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/WUHAN, China (Reuters) – China on Saturday mourned the thousands of “martyrs” who have died in the new coronavirus outbreak, flying the national flag at half mast throughout the country and suspending all forms of entertainment.
The Chinese national flag flies at half-mast at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as China holds a national mourning for those who died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the Qingming tomb sweeping festival, April 4, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
The day of mourning coincided with the start of the annual Qingming tomb-sweeping festival, when millions of Chinese families pay respects to their ancestors.
At 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) Beijing time, the country observed three minutes of silence to mourn those who died, including frontline medical workers and doctors. Cars, trains and ships sounded their horns and air raid sirens wailed.
In Zhongnanhai, the seat of political power in Beijing, President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders paid silent tribute in front of the national flag, with white flowers pinned to their chest as a mark of mourning, state media reported.
More than 3,300 people in mainland China have died in the epidemic, which first surfaced in the central province of Hubei late last year, according to statistics published by the National Health Commission.
In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and the epicentre of the outbreak, all traffic lights in urban areas turned red at 10 a.m. and all road traffic ceased for three minutes.
Some 2,567 people have died in Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million people located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze river. The Wuhan deaths account for more than 75% of the country’s fatalities.
Among those who died was Li Wenliang, a young doctor who tried to raise the alarm about the disease. Li was honoured by the Hubei government earlier this week, after initially being reprimanded by police in Wuhan for “spreading rumours”.
Gui Yihong, 27, who was among thousands of Wuhan locals who volunteered to deliver food supplies to hospitals during the city’s months-long lockdown, recalled the fear, frustration and pain at Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li worked.
“If you weren’t at the frontlines you wouldn’t be able to experience this,” said Gui, as he laid some flowers next to Wuhan’s 1954 flood memorial by the Yangtze.
“I had to (come) and bear witness. For the last 80 days we had fought between life and death, and finally gained victory. It was not easy at all to come by.”
While the worst was behind Wuhan, the virus has spread to all corners of the globe since January, sickening more than a million people, killing more than 55,000 and paralysing the world economy.
Wuhan banned all tomb-sweeping activities in its cemeteries until at least April 30, curtailing one of the most important dates in the traditional Chinese lunar new year calendar which usually sees millions of families travel to tend to their ancestral graves, offer flowers and burn incense.
They have also told residents, most stuck at home due to lockdown restrictions, to use online streaming services to watch cemetery staff carry out those tasks live.
ASYMPTOMATIC CASES
Online, celebrities including “X-Men: Days of Future Past” star Fan Bingbing swapped their glamorous social media profile pictures for sombre photos in grey or black, garnering millions of “likes” from fans.
Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent (0700.HK) suspended all online games on Saturday.
As of Friday, the total number of confirmed cases across the country stood at 81,639, including 19 new infections, the National Health Commission said.
Eighteen of the new cases involved travellers arriving from abroad. The remaining one new infection was a local case in Wuhan, a patient who was previously asymptomatic.
Asymptomatic people exhibit few signs of infection such as fevers or coughs, and are not included in the tally of confirmed cases by Chinese authorities until they do.
However, they are still infectious, and the government has warned of possible local transmissions if such asymptomatic cases are not properly monitored.
China reported 64 new asymptomatic cases as of Friday, including 26 travellers arriving in the country from overseas. That takes the total number of asymptomatic people currently under medical observation to 1,030, including 729 in Hubei.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption North Korea says not a single person has the virus
North Korea’s claim that “not a single person” in the country has been infected with the coronavirus is facing growing scepticism.
It has credited strict containment measures and the shutting down of its borders for this success.
But the top US military commander in South Korea has said this is “untrue”, calling it an “impossible claim”.
A North Korean expert told the BBC it was likely there were cases but unlikely a mass outbreak had happened.
There are currently more than one million coronavirus cases across the world and 53,069 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
Pak Myong-su, a director at North Korea’s Central Emergency Anti-epidemic headquarters, told news agency AFP on Friday: “Not one single person has been infected with the novel coronavirus in our country so far.”
“We have carried out pre-emptive and scientific measures such as inspections and quarantine for all personnel entering our country and thoroughly disinfecting all goods, as well as closing borders and blocking sea and air lanes.”
Could this be true?
US General Robert Abrams, head of the US military forces in South Korea, has said it is untrue that North Korea has no virus cases.
“I can tell you that is an impossible claim based on all of the intel that we have seen,” he said in a joint interview with news sites CNN and VOA.
However, he said he could not say exactly how many cases there were, not confirm where the information came from.
Oliver Hotham, managing editor of specialist news site NK News, agreed that North Korea has probably had cases.
“It’s very unlikely that it has seen no cases because it borders China and South Korea. [Especially with China], given the amount of cross border trade and the economic relationship I really don’t see how its possible they could have prevented it,” he said.
However, he adds that it is “unlikely” there is a full scale outbreak.
“They really did take precautions early. I think it’s possible they’ve prevented a full on outbreak.”
How has North Korea reacted to the crisis?
North Korea has indeed moved much more quickly against the virus than many other countries in the region.
In late January, it sealed off its borders and later quarantined hundreds of foreigners in the capital Pyongyang. During that time, the number of cases in China were growing exponentially.
An NK News report also suggests that up to 10,000 citizens had been placed under isolation in the country – around 500 still remain in quarantine.
Are those in North Korea even aware of the virus?
Most people in North Korea are “really aware” of what’s going on, says Mr Hotham.
“There’s been so much media coverage. Almost every day you have a whole page about the efforts the country is taking domestically and also the international situation,” he told the BBC.
Fyodor Tertitskiy, a senior researcher at Kookmin University, also adds the country is currently running an “ongoing propaganda campaign teaching people how to prevent the spread of the virus”.
The answer is, according to experts – better than you would think – depending on where in North Korea you are.
Mr Tertitsky says the North’s healthcare system is “much, much better than other countries with a similar GDP per capita”.
“What they did was to train a large number of doctors who, although less qualified and infinitely paid less than their colleagues in the West, can still provide basic healthcare to the population,” he told the BBC.
Mr Hotham agrees, but says that the number of doctors in North Korea enables the country to deal with basic illnesses, but perhaps not so much more serious illnesses which also need more healthcare equipment.
Sanctions have also restricted North Korea’s ability to obtain advanced medical equipment.
Mr Hotham adds that the care you receive largely depends on where you are. The capital, Pyongyang, for example, has various medical facilities, but those in rural areas might not be so lucky.
“Some provinces are desperately underfunded, where you’ll have hospitals with no running water or stable power.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Some international experts say North Korea’s health system is appalling
Why might North Korea be trying to cover up cases?
For North Korea to admit they have cases now could be a sign of “defeat”.
“The state has put a lot of stock into its response and there has been so much propaganda about how well they’re doing,” said Mr Hotham.
“I think for them to admit now that there were cases is essentially to admit defeat. I think it would also cause panic and people would freak out. If you have large movements of people trying to get away, that could create instability and even more infections.”
Mr Tertitskiy also puts this down to North Korea trying to preserve its self-image.
“The country is very paranoid about giving away any information that may make it look bad. Their basic rule is to say nothing unless there is a good reason to do otherwise.”
Authorities in Yunnan limit land and river ports to cargo traffic, locking down border communities
Province on alert for imported cases of Covid-19
Yunnan is on alert for imported cases of the coronavirus. Photo: Xinhua
The southwestern province of Yunnan has banned Chinese citizens from leaving the country via its more than 30 land and river ports to stop the spread of the coronavirus epidemic through returning nationals.
Yunnan, which borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, had restricted its 19 land ports and 14 river ports to cargo, the provincial government said on Tuesday.
The authorities said that from Tuesday night, all departures by Chinese citizens via the checkpoints would be suspended, with exemptions granted for approved foreign aid, technical support or emergency medical workers.
on Saturday. But non-Chinese residents of border areas who have permits to cross into Yunnan could still enter the province, according to a previous report by China News Service.
Those permit holders can still cross into Yunnan but will be discouraged from doing so. Under the new restrictions, they will need to test negative for two nucleic acid tests and one antibody test before being put in seven days of centralised isolation and another seven days of home isolation, all at their own expense.
Coronavirus: Decoding Covid-19
Residents in border cities and counties will be restricted to the village and community level to prevent entry and exit of outsiders. They would also be encouraged to report illegal immigrants, the government said.
Yunnan, which recorded 174 local coronavirus cases including two deaths, said all patients in its initial wave were discharged by March 14. The province is now on alert for imported cases, with eight patients who travelled to the province from overseas being treated as of Tuesday.
Xiao Xian, a professor of international relations from Yunnan University, said some permit holders could be deterred from crossing into Yunnan by the cost of tests and quarantine.
Xiao also said that banning Chinese citizens from crossing the border would affect border trade and tourism, but it was necessary to stop transmission of the coronavirus.
“The need to prevent the spread of an infectious disease outweighs trade and tourism. It is understandable since it is the country’s top priority now,” Xiao said.
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.
Billionaire blasted for his Instagram-perfect isolation on luxury yacht
31 Mar 2020
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.
‘When I wake I cry’: France’s nurses face hell on coronavirus front line
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.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Hundreds have been leaving the mosque to be monitored or tested for the virus
Officials across India are searching for hundreds of people who attended a religious event in the capital that has set off several Covid-19 clusters.
At least six regions have reported cases that can be directly traced to the days-long congregation at a mosque.
Delhi officials are now clearing the building, where more than 1,000 people have been stranded since the government imposed a lockdown last week.
At least 24 have tested positive so far, the state health minister said.
They are among some 300 people who showed symptoms and have been moved to various hospital to be tested, he told the media. Another 700 have been shifted into quarantine centres, he added.
It is believed that the infections were caused by preachers who attended the event from Indonesia.
State officials have called for action to be taken against mosque officials, but they have denied any wrongdoing.
Local media reports say that Nizamuddin – the locality where the mosque is located – has been cordoned off and more than 35 buses carrying people to hospitals or quarantine centres.
The congregation – part of a 20th Century Islamic movement called Tablighi Jamaat – began at the end of February, but some of the main events were held in early March.
It’s unclear if the event was ticketed or even if the organisers maintained a roster of visitors as people attended the event throughout, with some staying on and others leaving. Even overseas visitors, some of them preachers, travelled to other parts of the country where they stayed in local mosques and met people.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
So officials have no easy way of finding out how many people attended the event or where they went. But they have already begun to trace and test.
The southern state of Telangana reported on Sunday night that six people who had attended the event died from the virus. The state’s medical officer told the BBC that more than 40 of Telangana’s 71 cases were either directly or indirectly linked to the event.
Indian-administered Kashmir reported its first death from the virus last week – a 65-year-old who had been in Delhi for the congregation. Officials told BBC Urdu that more than 40 of the region’s 48 cases could be traced back to that one patient.
A cluster has even appeared in the distant Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where six of the nine who have tested positive, had returned from the Delhi event.
The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have said more than 3,000 people from their states had attended the event, and Tamil Nadu has traced 16 positive patients to it.
States have also asked other people who attended to come forward for testing.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has asked for a police complaint to be registered against the head of the mosque.
However, the event’s organisers have issued a statement, saying they had suspended the event and asked everyone to leave as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that there would be a day-long national curfew on 22 March.
While many were able to leave, they say, others were stranded because states began to seal their borders the following day, and two days later, India imposed a 21-day lockdown, suspending buses and trains.
The mosque’s premises include dormitories that can house hundreds of people.
The organisers say they informed the local police about all of this and continued to cooperate with medical officers who came to inspect the premises.
The mosque, the statement says, “never violated any provision of law, and always tried to act with compassion and reason towards the visitors who came to Delhi from different states. It did not let them violate the medical guidelines by thronging ISBTs (bus stops) or roaming on streets.”
This is not the first time religious congregations have been blamed for the spread of coronavirus.
Tablighi Jamaat events have also been blamed for spreading cases in Indonesia and Malaysia.
And in South Korea, many positive cases were linked to the Schincheonji church, a secretive religious sect, that has since apologised for its role in the outbreak.
WUHAN, China (Reuters) – China reported a drop in new coronavirus infections for a fourth day as drastic curbs on international travellers reined in the number of imported cases, while policymakers turned their efforts to healing the world’s second-largest economy.
The city of Wuhan, at the centre of the outbreak, reported no new cases for a sixth day, as businesses reopened and residents set about reclaiming a more normal life after a lockdown for almost two months.
Smartly turned out staff waited in masks and gloves to greet customers at entrances to the newly-reopened Wuhan International Plaza, home to boutiques of luxury brands such as Cartier and Louis Vuitton.
“The Wuhan International Plaza is very representative (of the city),” said Zhang Yu, 29. “So its reopening really makes me feel this city is coming back to life.”
Sunday’s figure of 31 new cases, including one locally transmitted infection, was down from 45 the previous day, the National Health Commission said.
As infections fall, policymakers are scrambling to revitalise an economy nearly paralysed by months-long curbs to control the spread of the flu-like disease.
On Monday, the central bank unexpectedly cut the interest rate on reverse repurchase agreements by 20 basis points, the largest in nearly five years.
The government is pushing businesses and factories to reopen, as it rolls out fiscal and monetary stimulus to spur recovery from what is feared to be an outright economic contraction in the quarter to March.
China’s exports and imports could worsen as the pandemic spreads, depressing demand both at home and abroad, Xin Guobin, the vice minister of industry and information technology, said on Monday.
The country has extended loans of 200 billion yuan (22.75 billion pounds) to 5,000 businesses, from 300 billion allocated to help companies as they resume work, Xin said.
Authorities in Ningbo said they would encourage national banks to offer preferential credit of up to 100 billion yuan to the eastern port city’s larger export firms. The city government will subsidize such loans, it said in a notice.
VIRUS CONCERNS
While new infections have fallen sharply from February’s peak, authorities worry about a second wave triggered by returning Chinese, many of them students.
China cut international flights massively from Sunday for an indefinite period, after it began denying entry to almost all foreigners a day earlier.
Average daily arrivals at airports this week are expected to be about 4,000, down from 25,000 last week, an official of the Civil Aviation Administration of China told a news conference in Beijing on Monday.
The return to work has also prompted concern about potential domestic infections, especially over carriers who exhibit no, or very mild, symptoms of the highly contagious virus.
Northwestern Gansu province reported a new case of a traveller from the central province of Hubei, who drove back with a virus-free health code, national health authorities said.
Hubei authorities say 4.6 million people in the province returned to work by Saturday, with 2.8 million of them heading for other parts of China.
Most of the departing migrant workers went to the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, and northeast China.
In Hubei’s capital of Wuhan, more retail complexes and shopping streets reopened.
Electric carmaker Tesla Inc has also reopened a showroom in Wuhan, a company executive said on Weibo.
Shoppers queued 1-1/2 metres (5 ft) apart for temperature checks at Wuhan International Plaza, while flashing “green” mobile telephone codes attesting to a clean bill of health.
To be cleared to resume work, Wuhan residents have been asked to take nucleic acid tests twice.
“Being able to be healthy and leave the house, and meet other colleagues who are also healthy is a very happy thing,” said Wang Xueman, a cosmetics sales representative.
visited the industrial powerhouse of Zhejiang province on Sunday in a move state media described as a clear message the country was ready to get the economy back on track amid the “new normal” of dealing with the coronavirus.
The trip, to Ningbo – one of the world’s busiest ports and a trade hub for eastern China – was Xi’s first outside Beijing since he visited Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, earlier in the month.
As well as a visiting the port, he spoke to workers at an industrial zone for car part manufacturers, where he learned about the latest efforts to restart production, Xinhua said in a brief report.
The visit came after two months of almost total lockdown in many parts of the country that disrupted businesses, transport and people’s daily lives, and ground the economy to a near standstill.
While local transmissions of the coronavirus in China appear to be under control, Beijing has implemented strict measures to prevent imported cases, including slashing international flights and banning most foreigners from entering the country.
In a separate report, Xinhua said Xi’s visit sent “a clear message” that China was resuming its industrial production and social activities, and described the fight against the coronavirus as the “new normal”.
Reviving the economy and battling a deadly disease were Xi’s “two tough battles”, it said.
Xi’s choice of destination was a clear message that restarting the economy is a top priority. Photo: Xinhua
Zhejiang is something of a power base for Xi, who spent nearly five years there during his climb through the ranks of the Communist Party.
One of the country’s biggest trading hubs, the province generated 3 trillion yuan (US$423.2 billion) in foreign trade last year, or more than 13 per cent of the national total, according to official figures.
“It’s a highly export-oriented economy … which has made it crucial not only to China’s development plan but also to safeguarding the stability of the global supply chain,” Xinhua said.
Observers said Xi’s visit was evidence of Beijing’s determination to get the economy back up and running as soon as possible.
Zhao Xijun, an economics professor at Renmin University, said Ningbo was a key part of the export economy and a base for many local and foreign entrepreneurs.
“It is a clear signal that China, after getting domestic infections under control, is now prioritising economic growth,” he said.
“It also shows the country will keep developing its economy and opening up its markets.”
But hopes of a quick recovery for the Chinese economy have been dashed by the spread of the coronavirus across Europe and the United States, causing a sharp decline in demand for Chinese goods.
Xi spent five years in Zhejiang while climbing the ranks of the Communist Party. Photo: Xinhua
In a meeting on Friday, the Communist Party’s Politburo said it would step up macroeconomic policy adjustments and pursue a more proactive fiscal policy while optimising measures to control the coronavirus to speed up the restoration of production, doing whatever it could to “minimise the losses caused by the epidemic”.
“China has successfully reopened much of its economy from the extremes of the coronavirus lockdown, but now faces a new problem: an impending collapse in demand for its exports as its customers go into lockdowns of their own,” Gavekal Dragnomics said in a research report.
“That shock to industry and manufacturing employment means that China will not enjoy the hoped-for V-shaped recovery in growth.”
Virus was circulating ‘before we were aware of the outbreak in China’, says Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
Italy has now reported more than 4,800 deaths from Covid-19, more than any other country in the world
Italian doctors became aware of a “strange pneumonia” circulating in the Lombardy region in November. Photo: AFP
A “strange pneumonia” was circulating in northern Italy as long ago as November, weeks before doctors were made aware of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, one of the European country’s leading medical experts said this week.
“They [general practitioners] remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,” Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States.
“This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.”
Remuzzi’s comments came as scientists continue to search for the origin of the coronavirus. Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan said earlier that although China was the first to report the pathogen, it was not yet certain where it actually came from.
Remuzzi said it was only recently that he had heard from Italian doctors about the disease, which meant it had existed and been spreading without people’s knowledge.
Despite reporting its first locally transmitted coronavirus infections – in Lombardy – only on February 21 – it had had only imported cases before then – Italy has since had more than 53,000 confirmed cases and 4,825 deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen. By comparison, China has had just over 81,000 cases and 3,261 fatalities.
Italy suspended all flights to China on January 31, the first nation to do so.
Coronavirus vaccine trial volunteers recount their experiences
22 Mar 2020
In the central China city of Wuhan, where the epidemic was first identified, doctors began noticing a “pneumonia with an unknown cause” in December. The first known infection in the city can be traced back to December 1.
The current thinking among the scientific community is that the first infection in Lombardy was the result of an Italian coming into contact with a Chinese person in late January. However, if it can be shown that the novel coronavirus – officially known as SARS-CoV-2 – was in circulation in Italy in November, then that theory would be turned on its head.
The debate over the possible origin of the pathogen has also been at the heart of a war of words between Beijing and Washington, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly referring to it as the “Chinese virus” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling it the “Wuhan virus”, infuriating Beijing in the process.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took to Twitter to contest the claims.
“By calling it ‘China virus’ and thus suggesting its origin without any supporting facts or evidence, some media clearly want China to take the blame, and their ulterior motives are laid bare,” he said.
He then went on to suggest that the coronavirus outbreak might have started in the United States and been carried to Wuhan by the US Army.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd (0700.HK) said on Thursday the coronavirus drove 8 billion visits to its WeChat platform as users flocked to get “health codes” they need to show authorities in order to travel around the country.
Reporting slightly lower than expected fourth quarter profit on Wednesday, the gaming and social media giant said in a statement it did not expect the epidemic to have any significant impact on its financial position to date.
This is markedly different from many companies around the world which have downgraded earnings forecasts due to the virus.
It reported a 21.58 billion yuan (US$3.07 billion) profit for the three months through December. That compared with the 22.85 billion yuan average of 15 analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
Revenue rose 25% to 105.8 billion yuan, versus the 102.9 billion yuan average estimate of 17 analysts. That marked Tencent’s fastest revenue growth since late 2018.
Tencent’s businesses are mainly online-only, positioning it uniquely against other tech giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) that focus on e-commerce and whose supply chains have been severely disrupted by the outbreak.
“Mobile games are one of the very few entertainment options during the coronavirus outbreak. Comparing the figures in early 2019, downloads of Tencent games increased by 10.4% year over year in this February, and revenue increased by 11.8%,” said analyst Nan Lu at researcher Sensor Tower.
Overall, downloads of all Tencent apps for this February grew 32.3% month-on-month and 42.9% year-on-year, she said.
VIDEO STREAMING
Tencent’s most popular games include Honour of Kings and Peacekeeper Elite. It also operates social media platform WeChat, a video streaming site and a news portal. Its services experienced a surge in traffic as China’s government urged millions of people to stay at home and away from crowded places, analysts said.
Well before the epidemic began in China in late December, prospects were already starting to look up for the company after an especially difficult 2018, when it endured a lengthy freeze in the regulatory approval of new games that wiped billions of dollars off its market value.
A weak point in the January-March quarter, however, will likely be advertising – which made up nearly 20% of revenue in the third quarter – as companies cut back spending amid concerns over the virus’ economic fallout, analysts said.
Shares in Tencent closed 4.5% lower on Wednesday. Tencent’s shares have fallen 11.1% so far this year as the coronavrius roiled global markets, versus a 21% decline in the Hang Seng index .HIS.
Subsidiary Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME.N) on Tuesday said it would likely see “much softer” first-quarter revenue growth as the outbreak was impacting licensing and advertising revenue.
On the flip side, analyst Kevin Tam at Core Pacific-Yamaichi Securities in Hong Kong wrote in a research note that Tencent could see margin improvement “as a result of stringent control on marketing expenses and higher profitability from video advertising”.
VIENTIANE, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Chinese top political advisor Wang Yang on Monday inspected the construction of the China-Laos Railway at ancient Lao capital Luang Prabang, some 220 km north of Vientiane.
Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, inspected the construction of a major bridge crossing the Mekong River, which is an important node of the 414.3-km railway.
He was also briefed on the construction of the China-Laos Railway, met with representatives from the company that constructs the railway and delivered a speech.
On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people, Wang expressed warm greetings to the staff participating in the construction of the China-Laos Railway and sent his heartfelt thanks to those who cared and supported the construction of the railway.
Wang said the railway is a major project of the China-Laos Economic Corridor and an important platform and carrier of the implementation on building a community with a shared future for China and Laos.
Hailing the railway’s important significance in improving Laos’ infrastructure and boosting local economic and social development, Wang said top leaders of the two countries have attached great importance to the railway and have made explicit requirements of the construction on different occasions.
Wang called on builders of the railway to note the importance of the railway from the overall and strategic height, uphold the principle of quality and safety first, enhance project management, fulfill social responsibilities and work on to build a model, competitive and clean project, so as to contribute to the China-Laos friendship.
The China-Laos Railway is a strategic docking project between the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Laos’ strategy to convert from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub.
The railway, with 198-km tunnels and 62-km bridges, will run from Boten border gate in northern Laos, bordering China, to Vientiane with an operating speed of 160 km per hour.
The project started in December 2016 and is scheduled to be completed and opened to traffic in December 2021.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 