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.
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.
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.”
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump during a phone call on Friday that he would have China’s support in fighting the coronavirus, as the United States faces the prospect of becoming the next global epicentre of the pandemic.
The United States now has the most coronavirus cases of any country, with 84,946 infections and 1,259 deaths. Hospitals in cities like New York and New Orleans struggle to cope with the wave of patients.
Xi’s offer of assistance came amid a long-running war of words between Beijing and Washington over various issues including the coronavirus epidemic.
Trump and some U.S. officials have accused China of a lack of transparency on the virus, and Trump has at times called the coronavirus a “China virus” as it originated there, angering Beijing.
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In the call, Xi reiterated to Trump that China had been open and transparent about the epidemic, according to an account of the conversation published by the Chinese foreign ministry.
Trump said on Twitter that he discussed the coronavirus outbreak “in great detail” with Xi.
“China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the virus,” Trump said. “We are working closely together. Much respect!”.
The World Health Organization has said the United States, which saw 17,099 new coronavirus cases and 281 deaths in the past 24 hours, is expected to become the epicentre of the pandemic.
CHINA CUTS FLIGHTS
Like U.S. hospitals now, China’s medical system struggled to contain the coronavirus just two months ago, but draconian city lockdowns and severe travel restrictions has seen China dramatically ease the epidemic.
Mainland China on Friday reported its first local coronavirus case in three days and 54 new imported cases, as Beijing ordered airlines to sharply cut international flights, for fear travellers could reignite the coronavirus outbreak.
The 55 new cases detected on Thursday were down from 67 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said on Friday, taking the tally of infections to 81,340. China’s death toll stood at 3,292 as of Thursday, up by five from a day earlier.
The central province of Hubei, with a population of about 60 million, reported no new cases on Thursday, a day after lifting a lockdown and reopening its borders as the epidemic eased there.
The commercial capital of Shanghai reported the most new imported cases with 17, followed by 12 in the southern province of Guangdong and four each in the capital Beijing and the nearby city of Tianjin.
Shanghai now has 125 patients who arrived from overseas, including 46 from Britain and 27 from the United States.
In effect from Sunday, China has ordered its airlines to fly only one route to any country, on just one flight each week. Foreign airlines must comply with similar curbs on flights to China, although many had already halted services.
About 90% of current international flights into China will be suspended, cutting arrivals to 5,000 passengers a day, from 25,000, the civil aviation regulator said late on Thursday.
From Saturday, China will temporarily suspend entry for foreigners with valid visas and residence permits, in an interim measure, the foreign ministry added.
Before the new curbs, foreign nationals made up about a tenth of the roughly 20,000 travellers arriving on international flights every day, an official of China’s National Immigration Administration said last week.
As commercial flights dwindle, Chinese students from wealthy families are paying tens of thousands of dollars to fly home on private jets.
International demand for chartered and private flights into China increased 227% in March from a year earlier, said Shanghai-based private jet service provider iFlyPlus.
Notably, requests for flights from the United States to China rose 10-fold in late March, iFlyPlus told Reuters.
But in Delhi and the financial capital, Mumbai, people fearing shortages quickly thronged shops and pharmacies.
“I have never witnessed such a chaos in my life,” the owner of one store in the Shakarpur district of Delhi said, quoted by the Press Trust of India.
“All our stocks, including rice, flour, bread, biscuits, edible oils, have been sold out.”
Police in the busy city of Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh state, patrolled the streets with megaphones to tell residents to stay indoors.
Image copyright AFPImage caption People in Mumbai rushed to stock up on essentials following Mr Modi’s address
Under the new measures, all non-essential businesses will be closed but hospitals and other medical facilities will continue to function as normal. Schools and universities will remain shut and almost all public gatherings will be banned.
Anyone flouting the new rules faces up to two years in prison and heavy fines.
In his address, Prime Minister Modi also:
Stressed that the 21-day lockdown was “very necessary to break the chain of coronavirus”
Emphasised the seriousness of the situation and said that even developed countries had faced problems in combating it
Said that “social distancing was the only way to stop” the virus spreading
Announced that nearly $2bn (£1.8bn) would be made available to boost the country’s health infrastructure
Called on people not to “spread rumours” and to follow instructions
His announcement came after several Indian states introduced measures of their own, such as travel restrictions and the closure of non-essential services.
India has already issued a ban on international arrivals and grounded domestic flights. The country’s rail network has also suspended most passenger services.
Many parts of India, including cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, are already under tight restrictions. But this move extends those provisions to every corner of the country.
An earlier one-day curfew, which was seen as a trial, was flouted by many.
Mr Modi called on Indians to clap and cheer the emergency services from their balconies on Sunday. But many misunderstood the call and congregated in the streets as they danced and chanted.
“It’s impossible to fathom the cost that India may have to pay if such irresponsible behaviour continues,” Mr Modi warned at the time. “Social distancing is the only option to combat coronavirus.”
The implications of a total lockdown in India are huge, not just economically, but socially.
This is a nation where community is everything. Going to worship at a temple, mosque or church is an essential part of daily life for so many.
This is a seismic cultural shift but – like the rest of the world facing similar restrictions – a necessary one.
What’s the latest from around Asia?
Neighbouring Pakistan has almost twice as many confirmed cases – 878 as of Monday evening. Sweeping restrictions are in place although the government has stopped short of imposing a nationwide lockdown. However, several provinces have announced them independently. The army is being brought in to help enforce the restrictions
Bangladesh, which has reported 33 cases and three deaths, is also deploying its armed forces to help maintain social distancing and boost Covid-19 preventive measures. The soldiers will also monitor thousands of quarantined expatriate returnees. Across South Asia, there are concerns that the actual number of cases could be much higher than is being reported.
Indonesia, which has 49 confirmed Covid-19 deaths – the highest in South East Asia – has converted an athlete’s village built for the 2018 Asian Games into a makeshift hospital for coronavirus patients. A state of emergency was declared in Jakarta on Monday
In Thailand, a month-long state of emergency which will include curfews and checkpoints will begin on Thursday. The government has been criticised for failing to take strong action so far. Four people have died and nearly 900 tested positive
The most populous country that was without a case until now – Myanmar – has announced two cases
And what about the rest of the world?
Elsewhere, governments are continuing to work to stem the spread of the virus which has now affected more than 190 countries worldwide
More than 2.6 billion people are in lockdown now India has introduced its new measures, according to a tally by the AFP news agency
Media caption Reality Check tackles misleading health advice being shared online
Europe remains at the epicentre of the pandemic. On Tuesday, the death toll jumped by 514 in a single day in Spain and other European countries also reported sharp increases
Italy is the worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths. The virus has killed almost 7,000 people there over the past month
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the US has the potential to become the new epicentre of the pandemic
In other developments, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the International Olympic Committee has agreed that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics should be postponed by a year
LONDON/BEIJING (Reuters) – The world’s wealthiest nations poured unprecedented aid into the traumatized global economy on Thursday as coronavirus cases ballooned in the current epicentre Europe even as they waned at the pandemic’s point of origin, China.
With almost 219,000 infections and more than 8,900 deaths so far, the epidemic has stunned the world and drawn comparisons with painful periods such as World War Two, the 2008 financial crisis and the 1918 Spanish flu.
“This is like an Egyptian plague,” said Argentinian hotelier Patricia Duran, who has seen bookings dry up for her two establishments near the famous Iguazu Falls.
“The hotels are empty – tourist activity has died.”
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Tourism and airlines have been particularly battered, as the world’s citizens hunker down to minimize contact and curb the spread of the flu-like COVID-19. But few sectors have been spared by a crisis threatening lengthy global recession.
On markets, investors have dumped assets everywhere, many switching to U.S. dollars as a safe haven. Other currencies hit historic lows, with Britain’s pound near its weakest since 1985.
Policymakers in the United States, Europe and Asia have slashed interest rates and opened liquidity taps to try to stabilise economies hit by quarantined consumers, broken supply chains, disrupted transport and paralysed businesses.
The virus, thought to have originated from wildlife on mainland China late last year, has jumped to 172 other nations and territories with more than 20,000 new cases reported in the past 24 hours – a new daily record.
Cases in Germany, Iran and Spain rose to over 12,000 each. An official in Tehran tweeted that the coronavirus was killing one person every 10 minutes.
LONDON LOCKDOWN?
Britain, which had sought to take a gradual approach to containment, was closing dozens of underground stations in London and ordering schools shut from Friday.
Some 20,000 military personnel were on standby to help and Queen Elizabeth was due to leave Buckingham Palace in the capital for her ancient castle at Windsor. Britain has reported 104 deaths and 2,626 cases, but scientific advisers say the real number of infections may be more than 50,000.
Italian soldiers transported corpses overnight from an overwhelmed cemetery in Europe’s worst-hit nation where nearly 3,000 people have died. Germany’s military was also readying to help despite national sensitivities over its deployment dating back to the Nazi era.
Supermarkets in many countries were besieged with shoppers stocking up on food staples and hygiene products. Some rationed sales and fixed special hours for the elderly.
Solidarity projects were springing up in some of the world’s poorest corners. In Kenya’s Kibera slum, for example, volunteers with plastic drums and boxes of soap on motorbikes set up handwashing stations for people without clean water.
Russia reported its first coronavirus death on Thursday.
Amid the gloom, China provided a ray of hope, as it reported zero new local transmissions in a thumbs-up for its draconian containment policies since January. Imported cases, however, surged, accounting for all 34 new infections.
The United States, where President Donald Trump had initially played down the coronavirus threat, saw infections close in on 8,000 and deaths reach at least 151.
Trump has infuriated Beijing’s communist government by rebuking it for not acting faster and drawn accusations of racism by referring to the “Chinese virus”.
“EXTRAORDINARY TIMES”
In a bewildering raft of financial measures around the world, the European Central Bank launched new bond purchases worth 750 billion euros ($817 billion). That brought some relief to bond markets and also halted European shares’ slide, though equities remained shaky elsewhere.
“Extraordinary times require extraordinary action,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said, amid concerns that the strains could tear apart the euro zone as a single currency bloc.
The U.S. Federal Reserve rolled out its third emergency credit programme in two days, aimed at keeping the $3.8 trillion money market mutual fund industry functioning.
China was to unleash trillions of yuan of fiscal stimulus and South Korea pledged 50 trillion won ($39 billion).
The desperate state of industry was writ large in Detroit, where the big three automakers – Ford Motor Co (F.N), General Motors Co (GM.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N) – were shutting U.S. plants, as well as factories in Canada and Mexico.
With some economists fearing prolonged pain akin to the 1930s Great Depression but others anticipating a post-virus bounceback, gloomy data and forecasts abounded.
In one of the most dire calls, J.P. Morgan economists forecast the Chinese economy to drop more than 40% this quarter and the U.S. economy to shrink 14% in the next.
There was a backlash against conspiracy theories and rumours circulating on social media, with Morocco arresting a woman who denied the disease existed.
And in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro initially labelled the virus “a fantasy”, more members of the political elite fell ill. At night, housebound protesters banged pots and pans, shouting “Bolsonaro out!” from their windows.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, on Tuesday, the first time he has done so since the epidemic began and a sign that Beijing believes its efforts to control the virus are working.
His arrival in the city, where the virus is believed to have first taken hold late last year, comes after its spread in mainland China has sharply slowed in the past week and as attention has turned to preventing imported infections from overseas hot spots such as Iran, Italy and South Korea.
News of the visit gave a lift to Chinese stocks, with the blue-chip index .CSI300 climbing back into positive territory after falling as much as 1% in morning trade.
“It is obvious that Xi could not have visited Wuhan earlier because the risk of him contracting the virus there was initially too high,” Zhang Ming, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing, told Reuters.
“He is there now to reap the harvest. His being there means the CCP (Communist Party of China) may declare victory against the virus soon,” Zhang said.
China came in for criticism at home and globally over its early response to the outbreak, suppressing information and downplaying its risks, but its draconian efforts at control, including the lock-down of Wuhan and Hubei province where it is originated, have been effective at curbing the spread.
Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, said on Tuesday it would implement a “health code” system to allow people in areas at a medium or low risk of contracting the coronavirus to start travelling.
During his trip to Wuhan, Xi will “visit and express regards to medical workers, military officers and soldiers, community workers, police officers, officials and volunteers who have been fighting the epidemic on the front line, as well as patients and residents during the inspection,” state news agency Xinhua said.
Separately, Taiwan’s government said on Tuesday a second round of evacuations of its citizens who had been stranded in Wuhan had begun, after weeks of arguments between the Chinese-claimed island and Beijing over the arrangements.
NEW CASES FALL
Mainland China had 19 new coronavirus infections on Monday, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday, down from 40 a day earlier. It also marked the third straight day of no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases outside of Hubei.
Of the new cases, 17 were in Wuhan, while one was in Beijing and one other in Guangdong due to people arriving from abroad, according to the health authority.
That brings the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 80,754.
However, Chinese authorities have ramped up warnings about the risks from foreigners and Chinese nationals travelling to China from viral hot spots abroad such as Iran and Italy.
The one case in Beijing on Monday was due to a traveller from Britain, and the one in Guangdong was an imported case from Spain. As of Monday, there have been 69 imported cases.
More than 114,300 people have been infected by the coronavirus globally and over 4,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally of government announcements.
Outside China, Italy, South Korea and Iran have reported the most cases and deaths.
Since the outbreak, 59,897 patients have been discharged from hospitals in China. Recently discharged patients need to go into quarantine for 14 days.
In Wuhan, 12 of the 14 temporary hospitals dedicated to treating coronavirus patients have closed, with the remaining two due to shut on Tuesday.
On Saturday, a small hotel used to quarantine people under observation in southern Fujian province collapsed, killing 20, while 10 had yet to be rescued.
Of the 71 people inside the hotel in Quanzhou city at the time of the collapse, 58 were in under quarantine, the Quanzhou city government said.
As of the end of Monday, the overall death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China reached 3,136, up by 17 from the previous day.
Hubei reported 17 new deaths, all of which were in Wuhan.
Xi, who was mostly absent from Chinese state media coverage of the crisis in its early days, has become for more visible in recent weeks.
The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid published by the official People’s Daily, on Tuesday detailed the various instructions and actions Xi had given and taken between Jan. 7 and March 2 to combat the epidemic.
“Xi personally commands the people’s war against the epidemic. He has been paying constant attention to the epidemic prevention and control work and made oral or written instructions every day,” the newspaper said.
Materials can bought cheaply online and combined to filter out germs, while people exchange tips in online chat groups
Urgent demand has forced individuals and hospitals alike to get to work to meet the shortfall
A worker in northern China makes a face mask as companies strive to match demand – but some people are buying similar materials to assemble at home. Photo: Xinhua
Living in the scenic Puer city in southwestern China’s Yunnan province, 30-year-old Zhang Jianing had thought the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei was far away and irrelevant, until cases were confirmed in her province and then her city at the end of January.
Heeding the warnings to protect herself, Zhang rushed out to buy masks, only to find them all snapped up. When she plucked up the courage to go out to buy groceries, she realised she needed to have a mask on to be allowed to enter shops.
After doing some research online, Zhang made a mask herself: two layers of cotton on the outside, with a sheet of plastic food wrap inside.
“The mask fit my face well and protected me from droplets,” Zhang said. “There was just one thing: it was too difficult to breathe through.”
Experts devise do-it-yourself face masks to help people battle coronavirus
When a nation of 1.4 billion people was suddenly alerted and in many cases ordered to wear masks not only in public indoor places but also in the open air, the huge demand quickly exhausted supply.
Mask production capacity in China was 22 million a day – insufficient for the country’s population. There were hopes that the supply of masks would pick up after a Lunar New Year holiday that was extended to help prevent further spread of infection, but things did not look promising after factories reopened. By Monday, despite mask manufacturers making 10 per cent more than in early February, masks remained a rare commodity.
Making DIY masks became the top trending topic on Chinese online shopping site Taobao for several days. Materials became much sought-after, from nose bars to the non-woven fabric used in disposable surgical masks to filter out viral droplets. An online shop based in Fujian, southeast China, said it had sold more than 5,500 packages of DIY mask materials that can make 50 to 200 surgical masks apiece.
Surgical masks ‘protect more from germs on fingers than viruses in the air’
16 Feb 2020
Zhang spent 200 yuan (US$29) on materials online, from which she made 60 surgical masks when they arrived last week. She is a qipao designer and has a sewing machine at home. The outer layer was a blue waterproof non-woven fabric, over a layer of melt-blown fabric that can filter out most germs and droplets. The inner layer was made with a face flannel.
Hongkongers make reusable fabric masks as Covid-19 epidemic leads to shortages and sky-high prices
“I sent some to my parents and relatives,” Zhang said. “I am not sure how protective they are, but the good thing is our city hasn’t had any new cases for a long time.”
DIY mask production is being taken very seriously, spawning online chat groups to discuss reliability of materials and disinfection methods as people try to make theirs as safe and professional as possible.
Alex Zhang, an office worker in Shanghai, donated her N95 masks to Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, when hospitals in the city appealed to the public for protective gear amid an acute shortage – but soon found herself short of masks herself.
Shanghai companies begin production of first reusable face masks
25 Feb 2020
The Shanghai government allowed households to buy a certain number of surgical masks, but it was not enough for her family. Taking apart an N95 mask to see what it was made of, she felt assembling the layers of fabric required no special technique, and decided to do it herself.
Zhang spent 45 yuan on two square metres of melt-blown fabric to stop viruses, and sandwiched it with two layers of nonwoven fabric and an air pad. She sewed the layers together and put them in an electric oven at 70 degrees Celsius (158 Fahrenheit) for a minute, for disinfection. The finished mask is attached using a plastic band.
“Each mask cost about 3 yuan [43 US cents] and was almost like an N95 filter,” Zhang said. “I didn’t find it difficult. I am quite satisfied with my masks and feel very safe to wear them in crowded places.”
How to properly remove and discard face masks to reduce the risk of infection
She later bought nursing pads, which are already disinfected, to replace the layer closest to the face.
DIY masks have also been used where large amounts of protective gear are needed. Garment manufacturer Shenzhou International, in the coastal Zhejiang province, assigned 100 staff to make masks with melt-blown non-woven fabric to meet the needs of its factory workforce of nearly 15,000, who needed two masks each per day, according to a report by Ningbo Daily.
Hospitals short of masks have mobilised nurses to make their own using a non-woven fabric used to wrap disinfected medical products. At least three hospitals, in Xian in central China and in Jinhua, Zhejiang, have tried making masks for medical staff not serving on the front line, according to media reports.
DIY handmade face masks in Hong Kong
The World Health Organisation has said that wearing masks alone is not sufficient protection against the coronavirus, and should be combined with precautions including hand-washing with soap or an alcohol-based hand rub.
However, facing a shortage that will not end any time soon, health authorities have changed from saying people should discard masks every four hours to advising recycling them when possible.
A guideline issued by the National Health Commission said healthy people could wear masks repeatedly and for a longer time.
Chinese driver wears 12 face masks amid coronavirus outbreak
“Masks for repeat use can be hung in clean, dry and airy places or put in a clean paper bag,” its guidelines said. “The masks must be placed separately to avoid contact with other masks.”
Making masks with layers of cotton bandage is acceptable, because they can stay dry when breathed on, but plastic wrap is not recommended, because it blocks the ability to breathe entirely, according to Cai Haodong, an infectious diseases specialist at Beijing’s Ditan Hospital.
Coronavirus: Thais urged to make their own masks, sanitisers due to shortage
7 Feb 2020
Cai said her hospital did not have surgical masks, nor N95s, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003, and hospital staff made masks for use by front-line medics, disinfecting them with boiling water and drying them in the sun.
“The key is to keep the mask dry,” Cai said. “Self-made masks offer some degree of protection and it is better to wear them than nothing.”
Forty countries will be able to diagnose the disease, and the Africa CDC is training health workers
Until two weeks ago, there were only two laboratories on the continent that could test for the virus, in Senegal and South Africa
A scientist researches the coronavirus at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, Senegal, which until two weeks ago was one of just two labs in Africa that could test for the disease. Photo: AFP
Forty countries in Africa will be able to test for the deadly new coronavirus
by the end of the week, the WHO said, after Egypt confirmed the first case on the continent last week.
The World Health Organisation said many of those nations had been sending samples elsewhere for testing and waiting several days for results.
“Now they can do it themselves, within 24 to 48 hours,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a media briefing on Tuesday.
Until about two weeks ago, there were only two laboratories in the continent of 54 countries – in Senegal and South Africa – with the reagents needed to test for the virus. That meant dozens of nations that had quarantined suspected patients were sending samples to South Africa or Senegal to be tested.
The WHO earlier this week sent reagent kits for coronavirus diagnosis to more than 20 countries in Africa to step up diagnosis of the virus, which causes a disease now known as Covid-19. The global health body said more countries in Africa were expected to receive testing kits this week.
In addition, the WHO last week sent testing kits to Cameroon, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia.
Coronavirus: WHO urges caution over study showing ‘decline’ in new Covid-19 cases in China
Tedros said some countries in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, were using systems developed to test for the deadly Ebola virus to now test for the coronavirus.
“This is a great example of how investing in health systems can pay dividends for health security,” Tedros said.
Several countries, including Ethiopia and South Sudan, were prioritising surveillance and monitoring at ports of entry, he said. “We’re also working with partners in some of the most fragile contexts, from Syria to the Central African Republic, to prepare countries for the arrival of the virus,” he said.
The WHO and Egyptian health officials on Friday confirmed that a 33-year-old foreigner had tested positive for the coronavirus. Egypt’s health ministry said the patient had tested positive for the virus without any symptoms, raising concern that there could be undetected cases on the continent, as countries scramble to equip labs to test for the disease.
The asymptomatic patient in Egypt was identified through contact screening of an index case who travelled to Cairo on a business trip from January 21 to February 4 and tested positive for the virus on February 11 in China, the WHO regional office said.
The new virus strain has killed more than 2,000 people and infected over 74,000 since the outbreak began in central China in December. It has spread to more than 20 countries.
Screening measures have been stepped up across Africa, including quarantining all passengers arriving from Chinese cities, amid fears that poorer countries with weaker health systems may struggle to cope if the virus spreads on the continent. More than a dozen countries still do not have the capacity to test for the pneumonia-like illness.
There are concerns that Africa’s close links with China put it at high risk for the spread of the new virus. Africa has become home to millions of Chinese since Beijing started looking to the continent for raw materials for its industries and markets for its products. China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, after it overtook the United States, with two-way trade standing at US$108 billion last year, according to China’s commerce ministry.
Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said it had been “investing in preparedness and response to the disease”. Photo: Reuters
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said it was working closely with the WHO and other partners to ensure that Egypt had the diagnostic tools it needed, and that the right actions were taken to contain the spread of the virus.
“We anticipated that the Covid-19 outbreak would inevitably impact Africa. That is why the Africa CDC has been working actively with African Union member states and partners in the past four weeks and investing in preparedness and response to the disease,” he said.
“[Last week in Dakar, Senegal] we conducted training and supplied test kits to 16 African laboratories, including from Egypt. Egypt also received additional test kits from the WHO,” Nkengasong said.
The Africa CDC would train 40 health workers from nine countries, including Egypt, in Nairobi this week, he said, on “enhancing detection and investigation of Covid-19 at points of entry”.
The Chinese medical workers on the front line of the coronavirus fight in Wuhan
On Monday, Ethiopia, home to one of the continent’s busiest airports, said it had received equipment and reagents for virus detection and control. “We are working hard day and night with the government to improve the critical measures needed to ensure that the country is ready to effectively respond to an outbreak of Covid-19,” said Boureima Hama Sambo, the WHO representative in Ethiopia.
despite pressure for it to suspend services to the country. Many countries on the continent have restricted travel to and from mainland China, while six out of eight African airlines with Chinese routes have halted flights until the virus is contained, including EgyptAir.
Egypt has suspended all flights to and from the mainland until the end of the month and has evacuated more than 300 Egyptians from Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic.
“The Chinese people do not welcome media that publish racist statements and maliciously attacks China,” Mr Geng said, without naming the journalists being expelled.
The Wall Street Journal identified the reporters as two US citizens – Josh Chin, who is the deputy bureau chief, and Chao Deng – as well as Australian citizen Philip Wen. The newspaper has not yet commented.
It is the first time in more than two decades that journalists holding valid credentials have been ordered to leave China, the BBC’s John Sudworth in Beijing reports.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China called the decision “an extreme and obvious attempt by the Chinese authorities to intimidate foreign news organizations”.
The measure comes a day after the US said it would begin treating five Chinese state-run media outlets that operate in the country in the same way as foreign embassies, requiring them to register their employees and properties with the US government.
The decision affects the Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network and China Daily Distribution Corp.
Press freedom in China
China is consistently rated poorly for press freedom and can be a difficult place for foreign journalists to work
Nine journalists have been either expelled or effectively expelled through non-renewal of visas since 2013, according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China
Last year, the government declined to renew the credentials – necessary for the work of foreign journalists in the country – of another Wall Street Journal reporter.
The journalist, a Singaporean national, had co-written a story that authorities in Australia were looking into activities of one of China’s President Xi Jinping’s cousins suspected of involvement in organised crime and money laundering.
And in 2018, the Beijing bureau chief for BuzzFeed News Megha Rajagopalan was unable to renew her visa after reporting on the detention of Muslim minority Uighurs and others in China’s Xinjiang region.
Meanwhile, two Chinese citizen journalists who disappeared last week after covering the coronavirus in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in Hubei province, remain missing.
Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi had been sharing videos and pictures online from inside the quarantined city.
Media caption Footage appearing to show people held in quarantine in a makeshift facility in Wuhan, has been shared across social media
Experts to visit Beijing, Guangdong and Sichuan but no word on whether Hubei is on the itinerary
Specialists say visit must include a trip to the outbreak’s epicentre to get a full picture
A nurse cares for a 14-month-old baby infected with the novel coronavirus in an ICU isolation ward of Wuhan Children’s Hospital in Wuhan, at the epicentre of the outbreak. Photo: Xinhua
A team of medical experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), including specialists from the US, will visit Beijing and the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan from Monday to assess the country’s efforts to contain the spread of a deadly coronavirus, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The death toll from the coronavirus had risen to 1,770 on mainland China as of Sunday, infecting 70,548 people, including more than 1,700 medical workers. Most of those confirmed with the disease, now known as Covid-19, are in Wuhan.
On Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the WHO delegation would include Americans, but gave no further details.
The announcement came as a commentary in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily accused Washington of dragging its feet on a funding pledge to help with the epidemic, saying it had a “dark mentality and taken dangerous action” during the outbreak.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that the mission to China included 12 international medical specialists, and they would, with 12 Chinese experts, learn more about the transmission of the virus and the effectiveness of the measures in a bid to work out the next containment steps for China and the world.
An advance team of WHO medical experts arrived in Beijing last Monday, led by Canadian emergency expert Bruce Aylward, Tedros said.
China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said all of the delegation’s members arrived in Beijing over the weekend, and held talks with Chinese medical experts, public health officials and other government departments.
They exchanged views on virus containment, wildlife management and vaccine development, the NHC said.
Experts said the international team would be left with an “incomplete picture” of the outbreak if it did not go to Wuhan or Hubei.
“Unfortunately, this feeds into a narrative that China is trying to hide the true nature of the outbreak, so it would seem to be shortsighted and counterproductive to China’s efforts to say to the world that it is doing everything it can to contain this outbreak,” said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a specialist in global health security and international relations at the University of Sydney.
“We have seen in the past when we have external teams, they are often able to identify areas for improvement or to make recommendations for measures that national authorities may not have thought of – we’ve seen that through other examples where external expertise can be valuable in times of crisis.”
He said any impression of a cover-up would likely further strengthen the resolve of countries that had taken strict measures, including travel bans, to keep them in place or tighten them further.
“China has got a public relations campaign that it also needs to be mindful of in engaging with the international community, so there are the actual measures that the government needs to take in order to control the outbreak, but the government also needs to be seen to be doing everything that it can,” he said.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 