaller kin, as they lend more to state-backed enterprises and have larger capital reserves.
However, despite this firmer base, net interest margins shrank at four of the five lenders, as loan prime rate reform and looser monetary policy weighed, said analysts.
AgBank did not report its net interest margin, the difference between what banks pay on deposits and earn on loans.
SOURED DEBT
ICBC, AgBank and CCB bucked the trend of the wider banking sector by posting steady non-performing loan (NPL) ratios.
The banking sector’s NPL ratio climbed in the first quarter to 2.04%, the banking and insurance regulator said, the highest level since the global financial crisis.
The rise came despite Chinese regulators moving to give banks leeway, allowing them to postpone some loan repayments until the end of June, as credit card and mortgage defaults surged.
About one-third of Chinese bank loans are to sectors including transport and retail that are significantly stressed by the pandemic, according to S&P Global.
“You can see generally from banks’ results that some lenders have reported falling asset quality, the NPL ratios have risen quite a lot,” said Richard Cao, an analyst at Guotai Junan International on Monday.
The largest banks are best placed to absorb such losses with a better ability to get financing and withstand a substantial volume of bad loans, S&P said in a research note in April.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s factory activity likely rose for a second straight month in April as more businesses re-opened from strict lockdowns implemented to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which has now paralysed the global economy.
The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI), due for release on Thursday, is forecast to fall to 51 in April, from 52 in March, according to the median forecast of 32 economists polled by Reuters. A reading above the 50-point mark indicates an expansion in activity.
While the forecast PMI would show a slight moderation in China’s factory activity growth, it would be a stark contrast to recent PMIs in other economies, which plummeted to previously unimaginable lows.
That global slump, caused by heavy government-ordered lockdowns, as well as the cautious resumption of business in China, suggests any recovery in the world’s second-largest economy is likely to be some way off.
“The recovery so far has been led by a bounce-back in production, however, the growth bottleneck has decisively shifted to the demand side, as global growth has weakened and consumption recovery has lagged amid continued social distancing,” Morgan Stanley said in a note.
“The expected slump in external demand has likely capped further recovery in industrial production.”
The latest official data showed 84% of mid-sized and small business had reopened as of April 15, compared with 71.7% on March 24.
Hobbled by the coronavirus, China’s economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter from a year earlier, the first contraction since current quarterly records began.
That has left Chinese manufacturers with reduced export orders and a logistics logjam, as many exporters grapple with rising inventory, high costs and falling profits. Some have let workers go as part of the cost-cutting efforts.
A China-based brokerage Zhongtai Securities estimated that the country’s real unemployment rate, measured using international standards, could exceed 20%, equal to more than 70 million job losses and much higher than March’s official reading of 5.9%.
Sheng Laiyun, deputy head at the statistics bureau, said on Sunday migrant workers and college graduates are facing increasing pressures to secure jobs, while official jobless surveys show nearly 20% of employed workers not working in March.
Chinese authorities have rolled out more support to revive the economy. The People’s Bank of China earlier in April cut the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves and reduced the interest rate on lenders’ excess reserves.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Delhi’sair quality has improved remarkably during the shutdown
When India shut down last month and suspended all transport to contain the spread of coronavirus, the skies over its polluted cities quickly turned an azure blue, and the air, unusually fresh.
As air pollution plummeted to levels unseen in living memory, people shared pictures of spotless skies and even Himalayan peaks from cities where the view had been obscured by fog for decades.
On one social messaging group, a resident of the capital, Delhi, which regularly records some of the foulest air in the world, celebrated the city’s “alpine weather“. Politician and author Shashi Tharoor wrote that the “blissful sight of blue skies and the joy of breathing clean air provides just the contrast to illustrate what we are doing to ourselves the rest of the time”.
Media caption India coronavirus lockdown cleans up Ganges river
Less than six months ago, Delhi was gasping for breath. Authorities said air quality had reached “unbearable levels”. Schools were shut, flights were diverted, and people were asked to wear masks, avoid polluted areas and keep doors and windows closed.
Delhi and 13 other Indian cities feature on a list of the world’s 20 most polluted. It is estimated that more than a million Indians die every year because of air pollution-related diseases. Industrial smoke, vehicular emissions, burning of trash and crop residue, and construction and road dust are the major contributors.
As urban Indians gazed at the skies and breathed clean air inside their homes, researchers hunkered down to track data on how the grinding lockdown – now extended to 3 May – was impacting air pollution across the country.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Lucknow is another city on the top 20 world’s most polluted list
“This was an unprecedented opportunity for us to take a close look at how air pollution levels have responded to an extraordinary development,” Sarath Guttikunda, who heads Urban Emissions, an independent research group that provides air quality forecasts, told me.
Dr Guttikunda and his team of researchers looked at the data spewed out by the 100-odd air quality monitoring stations all over India. They decided to concentrate on the capital Delhi and its suburbs – a massive sprawl called the National Capital region, where more than 20 million people live. Last winter, air pollution here had reached more than 20 times the World Health Organization’s safe limit.
Image copyright HINDUSTAN TIMESImage caption The financial capital Mumbai also seems very different
The deadliest particle in Delhi’s foul air is the tiny but deadly PM 2.5, which increases the likelihood of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. They primarily come from combustion – fires, automobiles and power plants.
Urban Emissions found the levels of PM 2.5 in Delhi during the lockdown plummeted to 20 micrograms per cubic metre with a 20-day average of 35.
To put this into context, between 2017 and 2019, the monthly average of PM 2.5 in the capital was up to four times higher. (The national standard is set at 40, and the WHO has an annual average guideline of just 10 micrograms per cubic metre.)
“If 35 is the average lowest available PM2.5 with limited local emissions, it means that at least 70% of the pollution is locally generated,” Mr Guttikunda told me.
Media caption India coronavirus lockdown cleans up Ganges river
His study also found a marked dip in PM 10, caused mainly by road and construction dust, and nitrogen dioxide, which comes mainly from vehicular emissions, and nearly 90% of vehicles are off the road.
“The current crisis has shown us that clear skies and breathable air can be achieved very fast if concrete action is taken to reduce burning of fossil fuels,” says Sunil Dahiya, of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which has also been tracking air pollution levels during the lockdown.
But will this prompt change? After all, urban Indians’ and the media’s panic and outrage during the deadly winter pollution every year soon gets lost in the fog of summer heat and concerns over monsoon rains and droughts.
“We don’t yet have a democratic demand for clean air,” Arunabha Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a leading climate think tank, told me. Orders to clean up the air have almost always come from the courts, responding to pleas by NGOs.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Pollution in Delhi peaks during winter
However, Dr Ghosh still hopes that “the experience of blue skies and fresh air could be a trigger to create a democratic demand for clean air in India”.
Crises often trigger life changing reforms. A fatal four-day “pea-souper” that engulfed London in 1952 and killed thousands provoked the passing of the Clean Air Act to reduce the use of smoky fuels.
China tried to clean up its air several times before hosting marquee international events – like the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the World Expo in Shanghai and the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 – before sliding back to grey, smoky skies.
But many believe the 2014 Apec meeting in Beijing, when China hosted 21 heads of Asia-Pacific economies, was a turning point. The rare blue skies over Beijing spawned the phrase ‘Apec blue‘. In a rush to clean its air, China introduced a set of far-reaching measures. Over the next four years, this resulted in a 32% drop in average pollution across major Chinese cities.
So could a lockdown to prevent the spread of a pandemic, which has imperilled the health and livelihoods of millions, trigger similar policy changes to clean up India’s air?
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The movement for clean air has been sporadic and mainly pushed by NGOs
Could it move to a shift in reducing traffic on the road by asking people to work from home in shifts now that millions have experienced clean air for the first time in years? (Facing energy shortages after the loss of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan unleashed a Cool Biz campaign to cut down air conditioning in workplaces and reduce carbon emissions by asking office workers to shed their suits.)
Or can India use some of the money from an inevitable stimulus to help kick-start the economy go towards helping green industries? Renewables, experts say, creates more jobs than coal: India has already created nearly 100,000 jobs in solar and wind energy firms.
Can the country use the windfall revenues accruing from the steep decline in oil prices – most of India’s oil is imported – to provide rebates to polluting factories to set up much-needed emission control equipment?
“We have to learn lessons to deploy the economic recovery from the pandemic. We need growth, jobs and sustainable development,” says Dr Ghosh. Cleaning up the air could be the key. For too long, India – and Indians – have ignored their right to breathe easy.
What’s more, if China can reduce air pollution by 32% in four-and-a-half years, why can’t India pledge to reduce pollution by 80% in 80 cities by 2027, which is our 80th anniversary of Independence? asks Dr Ghosh.
Faced with a backlash from the West over its handling of the early stages of the pandemic, Beijing has been quietly gaining ground in Asia
Teams of experts and donations of medical supplies have been largely welcomed by China’s neighbours
Despite facing some criticism from the West, China’s Asian neighbours have welcomed its medical expertise and vital supplies. Photo: Xinhua
While China’s campaign to mend its international image in the wake of its handling of the coronavirus health crisis has been met with scepticism and even a backlash from the US and its Western allies, Beijing has been quietly gaining ground in Asia.
Teams of experts have been sent to Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan and soon to Malaysia, to share their knowledge from the pandemic’s ground zero in central China.
China has also held a series of online “special meetings” with its Asian neighbours, most recently on Tuesday when Premier Li Keqiang discussed his country’s experiences in combating the disease and rebooting a stalled economy with the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Japan and South Korea.
Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang speaks to Asean Plus Three leaders during a virtual summit on Tuesday. Photo: AP
Many Western politicians have publicly questioned Beijing’s role and its subsequent handling of the crisis but Asian leaders – including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – have been reluctant to blame the Chinese government, while also facing criticism at home for not closing their borders with China soon enough to prevent the spread of the virus.
An official from one Asian country said attention had shifted from the early stages of the outbreak – when disgruntled voices among the public were at their loudest – as people watched the virus continue its deadly spread through their homes and across the world.
“Now everybody just wants to get past the quarantine,” he said. “China has been very helpful to us. It’s also closer to us so it’s easier to get shipments from them. The [medical] supplies keep coming, which is what we need right now.”
The official said also that while the teams of experts sent by Beijing were mainly there to observe and offer advice, the gesture was still appreciated.
Another Asian official said the tardy response by Western governments in handling the outbreak had given China an advantage, despite its initial lack of transparency over the outbreak.
“The West is not doing a better job on this,” he said, adding that his government had taken cues from Beijing on the use of propaganda in shaping public opinion and boosting patriotic sentiment in a time of crisis.
“Because it happened in China first, it has given us time to observe what works in China and adopt [these measures] for our country,” the official said.
Experts in the region said that Beijing’s intensifying campaign of “mask diplomacy” to reverse the damage to its reputation had met with less resistance in Asia.
Why China’s ‘mask diplomacy’ is raising concern in the West
29 Mar 2020
“Over the past two months or so, China, after getting the Covid-19 outbreak under control, has been using a very concerted effort to reshape the narrative, to pre-empt the narrative that China is liable for this global pandemic, that China has to compensate other countries,” said Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based academic and former policy adviser to the Philippine government.
“It doesn’t help that the US is in lockdown with its domestic crisis and that we have someone like President Trump who is more interested in playing the blame game rather than acting like a global leader,” he said.
Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst with the foreign policy and security studies programme at Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies, said that as the US had withdrawn into its own affairs as it struggled to contain the pandemic, China had found Southeast Asia a fertile ground for cultivating an image of itself as a provider.
China’s first-quarter GDP shrinks for the first time since 1976 as coronavirus cripples economy
Beijing’s highly publicised delegations tasking medical equipment and supplies had burnished that reputation, he said, adding that the Chinese government had also “quite successfully shaped general Southeast Asian perceptions of its handling of the pandemic, despite growing evidence that it could have acted more swiftly at the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan”.
“Its capacity and will to build hospitals from scratch and put hundreds of millions of people on lockdown are being compared to the more indecisive and chaotic responses seen in the West, especially in Britain and the United States,” he said.
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16 Apr 2020
Lockman said Southeast Asian countries had also been careful to avoid getting caught in the middle of the deteriorating relationship between Beijing and Washington as the two powers pointed fingers at each other over the origins of the new coronavirus.
“The squabble between China and the United States about the pandemic is precisely what Asean governments would go to great lengths to avoid because it is seen as an expression of Sino-US rivalry,” he said.
“Furthermore, the immense Chinese market is seen as providing an irreplaceable route towards Southeast Asia’s post-pandemic economic recovery.”
Aaron Connelly, a research fellow in Southeast Asian political change and foreign policy with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore, said Asian countries’ dependence on China had made them slow to blame China for the pandemic.
“Anecdotally, it seems to me that most Southeast Asian political and business elites have given Beijing a pass on the initial cover-up of Covid-19, and high marks for the domestic lockdown that followed,” he said.
“This may be motivated reasoning, because these elites are so dependent on Chinese trade and investment, and see little benefit in criticising China.”
China and Vietnam ‘likely to clash again’ as they build maritime militias
12 Apr 2020
The cooperation with its neighbours as they grapple with the coronavirus had not slowed China’s military and research activities in the disputed areas of the South China Sea – a point of contention that would continue to cloud relations in the region, experts said.
Earlier this month an encounter in the South China Sea with a Chinese coastguard vessel led to the sinking of a fishing boat from Vietnam, which this year assumed chairmanship of Asean.
And in a move that could spark fresh regional concerns, shipping data on Thursday showed a controversial Chinese government survey ship, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, had moved closer to Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone.
The survey ship was embroiled in a months-long stand-off last year with Vietnamese vessels within Hanoi’s exclusive economic zone and was spotted again on Tuesday 158km (98 miles) off the Vietnamese coast.
BEIJING (Reuters) – For Zhang Yu, who runs a cafe in one of Beijing’s top tourist spots, business has never been so bad.
To contain the spread of the coronavirus, bars and cafes in the Wudaoying hutong – a top Lonely Planet destination built around a narrow lane – are permitted to provide take-away services only. Non-residents must show proof they have an appointment to enter the area.
Added to which, tourism has plummeted.
“Don’t mention it! This is supposed to be the peak season,” said Zhang, who has run her cafe for five years. “But there are almost no customers as they (authorities) don’t want to have people hanging around here.”
While China’s manufacturing and retail sectors are starting to get back to work as the pace of new infections slows sharply, tourism sites in Beijing remain a shadow of their former and bustling self.
China’s capital city has maintained the highest level of emergency response to the outbreak, so tourist attractions like the Forbidden City remain closed. A 14-day quarantine for new arrivals has stifled travel.
As a result, small business owners running restaurants, souvenir shops and tourism agencies are struggling.
Only a little over 20% of tourism-related businesses in Beijing had resumed operation as of the three-day Qingming national holiday in early April, a survey by on-demand delivery service giant Meituan Dianping showed.
HANGING ON
The only people present in Wudaoying on a recent afternoon were a few elderly residents sitting outside to enjoy the spring sunshine. A cat made its way lazily through empty rooftop bars.
“We used to see more customers in one hour in pre-virus days than we see in a whole day right now,” said a worker at a sandwich restaurant in Wudaoying.
In another popular area, Khazzy, a 32-year-old doctoral student who opened a restaurant last October, has had only four customers all day.
“There are almost no tourists coming to Beijing and the remaining locals have concerns about eating out,” Khazzy said as sunset approached.
Khazzy said he has let five of his 13 staff go and has no idea how long he can stay afloat financially even though his landlord has agreed to waive one month’s rent on the property in Qianmen, near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
More than half of the shops in Qianmen remain closed. The manager of a state-backed noodle restaurant said most of the closed stores are privately owned small businesses that can’t secure enough business to support their daily operations.
She said revenues at the noodle restaurant have plunged more than 80%, but staff salaries have not been cut.
Zhang, the cafe owner in Wudaoying, reckoned small businesses could hold on for the next three months.
BEIJING (Reuters) – As the world grapples with the escalating coronavirus pandemic, China reopened the city of Wuhan on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in over two months, a milestone in its effort to combat the outbreak.
But while the operation to contain Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak has been hailed as a success by China and many international health experts, it didn’t come easy.
Using virus , official reports and over a dozen interviews with officials, residents and scientists in Wuhan, Reuters has compiled a comprehensive account of how the military-style quarantine of the city unfolded.
SCIENTIST TOUR
Wuhan health authorities reported the first case of what turned out to be the new coronavirus in December, and the first known death linked to the virus in early January.
City officials insisted the situation was under control for the first two weeks of January, downplaying the possibility of human-to-human transmission as they focused on a seafood and wildlife market where the outbreak was believed to have started.
But troubling signs were emerging.
Hospital respiratory wards began reaching capacity by around Jan 12, and some people were being turned away, a half dozen Wuhan residents told Reuters.
But at least up to Jan. 16, Wuhan’s government said that no new cases of the disease had occurred for about two weeks, and the city continued as normal. Diners packed restaurants, shoppers flocked to commercial districts, and travellers headed to train stations and airports for their Lunar New Year holidays.
Minimal measures were put in place to take the temperatures of residents in public places, or encourage them to wear protective masks, residents said.
“We ordinary people did not know that we needed to take protective measures,” said Wang Wenjun, whose uncle died of the coronavirus on Jan 31.
But that changed after Jan 18, when a team of scientists sent by the central government in Beijing arrived in Wuhan.
Leading the group was 83-year-old Zhong Nanshan, an epidemiologist credited with raising the alarm in China about the spread of another coronavirus, SARS, in 2003. Over two days, the team investigated the source and scale of Wuhan’s outbreak, inspecting the seafood and wildlife market and other sites.
As the scientists toured Wuhan, their mood darkened as the scale of the crisis became clear, said a source familiar with the trip.
A day before the scientists arrived, four new cases were confirmed in Wuhan, none of which had apparent links to the market.
That cast doubt over local authorities’ previous assertions that there was no substantial evidence of human-to-human transmission, which would have required them to impose drastic containment measures on the city.
The scientists’ visit was the third by an expert group since the end of December as suspicion in Beijing grew that the virus was transmissible and local officials had concealed the challenges they faced containing the disease, according to an academic on the Jan 18 trip and a scientist who visited on Jan 2. Another trip took place on Jan 8.
During the Jan 18 visit, the team made several discoveries that had been previously undisclosed to the public by local officials.
Over a dozen healthcare workers had been infected, efforts to track close contacts with other confirmed cases had dwindled, and hospitals had not conducted a single test before Jan. 16, Zhong and other experts on the team announced a few days after their trip to Wuhan.
On Jan 19, the group of about a half dozen scientists returned to Beijing, where they reported their findings to the National Health Commission, which formulates China’s health policy.
The experts recommended that Wuhan be put under quarantine and that hospital capacity be rapidly expanded, according to two sources who were briefed on the discussions. Zhong himself had suggested the lockdown measures, they said. Zhong and the commission did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the sources said the proposal was initially rejected by Wuhan government officials because they feared the economic impact, but they were overruled by the central authorities.
On the evening of Jan 20, the central government set up a taskforce in Wuhan to spearhead the fight against the epidemic.
The lockdown of Wuhan had been put in motion.
Ye Qing, deputy chief of the statistics bureau in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, said it was only when Zhong announced his findings that he began to realize the seriousness of this epidemic.
Wuhan officials, he said, reacted far too late. “If the government had sent out a notice, if they had asked everyone to wear masks, to do temperature checks, maybe a lot fewer people would have died.”
He added: “It’s a painful lesson with blood and tears.”
Later tracing of virus patients showed that people confirmed to have the virus travelled from Wuhan to at least 25 provinces, municipalities and administrative regions across China before the lockdown plan went into action.
The Wuhan government and the National Health Commission in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.
LOCKDOWN
The ripple effects of events in Beijing were soon felt in Wuhan.
On Jan 22, senior officials in Wuhan received a written government notice telling them not to leave the city, or report their whereabouts if they had, according to two local government sources.
The directive offered no further details, but at about 8 p.m. that night, some officials received notice by telephone that the city would be shut off the next morning, the sources said.
The lockdown was publicly announced at 2 a.m., sending thousands of Wuhan residents scrambling to find a way out.
But access into and out of the city was quickly closed off, with public transportation shut down and the use of private cars banned. Residents were soon after restricted to their homes.
Having seized control of the crisis, Beijing also removed a number of key officials from Wuhan and Hubei province.
Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, who kept his job, made a frank admission in an interview with state media a few days later that party-reporting mechanisms had stifled early action.
“Information should have been released more quickly,” he said. The process had been slowed by officials in Wuhan being “obliged to seek permission” before fully disclosing information to the public, he said.
‘NEW NORMAL’
Almost two months after the lockdown was imposed, China has started allowing residents to leave the city, as well as permitting domestic flights and inter-city trains. Wuhan has reported just one new case in the past week, and around 93% of all cases have recovered, according to official data.
As other countries consider Wuhan-style quarantines, those numbers have come under increased scrutiny, however. U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that China’s numbers were “on the light side,” drawing the ire of Beijing.
China has also only just begun reporting data on asymptomatic cases – those in which carriers can transmit the disease without feeling symptoms – in the past week. That followed a public backlash on social media in China that the key numbers had been omitted from the official tally, raising concerns that such cases could lead to a second wave of infections.
Xue Lan, a professor at Tsinghua University who is a member of a government coronavirus task force, said precautions put in place for the lockdown – like social distancing – would likely become a part of life in the future in China.
“From now on our social lives will enter a new normal,” Xue said.
South Africa, Kenya latest to halt arrivals from ‘high-risk’ countries as cases across the continent double over the weekend
Concerns are growing over whether health care systems in some African nations will be able to cope
Masked volunteers provide soap and water for participants to wash their hands against the new coronavirus at a women’s 5km fun run in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday. Photo: AP
Travel bans and school closures were announced in South Africa and Kenya on Sunday, as concerns grew over the capacity of the continent’s fragile health systems to cope with the spread of the deadly new coronavirus, with more than a dozen countries reporting their first cases.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster, banning arrivals by foreign nationals from high-risk countries including Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Germany, the United States, Britain and China, effective Wednesday.
“We have cancelled visas to visitors from those countries from today and previously granted visas are hereby revoked,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address on Sunday evening, adding that any foreign national who had visited high-risk countries in the past 20 days would be denied a visa.
South African schools will also be closed from Wednesday until after the Easter weekend. Gatherings of more than 100 people have been banned and mass celebrations for Human Rights Day and other events cancelled. “Never before in the history of our democracy has our country been confronted with such a severe situation,” Ramaphosa said.
In Kenya, where three cases of Covid-19 – the disease caused by the new coronavirus – have now been confirmed, President Uhuru Kenyatta suspended travel from any country with reported infections. Only Kenyan citizens and foreigners with valid residency permits would be allowed entry, provided they proceeded to self-quarantine or a government-designated quarantine facility, he said.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta reports two more cases of coronavirus in the country, bringing its total number of cases to three. Photo: DPA
Kenyatta also suspended learning in all educational institutions with immediate effect. “Some of the measures may cause inconvenience, but I want to assure you they are designed to ensure that we effectively contain the spread of the virus,” he said.
Kenya and South Africa join Ghana, Rwanda and Morocco in implementing travel restrictions or outright bans, while others are closing churches, museums, sporting activities, nightclubs and tourist attractions in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.
The continent was largely spared in the early days of the outbreak but has now recorded more than 300 cases and six deaths. Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia all reported more new cases over the weekend, which saw numbers of new infections across Africa more than double in just two days.
As numbers rise, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said there are around a dozen countries on the continent without the capacity to do their own testing.
They will have to send samples to countries like South Africa, which itself is struggling to contain the virus, with confirmed cases doubling to 61 on Sunday, a day after 114 of its citizens were repatriated from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the outbreak and the first to be placed in lockdown.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, warned that the risk of other African countries detecting new cases of Covid-19 remained high. “Our strategy is clear: we want to capacitate the member states, so they can quickly detect and mitigate the effects of the disease in Africa, and, if widespread transmission occurs, prevent severe illness and death,” he said.
The World Health Organisation has already warned that critical gaps remain in the capacity of many African nations to trace, detect and treat the disease. On Friday, the WHO Africa office said it was “striving to help member states fill these gaps” but warned of global shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) including gloves, masks and hand sanitiser.
Major coronavirus outbreak in Africa ‘just a matter of time’
13 Mar 2020
WHO said its first blanket distribution of PPEs, to 24 African countries, had been completed and another wave of distributions was planned.
“With Covid-19 officially declared a pandemic, all countries in Africa must act,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “Every country can still change the course of this pandemic by scaling up their emergency preparedness or response.
“Cases may still be low in Africa and we can keep it that way with robust all-of-government actions to fight the new coronavirus.”
The 55 member states of the African Union have suspended meetings until May, while the six countries that make up the East African Community have suspended all planned meetings until further notice.
In Algeria – one of the worst-hit North African countries, with 48 cases and four deaths, as of Monday morning – all schools and universities have been closed, while Senegal, with 24 cases to date, has closed schools and cancelled its Independence Day festivities on April 4, which this year marks 60 years since its independence from France. Cruise ships have also been banned from docking in Senegal.
On Sunday, Rwanda closed all its places of worship and suspended large gatherings such as weddings and sporting activities. Schools and universities in the central African country are also closed. National airline RwandAir has also suspended flights between the capital Kigali and Mumbai until April 30.
This is in addition to earlier suspensions of its routes with Tel Aviv and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, which remain in place until further notice.
While most African airlines have suspended flights to cities in mainland China, Ethiopian Airlines has continued flying to most of its destinations, describing its China routes as among its most profitable. Nevertheless, chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam last week said coronavirus fears had cut demand by a fifth on most of its routes.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Cases of coronavirus have risen sharply in South Korea, where the outbreak is worsening
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern at the number of coronavirus cases with no clear link to China or other confirmed cases.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the window of opportunity to contain the virus was “narrowing”.
Chinese health authorities reported a decrease in deaths and new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday.
But cases are on the rise in South Korea, Italy, Iran and other countries.
Outside China, more than 1,200 cases of the virus have been confirmed in 26 countries and there have been eight deaths, the WHO says.
They include two deaths in South Korea, which has the biggest cluster of confirmed cases apart from China and a cruise ship quarantined in Japan.
On Saturday, South Korea reported 142 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, bringing the national tally to 346.
On Friday, doctors in Italy said a 78-year-old man became the first person in the country to die from the new coronavirus, Ansa news agency reported.
Earlier Italy had announced 16 more cases and its health minister said schools and offices would be closed and sports events cancelled in the affected regions.
China has reported 76,288 cases including 2,345 deaths. The new virus, which originated last year in Hubei province in China, causes a respiratory disease called Covid-19.
What did the WHO chief say?
Dr Tedros said the number of coronavirus cases outside China was “relatively small” but the pattern of infection was worrying.
“We are concerned about the number of cases with no clear epidemiological link, such as travel history to or contact with a confirmed case,” he said.
The new deaths and infections in Iran were “very concerning”, he said.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Iraq has been checking people at its border with Iran
But he insisted that the measures China and other countries had put in place meant there was still a “fighting chance” of stopping further spread and called on countries to put more resources into preparing for possible outbreaks.
What is the latest in South Korea?
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun declared a public health emergency as the total number of cases surpassed 300 on Saturday.
The southern cities of Daegu and Cheongdo have been declared “special care zones”. The streets of Daegu are now largely abandoned.
The nation’s capital, Seoul, banned demonstrations in central areas.
Two cases were also reported in Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, and one on the Island of Jeju on Saturday – the first in both places.
Media caption People in Daegu have voiced concern over the spread of the virus
All military bases are in lockdown after three soldiers tested positive.
The authorities suspect the current outbreak in South Korea originated in Cheongdo, pointing out that a large number of sect followers attended the funeral of the founder’s brother from 31 January to 2 February.
The sect – known as Shincheonji – which has been accused of being a cult, said it had now shut down its Daegu branch and that services in other regions would be held online or individually at home.
As of Friday, more than 400 members of the church were showing symptoms of the disease, though tests were still ongoing, the city mayor said.
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Hand sanitizers and warning signs
By Hyung Eun Kim, BBC Korean Service, Seoul
Many people in South Korea are wearing masks on a daily basis.
Hand sanitizers have been placed at public transport stops and building entrances.
Warning government signs are everywhere. They say: “Three ways to prevent further infection: wear a mask at all times; wash your hands properly with soap for more than 30 seconds; and cover yourself when coughing.”
Image copyright EPAImage caption New norm: Mask-wearing crowd in Seoul
Koreans have also developed several apps and websites that tell you how much risk you face where you are. They show where the infected people are within a 10km radius.
“I can’t miss work, what I can do is minimise contact with others and stay at home during the weekend,” Seung-hye Lim, a Seoul resident, told the BBC.
“I do wonder if we reacted too laxly initially or if it really is because of the specific service practices of the Shincheonji sect.”
So-young Sung, a mother of two in Seoul, told the BBC: “It feels like my daily life is collapsing.”
She said she was struggling to find pharmacies that had masks.
She added that checking coronavirus-related alarms from her children’s schools and kindergartens was now a daily routine for her.
What about the Iran cases?
In Iran the outbreak is centred on the holy city of Qom, south of the capital Tehran, which is a popular destination for Shia Muslims in the region.
Iran reported two more deaths in Qom on Friday, adding to the two deaths it reported on Thursday. A total of 18 cases have been confirmed in the country.
Lebanon has reported its first confirmed case – a 45-year-old woman who was detected as she arrived in Beirut from Qom. The UAE, Israel and Egypt have also reported cases.
Image copyright EPAImage caption Lebanon has confirmed its first case – a woman returning from the Iranian city of Qom
Meanwhile Canadian officials said one of the nine cases there was a woman who had recently returned from Iran.
WHO officials said both Iran and Lebanon had the basic capacity to detect the virus and the WHO was contacting them to offer further assistance.
But Dr Tedros said the organisation was concerned about the virus’s possible spread in countries with weaker health systems.
What about China and elsewhere?
The virus has now hit the country’s prison system, with more than 500 inmates confirmed infected.
They include 230 patients in a women’s prison in Wuhan. More cases have been found in a prison in the eastern province of Shandong and the south-eastern province of Zhejiang.
Some 36 people at a hospital in Beijing have also tested positive.
Senior officials have been sacked for mishandling management of the outbreak.
Passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship who have tested negative continue to disembark the ship in Yokohama after more than 14 days quarantined on board.
However, 18 American evacuees from the ship tested positive after arriving in the US, officials said. More than 300 other US nationals have arrived back in the US after disembarking.
Media caption Coronavirus: Quarantined passengers released from Japan ship
More than 150 Australian passengers have been evacuated from the ship and have already arrived in Darwin, where they will begin two more weeks of quarantine.
Australian officials said on Friday that six people had reported feeling unwell on arrival in Darwin and were immediately tested. Two of those people tested positive despite having received negative tests before leaving Japan.
The first batch of people from Hong Kong have also flown back to the city, where they will similarly be quarantined.
BEIJING, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) — A slew of preventive measures have been taken to contain the novel coronavirus as a growing number of Chinese people hit the road and return to work after the Spring Festival holiday, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) said Thursday.
According to big data analysis, passenger flow is expected to pick up around this weekend, said Cai Tuanjie, an official with the MOT, at a press conference.
To contain virus infections during the trips, railways, airports and other public transportation operators have intensified disinfection, ventilation and sanitation of vehicles and stations, Cai said.
Passengers will go through body temperature screening at both entrances and exits of operating public transportation stations across the country. People found to have caught a fever above 37.3 degrees Celsius will be transferred to health departments.
Meanwhile, steps have been taken to make sure vehicles are not fully booked to allow a safe distance between passengers, Cai said, adding that temporary isolation areas had been set in the vehicles to avoid cross-infections in case of emergency during the journey.
Tokyo (Reuters) – Japan on Saturday moved to contain the economic impact of a coronavirus outbreak originating in China as strict new measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus, including targeting foreign visitors, came into effect.
Japan had 17 confirmed cases as of Friday, including some without symptoms. One of the most recent was a bus guide who worked on a bus tour for tourists from China – the same tour as a bus driver who also came down with the virus.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a Saturday meeting of a government task force coordinating Japan’s response to the virus to come up with steps aimed at easing the impact of the outbreak on Japan’s economy.
Abe has made tourism a key part of his economic policy, with a large proportion of foreign visitors from China, and major Japanese companies have a number of factories in China.
“I ask ministers to compile measures to use reserves (in the state budget) and implement them as soon as possible,” Abe was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying.
“The new coronavirus is having a major impact on tourism, the economy and our society as a whole. The government will do its utmost to address the impact.”
No further details were given, though Abe stressed ensuring that Japanese residents have access to medical checkups and masks, which have been selling out around the nation.
New measures to fight the disease took effect on Saturday, including banning the entry of Chinese holding passports issued by Hubei, where the disease is thought to have originated, as well as all foreigners who had visited the province within two weeks, whether they show symptoms or not.
The government also brought forward implementing measures including compulsory hospitalisation and the use of public funds for treatment by six days to Saturday.
Of the 2.6 million tourists who came to Japan in December 2019, nearly 600,000 were Chinese, outnumbered only by South Koreans, government data shows. Japan aims to have 40 million tourists visit the country in 2020, up from 31.8 million in 2019.
On Friday, the president of Japanese airline ANA Holdings (9202.T) said it was considering suspending flights to China after February reservations plunged, Jiji news agency reported.
JTB Corporation, Japan’s largest travel agency, said it was suspending tours to China throughout February, Kyodo news agency reported.
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