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.
US death toll passes 3,000 as New York’s hospitals are pushed to breaking point
Italy extends lockdown as cases exceed 100,000; UN Security Council votes by email for first time
The USNS Comfort passes the Statue of Liberty as it enters New York Harbour on Monday. Photo: Reuters
Harsh lockdowns aimed at halting the march of the coronavirus pandemic extended worldwide Monday as the death toll soared toward 37,000 amid new waves of US outbreaks.
The tough measures that have confined some two-fifths of the globe’s population to their homes were broadened. Moscow and Lagos joined the roll call of cities around the globe with eerily empty streets, while Virginia and Maryland became the latest US states to announce emergency stay-at-home orders, followed quickly by the capital city Washington.
In a symbol of the scale of the challenge facing humanity, a US military medical ship sailed into New York to relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals bracing for the peak of the pandemic.
France reported its highest daily number of deaths since the outbreak began, saying 418 more people had succumbed in hospital.
Spain, which announced another 812 virus deaths in 24 hours, joined the United States and Italy in surpassing the number of cases in China, where the disease was first detected in December.
On Tuesday, mainland China reported a rise in new confirmed coronavirus cases, reversing four days of declines, due to an uptick in infections involving travellers arriving from overseas.
Mainland China had 48 new cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, up from 31 new infections a day earlier.
All of the 48 cases were imported, bringing the total number of imported cases in China to 771 as of Monday.
There was no reported new case of local infection on Monday, according to the National Health Commission. The total number of infections reported in mainland China stood at 81,518 and the death toll at 3,305. Globally, more than 760,000 have been infected, according to official figures.
Here are the developments:
Hospital ship arrives in New York
New York’s governor issued an urgent appeal for medical volunteers Monday amid a “staggering” number of deaths from the coronavirus, saying: “Please come help us in New York, now.”
The plea from Governor Andrew Cuomo came as the death toll in New York State climbed past 1,200 – with most of the victims in the big city – and authorities warned that the crisis pushing New York’s hospitals to the breaking point is just a preview of what other cities across the US could soon face.
Cuomo said the city needs 1 million additional health care workers.
“We’ve lost over 1,000 New Yorkers,” he said. “To me, we’re beyond staggering already. We’ve reached staggering.”
The governor’s plea came as a 1,000-bed US Navy hospital ship docked in Manhattan on Monday and a field hospital was going up in Central Park for coronavirus patients.
New York City reported 914 deaths from the virus as of 4:30pm local time Monday, a 16 per cent increase from an update six hours earlier. The city, the epicentre of the US outbreak, has 38,087 confirmed cases, up by more than 1,800 from earlier in the day.
Coronavirus field hospital set up in New York’s Central Park as city’s health crisis deepens
Gloom for 24 million people in Asia
The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will prevent almost 24 million people from escaping poverty in East Asia and the Pacific this year, according to the World Bank.
In a report released on Monday, the Washington-based lender also warned of “substantially higher risk” among households that depend on industries particularly vulnerable to the impact of Covid-19. These include tourism in Thailand and the Pacific islands; manufacturing in Vietnam and Cambodia; and among people dependent on “informal labour” in all countries.
The World Bank urged the region to invest in expanding conventional health care and medical equipment factories, as well as taking innovative measures like converting ordinary hospital beds for ICU use and rapidly trining people to work in basic care.
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Indonesia bans entry of foreigners
Indonesia barred foreign nationals from entering the country as the world’s fourth-most populous country stepped up efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The travel ban, to be effective soon, will also cover foreigners transiting through the country, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said after a cabinet meeting in Jakarta Tuesday. The curbs will not apply to holders of work permits, diplomats and other official visitors, she said.
The curbs on foreign citizens is the latest in a raft of measures taken by Indonesia to combat the deadly virus that’s sickened more than 1,400 people and killed 122. President Joko Widodo’s administration previously banned flights to and from mainland China and some of the virus-hit regions in Italy, South Korea and Iran. The president on Monday ordered stricter implementation of social distancing and health quarantine amid calls for a lockdown to contain the pandemic.
Indonesia has highest coronavirus mortality rate in Southeast Asia
First US service member dies
The first US military service member has died from the coronavirus, the Pentagon said on Monday, as it reported another sharp hike in the number of infected troops.
The Pentagon said it was a New Jersey Army National Guardsman who had tested positive for Covid-19 and had been hospitalised since March 21. He died on Saturday, it said.
Earlier on Monday, the Pentagon said that 568 troops had tested positive for the coronavirus, up from 280 on Thursday. More than 450 Defence Department civilians, contractors and dependents have also tested positive, it said.
US military has decided to stop providing more granular data about coronavirus infections within its ranks, citing concern that the information might be used by adversaries as the virus spreads.
The new policy, which the Pentagon detailed in a statement on Monday, appears to underscore US military concerns about the potential trajectory of the virus over the coming months – both at home and abroad.
School to resume in South Korea … online
South Korean children will start the new school year on April 9 with only online classes, after repeated delays due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the government said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Chung Sye Kyun said that despite the nation’s utmost efforts to contain the virus and lower the risk of infection, there is consensus among teachers and others that it is too early to let children go back to school.
The nation’s elementary schools, and junior and senior high schools were supposed to start the new academic year in early March, but the government has repeatedly postponed it to keep the virus from spreading among children.
The start was last postponed until April 6, but has now been delayed three more days to allow preparations to be made for online classes.
The nation now has 9,786 confirmed cases in total, with 162 deaths.
Italy extends lockdown as cases exceed 100,000
Italy’s government on Monday said it would extend its nationwide lockdown measures
against a coronavirus outbreak, due to end on Friday, at least until the Easter season in April.
The Health Ministry did not give a date for the new end of the lockdown, but said it would be in a law the government would propose. Easter Sunday is April 12 this year. Italy is predominantly Roman Catholic and contains the Vatican, the heart of the church.
Italians have been under lockdown for three weeks, with most shops, bars and restaurants shut and people forbidden from leaving their homes for all but non-essential needs.
Italy, which is the world’s hardest hit country in terms of number of deaths and accounts for more than a third of all global fatalities, saw its total death tally rise to 11,591 since the outbreak emerged in northern regions on February 21.
The death toll has risen by 812 in the last 24 hours, the Civil Protection Agency said, reversing two days of declines, although the number of new cases rose by just 4,050, the lowest increase since March 17, reaching a total of 101,739.
Deadliest day in Italy and Spain shows worst not over yet
28 Mar 2020
Women stand near the body of a man who died on the sidewalk in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Photo: Reuters
Ecuador struggles to collect the dead
Ecuadorean authorities said they would improve the collection of corpses, as delays related to the rapid spread of the new coronavirus has left families keeping their loved ones’ bodies in their homes for days in some cases.
Residents of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, have complained they have no way to dispose of relatives’ remains due to strict quarantine and curfew measures designed to prevent spread of the disease. Last week, authorities said they had removed 100 corpses from homes in Guayaquil.
But delays in collecting bodies in the Andean country, which has reported 1,966 cases of the virus and 62 deaths, were evident midday on Monday in downtown Guayaquil, where a man’s dead body lay on a sidewalk under a blue plastic sheet. Police said the man had collapsed while waiting in line to enter a store. Hours later, the body had been removed.
More than 70 per cent of the country’s coronavirus cases, which is among the highest tallies in Latin America, are in the southern province of Guayas, where Guayaquil is located.
Panama to restrict movement by gender
The government of Panama announced strict quarantine measures that separate citizens by gender in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
From Wednesday, men and women will only be able to leave their homes for two hours at a time, and on different days. Until now, quarantine regulations were not based on gender.
Men will be able to go to the supermarket or the pharmacy on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and women will be allowed out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
No one will be allowed to go out on Sundays. The new measures will last for 15 days.
Police in Kenya use tear gas to enforce coronavirus curfew
Remote vote first for UN Security Council
The UN Security Council on Monday for the first time approved resolutions remotely after painstaking negotiations among diplomats who are teleworking due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Security Council unanimously voted by email for four resolutions, including one that extended through April 2021 the expiring mandate of UN experts who are monitoring sanctions on North Korea, diplomats said.
The UN mission in Somalia was also prolonged, until the end of June, and the mission in Darfur until the end of May – two short periods decided due to uncertainty over the spread of the pandemic.
The Council also endorsed a fourth resolution aimed at improving the protection for peacekeepers.
The resolutions are the first approved by the Security Council since it began teleworking on March 12 and comes as Covid-19 rapidly spreads in New York, which has become the epicenter of the disease in the United States.
Congo ex-president dies in France
Former Republic of Congo president Jacques Joaquim Yhombi Opango died in France on Monday of the new coronavirus, his family said. He was 81.
Yhombi Opango, who led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, died at a Paris hospital of Covid-19, his son Jean-Jacques said. He had been ill before he contracted the virus.
Yhombi Opango was an army officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien Ngouabi.
Yhombi Opango was ousted by long-time ruler Denis Sassou Nguesso. Accused of taking part in a coup plot against Sassou Nguesso, Yhombi Opango was jailed from 1987 to 1990. He was released a few months before a 1991 national conference that introduced multiparty politics in the central African country.
When civil war broke out in Congo in 1997, Yhombi Opango fled into exile in France. He was finally able to return home in 2007, but then divided his time between France and Congo because of his health problems.
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31 Mar 2020
EU asks Britain to extend Brexit talks
The European Union expects Britain to seek an extension of its post-Brexit transition period beyond the end of the year, diplomats and officials said on Monday, as negotiations on trade have ground to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Europe has gone into a deep lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of the disease, with more than 330,000 infections reported on the continent and nearly 21,000 deaths.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his health minister have both tested positive for the virus and the prime minister’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings – one of the masterminds behind Britain’s departure from the EU earlier this year – was self-isolating with symptoms.
London and the EU have been seeking to agree a new trade pact by the end of the year to kick in from 2021, even though the bloc has long said that such a time frame was extremely short to agree rules on everything from trade to security to fisheries.
The pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the Giza pyramid complex. Photo: Reuters
Great Pyramid in Egypt lights up in solidarity
Egypt’s famed Great Pyramid was emblazoned Monday evening with messages of unity and solidarity with those battling the novel coronavirus the world over.
“Stay safe”, “Stay at home” and “Thank you to those keeping us safe,” flashed in blue and green lights across the towering structure at the Giza plateau, southwest of the capital Cairo.
Egypt has so far registered 656 Covid-19 cases, including 41 deaths. Of the total infected, 150 reportedly recovered.
Egypt has carried out sweeping disinfection operations at archaeological sites, museums and other sites across the country.
In tandem, strict social distancing measures were imposed to reduce the risk of contagion among the country’s 100 million inhabitants.
Tourist and religious sites are shuttered, schools are closed and air traffic halted.
Myanmar braces for ‘big outbreak’ after migrant worker exodus from Thailand
30 Mar 2020
Saudi king to pay for all patients’ treatment
Saudi Arabia will finance treatment for anyone infected with the coronavirus in the country, the health minister said on Monday.
The kingdom has registered eight deaths among 1,453 infections, the highest among the six Gulf Arab states.
Health Minister Tawfiq Al Rabiah said King Salman would cover treatment for citizens and residents diagnosed with the virus, urging people with symptoms to get tested.
“We are all in the same boat,” he told a news conference, adding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was overseeing containment efforts “night and day”.
Denmark eyes gradual reopening after Easter
Denmark may gradually lift a lockdown after Easter if the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths remain stable, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday.
The Nordic country, which has reported 77 coronavirus-related deaths, last week extended until after Easter a two-week lockdown to limit physical contact between its citizens that began on March 11.
The number of daily deaths slowed to five on Sunday from eight and 11 on Saturday and Friday respectively. Denmark has reported a total of 2,577 coronavirus infections.
“If we over the next two weeks across Easter keep standing together by staying apart, and if the numbers remain stable for the next two weeks, then the government will begin a gradual, quiet and controlled opening of our society again, at the other side of Easter,” Frederiksen said.
Throughout the world, overworked health care professionals are being infected with Covid-19, yet the Lion City has kept numbers low
Preparation, planning, patient ratios and protective equipment have all played a part. Still, even the best gear cannot guard against discrimination
Medical staff walk to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases building at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore. Photo: AFP
Uncooperative patients, long hours and a lack of protective equipment are hampering health care workers across the world as they take the fight to the coronavirus, leading many to fall sick themselves.
In Malaysia, a pregnant woman who did not disclose that her father was infected tested positive after giving birth, leading to the shutdown of the entire hospital for cleaning. In the Philippines, nine doctors have died, two of whom had dealt with a patient who lied about her travel history.
In Spain, where more than 5,400 health care workers have been infected, accounting for about 14 per cent of the country’s patients, there are no longer enough workers to care for patients.
In Italy, which has more than 69,000 patients, the virus killed a doctor who had no choice but to work without gloves.
In the United States, which has surpassed China to become the world’s most infected nation with more than 83,000 people testing positive for Covid-19, hospitals are being overrun with patients.
Health care staff in the country say patients are packed into emergency wards and intensive care units (ICUs), further raising the risk of infections. They also report shortages of ventilators, face masks, gowns and shields.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on March 7 released interim guidelines saying health care workers exposed to the coronavirus could be asked to return to work as long as they wore face masks and were not showing symptoms, if their employers had no other manpower available.
Malaysian health workers at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Photo: AFP
A REASON FOR OPTIMISM
However, amid all the gloom, Singapore’s experienceis being held up as a reason for optimism. The city state has reported more than 630 cases of infection, all of which are being treated in hospital, yet only a handful of its health care professionals have been infected. What’s more, even these cases, according to Vernon Lee, director of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health, are thought to have been infected outside the health care setting.
Experts suggest this has been more than just luck, pointing to a case in which 41 health workers were exposed to the coronavirus in a Singapore hospital yet evaded infection.
The workers had all come within two metres of a middle-aged man with Covid-19 who was being intubated, a procedure which involves a tube being inserted into the patient’s trachea. The procedure is seen as being particularly hazardous for health workers as it is “aerosol generating” – patients are likely to cough.
The workers had not known at the time that the man had the virus and all were quarantined after he tested positive. However, on their release two weeks later, none of them had the virus.
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The case has come to widespread attention partly because the workers were wearing a mix of standard surgical masks and the N95 mask, which doctors see as the gold standard as it filters out 95 per cent of airborne particles.
The conclusion, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine this month, was this: “That none of the health care workers in this situation acquired infection suggests that surgical masks, hand hygiene, and other standard procedures protected them from being infected.”
Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande mentioned the case in an article for The New Yorker on how health care workers could continue seeing patients without becoming patients. He said there were things to learn from Asia and that some of the lessons came out of the “standard public health playbook”. In other words, there is much to be said for social distancing, basic hand hygiene and cleaning regimens.
A health worker in protective gear walks into a quarantine room at a hospital in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Photo: AFP
COMING TOGETHER
With critical supplies running short in many countries, experts say it is increasingly vital that countries share both knowledge and resources.
To this end, China has been donating personal protective equipment to places including the Philippines, Pakistan and Europe. China’s richest man Jack Ma is donating 1.8 million masks, 210,000 Covid-19 test kits and 36,000 pieces of protective clothing to 10 countries in Asia.
At the same time, doctors are encouraging the Western world to learn from Asia.
Infectious diseases expert Leong Hoe Nam said that being “bitten by Sars” (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003 had prepared Asia for Covid-19, while Western countries were not similarly prepared and hence lacked sufficient protective equipment.
He pointed to how about 2,000 health care workers had fallen sick in China early in the outbreak because workers did not initially have protective gear. The trend reversed as equipment became available.
“Once the defences were up, there were very few health care workers who fell sick at work. Rather, they fell sick from contact with sick individuals outside the workplace,” he said.
Malaysia is a case in point. While it has reported 80 health care workers falling ill, most are thought to be community infections.
Coronavirus: Doctor explains the proper way to wash your hands and put on a face mask
In a webinar organised by Caixin Global on Thursday night, Peng Zhiyong, an intensive care specialist at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, shared how they managed a shortage of personal protective equipment early on in the outbreak by rationing workers to two sets of gear per shift.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, doctors from Manila’s Chinese General Hospital held a video conference call with doctors in Zhejiang to learn from China’s experience of treating Covid-19 patients.
Crowdsourcing platforms have also been created to share advice. The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has released guidelines for treating critically ill patients and its website includes information from Chinese doctors.
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The Jack Ma Foundation has also launched an online platform for doctors and nurses around the world to share knowledge on fighting the virus. “One world, one fight,” it said in a tweet.
Associate Professor Jeremy Lim from the global health programme at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health said it was crucial for countries to work together.
“Viruses don’t respect borders. Countries have to share information and help each other as we are only as strong as the weakest link. Any country can become a reservoir of disease and the world may then be forced to endure a ping-pong of outbreaks over and over again.”
And the advice of Lee, at Singapore’s Ministry of Health? “Practise good hygiene and wash hands regularly.”
Indonesian medical staff administer mass testing for Covid-19 in Bekasi, West Java. Photo: AFP
SINGAPORE, A CASE STUDY
Amid this sharing of advice, it is often Singapore that is held up as an example to replicate. Despite the country grappling with a rising load of Covid-19 patients, most of whom have recently returned to the city state from abroad, its health care system has continued to run smoothly. Doctors say this is because it has been preparing for a pandemic ever since Sars caught it by surprise. During the Sars outbreak, health care workers accounted for 41 per cent of Singapore’s 238 infections.
Consequently its hospitals swung into contingency planning mode early on in the coronavirus outbreak, telling staff to defer leave and travel plans after its first cases emerged.
Meanwhile, its hospitals swiftly split their workforces into teams to ensure there were enough workers if the outbreak worsened, and to ensure workers got enough rest.
Singapore has 13,766 doctors, or 2.4 doctors for every 1,000 people. That compares to 2.59 in the US, 1.78 in China and 4.2 in Germany. Places like Myanmar and Thailand have fewer than one doctor for every 1,000 people.
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“The objective is that you can run essential services with the greatest amount of security. Make sure functional units have redundancy built in, and are separate from each other. It depends on what you feel is sufficient to carry on services if one team is affected, factoring in rest periods and some system of rotation,” said Chia Shi-Lu, an orthopaedic surgeon.
The key is to ensure a good doctor-to-patient ratio and ensure there are enough specialists for the critical work, such as doctors and nurses who can provide intensive care, and know how to operate mechanical ventilators or machines to pump and oxygenate a patient’s blood outside the body.
At the emergency department where paediatrics emergency specialist Jade Kua treats Covid-19 cases in addition to regular emergencies, doctors are split into four teams of 21. Each team takes alternate 12-hour shifts and does not interact with other teams.
“We are in modular teams so the teams move together. So you and I would both do morning, off, night, off, morning off. Together. And then the other teams would do the same and we don’t intermingle,” said Kua.
US now has world’s most coronavirus cases, surpassing China
Chia, who works at the Singapore General Hospital, said doctors had been split up according to their functions.
“We try not to meet at all with the other teams as much as possible. We’ll just say hi from across the corridor. Meals are the same. All our cafeterias and everything have got social distancing spaced in already,” said Chia, who is also a member of parliament and chairs a shadow committee on health.
Chia said the health care system could also tap on doctors in the private sector.
Not every country has a plan like this. Last year’s Global Health Security Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 70 per cent of 195 countries scored poorly when it came to having a national plan for dealing with epidemics or pandemics. Almost three in 10 had failed to identify which areas were insufficiently staffed. In India, with a population of 1.3 billion, only about 20,000 doctors are trained in key areas such as critical care, emergency medicine and pulmonology.
Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan: the real coronavirus world leaders
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In contrast, Singapore published its first Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response Plan in June 2005 and has since honed it to a tee. Hospitals regularly war-game scenarios such as pandemics or terrorist attacks and the simulations are sometimes observed by the Ministry of Health, which grades the performance and recommends areas for improvement.
The plan also covers the need to stockpile equipment to avoid the sort of shortages many countries are now facing, another lesson inspired by Sars when masks, gloves and gowns were in short supply.
In a pandemic preparation paper published in 2008, Singapore public health specialist Jeffery Cutter wrote that Singapore’s stockpile was sufficient to cover at least 5 to 6 months’ use by all front-line health care workers.
During the Covid-19 outbreak, it has also told citizens to not wear masks so it can conserve supply for medical staff.
Having enough protective gear has reassured Singapore’s health care workers such as Kua, a mother of six who blogged about her experience fighting Covid-19. Kua said: “I’m safe and my family is safe.”
India’s poor hit hard by 21-day nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic
SOMETHING YOU CAN’T GUARD AGAINST
Despite the many positives to emerge from the Lion City, its health care workers are struggling with another problem: discrimination.
While in France, Italy and Britain, residents cheer health care workers from their windows, in Singapore health care workers are seen by some people as disease carriers.
“I try not to wear my uniform home because you never know what kind of incidents you may encounter,” said one Singapore nurse. “The public is scared and wearing our uniforms actually causes quite a bit of inconvenience. One of my staff tried to book a private-hire car to the hospital for an emergency and she was rejected by five drivers.”
There is a similar stigma in India, where the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has appealed to the government for help after health workers were forced out of their homes by panicked landlords and housing societies.
“Many doctors are stranded on the roads with all their luggage, nowhere to go, across the country,” the institute said in a letter.
Lim, from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, said the worst human impulses and “every man for himself” attitudes could emerge in crises and “that is exactly why governments have to step in”.
Discrimination could affect both the performance and motivation of health care workers, Lim warned.
Meanwhile, when health care workers are infected, it creates a “triple whammy” threat.
“It means one fewer professional in an already-strained system, another patient to care for and, potentially, a team of colleagues who need to be quarantined,” said Lim.
“We must do everything possible to keep our health care workforce safe and free from Covid-19.” ■
For many small factories and service businesses, the process of returning to normal operations after disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic has been harder
Chinese authorities have been pushing for SMEs to make use of technologies such as remote working and smart manufacturing platforms to resume operations quickly
Workers pack instant river snail rice noodles at a factory in Liuzhou, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Jan. 2, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
(SMEs) in China have been resuming work at a faster rate since March with the help of government measures to promote their adoption of technology, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT) said in a news conference on Wednesday.
As of Tuesday, 71.7 per cent of SMEs using cloud-based platforms had resumed production, up from 29.6 per cent a month earlier, said Qin Zhihui, deputy director of MIIT’s SME bureau.
Industrial internet platforms, which help to “coordinate production and prevent risks, ensure the integrity and safety of supply chains and give support to key areas which may experience potential work disruptions”, have helped some businesses resume operations, MIIT spokesman Xie Shaofeng said at the same news conference.
“Others used cloud-based computing to help enterprises move their business operations online, promoting remote working, teleconferencing, online training, co-researching and e-commerce,” he added.
For many small factories and service businesses, which account for most employment in China, the process of returning to normal operations has been more difficult than for larger firms. The smaller firms, for example, are often unable to meet virus prevention conditions set by local governments, including having enough facial masks for employees.
Workers at 60 per cent of Chinese firms still telecommuting under lockdown
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In a notice last week, MIIT encouraged SMEs to make use of digital tools such as
and smart manufacturing platforms to resume operations as soon as possible, and urged cloud services providers to open up services for SMEs in both services and manufacturing sectors.
The ministry also said in the notice that it had rolled out more than 370 online training courses for SMEs to stay informed about government policies and access opportunities to learn managerial and technological skills. It said the courses had been viewed more than 8 million times.
China’s cloud infrastructure, which enables remote working and online learning among other applications, has grown rapidly over the past few years. The market grew 66.9 per cent to US$3.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to a Canalys report last week, with Alibaba Group Holding’s Alibaba Cloud accounting for 46.6 per cent of the market, followed by Tencent Cloud with 18 per cent and Baidu’s AI Cloud with 8.8 per cent.
Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
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.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Hubei province where the coronavirus pandemic originated will lift travel restrictions on people leaving the region as the epidemic there eases, but other regions will tighten controls as new cases double due to imported infections.
The Hubei Health Commission announced it would lift curbs on outgoing travellers starting March 25, provided they had a health clearance code.
The provincial capital Wuhan, where the virus first appeared and which has been in total lockdown since since Jan. 23, will see its travel restrictions lifted on April 8.
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However, the risk from overseas infections appears to be on the rise, prompting tougher screening and quarantine measures in major cities such as the capital Beijing.
China had 78 new cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, a two-fold increase from Sunday. Of the new cases, 74 were imported infections, up from 39 imported cases a day earlier.
The Chinese capital Beijing was the hardest-hit, with a record 31 new imported cases, followed by southern Guangdong province with 14 and the financial hub of Shanghai with nine. The total number of imported cases stood at 427 as of Monday.
Only four new cases were local transmissions. One was in Wuhan which had not reported a new infection in five days.
Wuhan residents will soon be allowed to leave with a health tracking code, a QR code, which will have an individual’s health status linked to it.
In other parts of the country, authorities have continued to impose tougher screening and quarantine and have diverted international flights from Beijing to other Chinese cities, but that has not stemmed the influx of Chinese nationals, many of whom are students returning home from virus-hit countries.
Beijing’s city government tightened quarantine rules for individuals arriving from overseas, saying on Tuesday that everyone entering the city will be subject to centralised quarantine and health checks.
The southern city of Shenzhen said on Tuesday it will test all arrivals and the Chinese territory of Macau will ban visitors from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The number of local infections from overseas arrivals – the first of which was reported in the southern travel hub of Guangzhou on Saturday – remains very small.
On Monday, Beijing saw its first case of a local person being infected by an international traveller arriving in China. Shanghai reported a similar case, bringing the total number of such infections to three so far.
CONCERNS ABOUT NEW WAVE OF INFECTIONS
The rise in imported cases and the lifting of restrictions in some cities to allow people to return to work and kickstart the battered Chinese economy has raised concerns of a second wave of infections.
A private survey on Tuesday suggested that a 10-11% contraction in first-quarter gross domestic product in the world’s second largest economy “is not unreasonable”.
The epidemic has hammered all sectors of the economy – from manufacturing to tourism. To persuade businesses to reopen, policymakers have promised loans, aids and subsidies.
In the impoverished province of Gansu, government officials are each required to spend at least 200 yuan (24.31 pounds) a week to spur the recovery of the local catering industry.
The official China Daily warned in an editorial on Tuesday that maintaining stringent restrictions on people’s movements would “now do more harm than good”.
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.
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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.”
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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 (Reuters) – The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan held a video conference on Friday to discuss cooperation on the coronavirus pandemic amid growing concern over the number of infected people arriving in their countries from overseas.
Though the epidemic erupted in China in December, and South Korea at one stage had the second-most infections, both subsequently succeeded in stifling domestic transmission of the virus. [L4N2BC3SC]
The number of cases in Japan has been far smaller, but Tokyo has the extra worry of whether to press ahead with hosting the Olympics this summer.
Japan was given expressions of support for hosting the Olympics during the video-conference call between the minister, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry.
The government remains committed to holding Games as planned in July, despite expectations that some 600,000 spectators and athletes would descend on Tokyo.
Japan has had 963 domestically transmitted cases and 33 deaths, according to public broadcaster NHK. That does not include more than 700 cases and seven deaths from a cruise ship moored near Tokyo last month.
TWO-WEEK QUARANTINE
During their call, the ministers shared information on the outbreaks in their countries.
“I think the three countries need to work together to contain the spread of the coronavirus and minimise any resulting reduction on exchanges and cooperation between the peoples, as well as its economic and social impact,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said at the outset of the call.
South Korea’s government said on Tuesday it will conduct a coronavirus check on all travellers from Europe and impose a two-week mandatory quarantine, starting Sunday, for those who intend staying long term.
“This is the toughest step we could take without banning entries from Europe, where the virus is spreading at an unexpected speed,” Yoon Tae-ho, director-general for public health policy at the health ministry, told a briefing.
“We’re also closely monitoring developments in the United States where the rate of the transmission has been increasing over the last few days.”
The move came a day after tighter border checks took effect for all people arriving from overseas.
South Korea has established special entry procedures for visitors from hard-hit countries like China, Italy and Iran, requiring them to sign up by a smartphone application to track whether they have any symptoms such as fever.
Despite strong diplomatic and economic ties between the three North Asian neighbours, historic grievances dog their relations. And reduced flights, stronger border controls, and quarantine requirements introduced in response to the epidemic have proved irksome.
Earlier this month, Seoul suspended visas and visa waivers for Japan in a tit-for-tat move following Tokyo’s own travel restrictions on Koreans, triggering fears that their defences against the virus could spark a fresh feud.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 87 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total national infections to 8,652.
As of Thursday, there were 79 cases involving infected people who had recently arrived in the country, up from 44 on Sunday. Most of them were South Koreans, 27 came from Europe, 16 from China, and 12 from other Asian countries, according to the KCDC.
The daily tally for new infections has been trending downward over the past week, despite a slight uptick on Thursday as small-scale outbreaks continued to emerge across the country. South Korea’s death toll rose to 101, from 94.
South Korea’s election commission said on Friday it will disinfect all polling stations and carry out checks on voters when they show up to cast their ballots in the April 15 parliamentary election.
AutoNavi’s latest data shows increase in offline traffic and searches of major business districts
Traffic data could signal that consumer activity in China has entered a recovery
AutoNavi’s mobile app users can search the names of malls and shops to see real-time traffic data. Photo: AP
Data from AutoNavi, the maps app operated by Alibaba Group Holding, shows that traffic in major shopping districts in China picked up by an average of 30 per cent over the past month, as consumer activity gradually returns to normal now that the coronavirus infection rate appears to have peaked in the country.
The early sign of increased consumer activity in China contrasts with the panic and economic uncertainty now engulfing Europe and the US, as the widening pandemic forces governments around the world to take lessons from China on how to tackle the spread of the disease with curfews and social distancing measures.
AutoNavi’s latest big data report, released on Monday, shows that traffic in and around shopping districts in several major cities in the country rose 30 per cent over the weekend of March 14-15 compared with the weekend of February 15-16, when the coronavirus in China was at its height and many areas in the country were under lockdown.
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“Consumer confidence is starting to rebound as the coronavirus comes under control,” said Guo Ning, vice-president of AutoNavi. “We are seeing more and more people stepping out, with offline consumption slowly recovering.”
Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.
China’s nearly two-month lockdown has dealt a hammer blow to the economy, with retail sales – a key metric of consumption – down by 20.5 per cent across the combined two months of January and February, marking the first decline on record. The virus has however proved a boon for China’s e-commerce sector, as shoppers stuck at home buy even more online.
The new data appears to show that the country’s offline economy could now see a slow recovery. This does not mean that retail businesses can slack off on preventive measures – hand sanitiser, extra cleaning and temperature monitoring are likely to remain fixtures of everyday life in shopping malls.
AutoNavi’s mobile app users can search the names of malls and shops to see real-time traffic data – often used to avoid visiting malls at peak periods. AutoNavi said the average 30 per cent increase in traffic refers to the combined volume of people using the app to navigate the shopping destinations.
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AutoNavi has more than 400 million monthly active users, according to company data. It was the first domestic travel platform to exceed 100 million daily active users.
Digital maps have become a key tool in China’s attempts to control the coronavirus pandemic, with competitor map apps from Baidu and Tencent also launching features to track population flows and provide information on clinics able to test for and treat the disease.
Covid-19, as the novel coronavirus is known, has now killed over 3,200 people in China and infected just over 80,000, of which around 68,000 have recovered. There are now around 87,000 confirmed cases outside China, according to the latest figures from health authorities.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – For years, Hindus and Muslims lived and worked peacefully together in Yamuna Vihar, a densely populated Delhi district.
But the riots that raged through the district last month appear to have cleaved lasting divisions in the community, reflecting a nationwide trend as tensions over the Hindu nationalist agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi boil over.
Many Hindus in Yamuna Vihar, a sprawl of residential blocks and shops dotted with mosques and Hindu temples, and in other riot-hit districts of northeast Delhi, say they are boycotting merchants and refusing to hire workers from the Muslim community. Muslims say they are scrambling to find jobs at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has heightened pressure on India’s economy.
“I have decided to never work with Muslims,” said Yash Dhingra, who has a shop selling paint and bathroom fittings in Yamuna Vihar. “I have identified new workers, they are Hindus,” he said, standing in a narrow lane that was the scene of violent clashes in the riots that erupted on Feb. 23.
The trigger for the riots, the worst sectarian violence in the Indian capital in decades, was a citizenship law introduced last year that critics say marginalises India’s Muslim minority. Police records show at least 53 people, mostly Muslims, were killed and more than 200 were injured.
Dhingra said the unrest had forever changed Yamuna Vihar. Gutted homes with broken doors can be seen across the neighbourhood; electricity cables melted in the fires dangle dangerously above alleys strewn with stones and bricks used as makeshift weapons in the riots.
Most Hindu residents in the district are now boycotting Muslim workers, affecting everyone from cooks and cleaners to mechanics and fruit sellers, he said.
“We have proof to show that Muslims started the violence, and now they are blaming it on us,” Dhingra said. “This is their pattern as they are criminal-minded people.”
Those views were widely echoed in interviews with 25 Hindus in eight localities in northeast Delhi, many of whom suffered large-scale financial damages or were injured in the riots. Reuters also spoke with about 30 Muslims, most of whom said that Hindus had decided to stop working with them.
Suman Goel, a 45-year-old housewife who has lived among Muslim neighbours for 23 years, said the violence had left her in a state of shock.
“It’s strange to lose a sense of belonging, to step out of your home and avoid smiling at Muslim women,” she said. “They must be feeling the same too but it’s best to maintain a distance.”
Mohammed Taslim, a Muslim who operated a business selling shoes from a shop owned by a Hindu in Bhajanpura, one of the neighbourhoods affected by the riots, said his inventory was destroyed by a Hindu mob.
He was then evicted and his space was leased out to a Hindu businessman, he said.
“This is being done just because I am a Muslim,” said Taslim.
Many Muslims said the attack had been instigated by hardline Hindus to counter protests involving tens of thousands of people across India against the new citizenship law.
“This is the new normal for us,” said Adil, a Muslim research assistant with an economic think tank in central Delhi. “Careers, jobs and business are no more a priority for us. Our priority now is to be safe and to protect our lives.”
He declined to disclose his full name for fear of reprisals.
Emboldened by Modi’s landslide electoral victory in 2014, hardline groups began pursuing a Hindu-first agenda that has come at the expense of the country’s Muslim minority.
Vigilantes have attacked and killed a number of Muslims involved in transporting cows, which are seen as holy animals by Hindus, to slaughterhouses in recent years. The government has also adopted a tough stance with regard to Pakistan, and in August withdrew semi-autonomous privileges for Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.
In November, the Supreme Court ruled that a Hindu temple could be built at Ayodhya, where a right-wing mob tore down a 16th-century mosque in 1992, a decision that was welcomed by the Modi government.
The citizenship law, which eases the path for non-Muslims from neighbouring Muslim-majority nations to gain citizenship in India, was the final straw for many Muslims, as well as secular Indians, sparking nationwide protests.
Modi’s office did not respond to questions from Reuters about the latest violence.
NIGHT VIGILANTES
During the day, Hindus and Muslims shun each other in the alleys of the Delhi districts that were hardest hit by the unrest in February. At night, when the threat of violence is greater, they are physically divided by barricades that are removed in the morning.
And in some areas, permanent barriers are being erected.
On a recent evening, Tarannum Sheikh, a schoolteacher, sat watching two welders install a high gate at the entrance of a narrow lane to the Muslim enclave of Khajuri Khas, where she lives. The aim was to keep Hindus out, she said.
“We keep wooden batons with us to protect the entrance as at any time, someone can enter this alley to create trouble,” she said. “We do not trust the police anymore.”
In the adjacent Hindu neighbourhood of Bhajanpura, residents expressed a similar mistrust and sense of insecurity.
“In a way these riots were needed to unite Hindus, we did not realise that we were surrounded by such evil minds for decades,” said Santosh Rani, a 52-year-old grandmother.
She said she had been forced to lower her two grandchildren from the first floor of her house to the street below after the building was torched in the violence, allegedly by a Muslim.
“This time the Muslims have tested our patience and now we will never give them jobs,” said Rani who owns several factories and retail shops. “I will never forgive them.”
Hasan Sheikh, a tailor who has stitched clothing for Hindu and Muslim women for over 40 years, said Hindu customers came to collect their unstitched clothes after the riots.
“It was strange to see how our relationship ended,” said Sheikh, who is Muslim. “I was not at fault, nor were my women clients, but the social climate of this area is very tense. Hatred on both sides is justified.”
BEIJING (Reuters) – The global coronavirus pandemic could be over by June if countries mobilize to fight it, a senior Chinese medical adviser said on Thursday, as China declared the peak had passed there and new cases in Hubei fell to single digits for the first time.
Around two-thirds of global cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in China’s central Hubei province, where the virus first emerged in December. But in recent weeks the vast majority of new cases have been outside China.
Chinese authorities credit strict measures they have taken, including placing Hubei under near total lockdown, with preventing big outbreaks in other cities, and say other countries should learn from their efforts.
“Broadly speaking, the peak of the epidemic has passed for China,” said Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission. “The increase of new cases is falling.”
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Zhong Nanshan, the government’s senior medical adviser, told reporters that as long as countries take the outbreak seriously and are prepared to take firm measures, it could be over worldwide in a matter of months.
“My advice is calling for all countries to follow WHO instructions and intervene on a national scale,” he said. “If all countries could get mobilized, it could be over by June.”
Speaking to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President Xi Jinping similarly expressed confidence, state television reported.
“After hard work, China has shown a trend of continuous improvement in epidemic prevention and control,” the report cited Xi as saying.
“I am confident that the Chinese people will be able to overcome this epidemic and achieve their intended economic and social development goals.”
Zhong, an 83-year-old epidemiologist renowned for helping combat the SARS outbreak in 2003, said viruses in the same family typically became less active in warm months.
“My estimate of June is based on scenarios that all countries take positive measures.”
Later on Thursday, Zhong held a teleconference with a group of U.S. medical experts, including from Harvard University, state television reported.
Zhong and his team shared their experiences of quickly testing and containing the virus, difficulties in treatment, and cooperation in clinical research, the report added.
The United States is now facing its own virus crisis as the number of infected people rises.
BUSINESSES REOPEN
With the marked slowdown of the spread of the virus in China, more businesses have reopened, with authorities cautiously easing strict containment measures.
Hubei province announced a further loosening of travel restrictions and will also allow some industries to resume production.
Hubei’s economy, driven by manufacturing and trade, including a sizable auto sector in the provincial capital, Wuhan, had been virtually shut down since Jan. 23.
While the virus is spreading quickly globally, its progress in China has slowed markedly in the past seven days. In all, 15 new cases were recorded in mainland China on Wednesday, down from 24 the day before. Seven of the new cases were outside Hubei, including six imported from abroad.
While only 85 of the cases in China have come from abroad, the rising number of such incidences has prompted authorities to shift their focus on containing the risk of imported cases.
The total number of cases recorded in mainland China was 80,793. As of Tuesday, 62,793 people had recovered and been discharged from hospital, or nearly 80% of the infections.
In Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, 34,094 patients had been discharged from hospitals, but over half were still under observation at so-called “recovery stops” – quarantine venues repurposed from hotels and student dormitories.
Hubei’s health authority said the post-discharge quarantine was a precautionary measure, after a few discharged patients tested positive again.
As of the end of Wednesday, the death toll in mainland China had reached 3,169, up by 11 from the previous day. Hubei accounted for 10 of the new deaths, including seven in Wuhan.
China is focusing on restarting factories and businesses hit by the containment policies. Factory activity plunged to its worst level on record in February, and while more businesses have reopened in recent weeks as containment measures have been eased, analysts do not expect activity to return to normal until April.
Airlines have been hit particularly hard. China’s airlines reported total losses of 20.96 billion yuan ($3 billion) in February. The total number of airline passengers fell 84.5% year-on-year last month, China’s aviation regulator said.
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