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.
The Eyes of Darkness features a Chinese military lab in Wuhan that creates a virus as a bioweapon; civilians soon become sick after accidentally contracting it
In fact, the one lab in China able to handle the deadliest viruses is in Wuhan and helped sequence the novel coronavirus the world is currently battling
The Eyes of Darkness, a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz, tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as part of its biological weapons programme. The lab is located in Wuhan, which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400. A chilling literary coincidence or a case of writer as unwitting prophet?
In The Eyes of Darkness, a grieving mother, Christina Evans, sets out to discover whether her son Danny died on a camping trip or if – as suspicious messages suggest – he is still alive. She eventually tracks him down to a military facility where he is being held after being accidentally contaminated with man-made microorganisms created at the research centre in Wuhan.
If that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, read this passage from the book: “It was around that time that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen moved to the United States while carrying a floppy disk of data from China’s most important and dangerous new biological weapon of the past decade. They call it Wuhan-400 because it was developed in their RDNA laboratory just outside the city of Wuhan.”
In another strange coincidence, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses China’s only level four biosafety laboratory, the highest-level classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses, is just 32km from the epicentre of the current coronavirus outbreak.
The opening of the maximum-security lab was covered in a 2017 story in the journal Nature, which warned of safety risks in a culture where hierarchy trumps an open culture.
Koontz has written more than 80 novels and 74 works of short fiction. Photo: Douglas Sonders
Fringe conspiracy theories that the coronavirus involved in the current outbreak appears to be man-made and likely escaped from the Wuhan virology lab have been circulated, but have been widely debunked. In fact the lab was one of the first to sequence the coronavirus.
In Koontz’s thriller, the virus is considered the “perfect weapon” because it only affects humans and, since it cannot survive outside the human body for longer than a minute, it does not demand expensive decontamination once a population is wiped out, allowing the victors to roll in and claim a conquered territory.
It’s no exaggeration to call Koontz a prolific writer. His first book, Star Quest, was published in 1968 and he has been churning out suspense fiction at a phenomenal rate since with more than 80 novels and 74 works of short fiction under his belt. The 74-year-old, a devout Catholic, lives in California with his wife. But what are the odds of him so closely predicting the future?
Albert Wan, who runs the Bleak House Books store in San Po Kong, says Wuhan has historically been the site of numerous scientific research facilities, including ones dealing with microbiology and virology. “Smart, savvy writers like Koontz would have known all this and used this bit of factual information to craft a story that is both convincing and unsettling. Hence the Wuhan-400,” says Wan.
British writer Paul French, who specialises in books about China, says many of the elements around viruses in China relate back to the second world war, which may have been a factor in Koontz’s thinking.
The Eyes of Darkness, by Koontz.
“The Japanese definitely did do chemical weapons research in China, which we mostly associate with Unit 731 in Harbin and northern China. But they also stored chemical weapons in Wuhan – which Japan admitted,” says French.
Publisher Pete Spurrier, who runs Hong Kong publishing house Blacksmith Books, muses that for a fiction writer mapping out a thriller about a virus outbreak set in China, Wuhan is a good choice.
“It’s on the Yangtze River that goes east-west; it’s on the high-speed rail [line] that goes north-south; it’s right at the crossroads of transport networks in the centre of the country. Where better to start a fictional epidemic, or indeed a real one?” says Spurrier. (Spurrier works part-time as a subeditor for the Post.)
Albert Wan runs the Bleak House Books store in San Po Kong, Hong Kong.
Hong Kong crime author Chan Ho-kei believes that this kind of “fiction-prophecy” is not uncommon.
“If you look really hard, I bet you can spot prophecies for almost all events. It makes me think about the ‘infinite monkey’ theorem,” he says, referring to the theory that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text.
“The probability is low, but not impossible.”
British writer Paul French.
Chan points to the 1898 novella Futility, which told the story of a huge ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. Many uncanny similarities were noted between the fictional ship – called Titan – and the real-life passenger ship RMS Titanic, which sank 14 years later. Following the sinking of the Titanic, the book was reissued with some changes, particularly in the ship’s gross tonnage.
“Fiction writers always try to imagine what the reality would be, so it’s very likely to write something like a prediction. Of course, it’s bizarre when the details collide, but I think it’s just a matter of mathematics,” says Chan.
Many of Koontz’s books have been adapted for television or the big screen, but The Eyes of Darkness never achieved such glory. This bizarre coincidence will thrust it into the spotlight and may see sales of this otherwise forgotten thriller jump.
Hong Kong crime author Chan Ho-kei.
Amazon is currently offering it on Kindle for just US$1. Perhaps, like Futility, it will also be reissued with some updates to make it really echo the current outbreak.
Excluded from the World Health Organisation on mainland China’s objections, Taipei said it dealt directly with organisation on outbreak
Beijing and the WHO say they ensured Taiwan was kept up to date with virus developments
Taiwan says it dealt directly with the WHO over the virus outbreak and did not need mainland China’s permission to do so. Photo: Getty Images
Taiwan’s presence at a World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting this week on the coronavirus outbreak that started in mainland China was the result of direct talks between the island and the body, and did not require Beijing’s permission, Taipei
said on Wednesday.
Its exclusion from WHO membership because of Chinese objections has been an increasingly sore point for Taiwan during the outbreak. It complained that it was unable to get timely information from the WHO and accused Beijing of passing incorrect information about Taiwan’s total virus case numbers, which stand at 18.
But in a small diplomatic breakthrough for the island – which mainland China regards as a wayward province – its health experts were this week allowed to attend an online technical meeting on the virus.
The Chinese foreign ministry said that was because Beijing gave approval for Taiwan’s participation. Taiwan foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said China was trying to take credit for something it did not deserve.
Coronavirus: Taiwan restricts travellers from Hong Kong and Macau amid outbreak crisis
“The participation of our experts at this WHO forum was an arrangement made by our government and the WHO directly. It did not need China’s approval,” Ou said.
Taiwan’s experts took part in a personal capacity to avoid political disputes, and did not give their nationality when joining the online forum, she said.
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Taiwan’s WHO exclusion became another point of contention between China and the United States last week, after the US ambassador to the UN in Geneva told the WHO’s executive board that the agency should deal directly with Taipei.
Mainland China, which said Beijing adequately represents Taiwan at the WHO, accused the US of a political “hype-up” about the issue.
Beijing and the WHO said they had ensured Taiwan was kept up to date with virus developments and that communication with the island was smooth.
Beijing insists that Taiwan cannot be part of the World Health Organisation as the island is part of “one China”. Photo: AFP
Taipei said that it alone had the right to represent the island’s 23 million people, that it has never been a part of the People’s Republic of China, and that it has no need to be represented by it.
BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China reported on Wednesday its smallest number of coronavirus cases since January, lending weight to a prediction by its top medical adviser for the outbreak to end by April, but a global infectious diseases expert warned of the spread elsewhere.
Financial markets took heart from the outlook of the Chinese official, epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan, who said on Tuesday the number of new cases was falling in some provinces, and forecast the epidemic would peak this month, even as the death toll in China rose to more than 1,100 people.
World stocks, which had seen rounds of sell-offs over the virus, surged to record highs on hopes of a peak in cases. The Dow industrials, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all hit new highs, and Asian shares nudged higher on Wednesday.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the epidemic poses a global threat akin to terrorism and one expert coordinating its response said while the outbreak may be peaking at its epicentre in China, it was likely to spread elsewhere in the world, where it had just begun.
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“It has spread to other places where it’s the beginning of the outbreak,” the official, Dale Fisher, head of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the WHO, said in an interview in Singapore.
“In Singapore, we are at the beginning of the outbreak.”
Singapore has reported 47 cases and worry about the spread is growing. Its biggest bank, DBS (DBSM.SI), evacuated 300 staff from its head office on Wednesday after a confirmed coronavirus case in the building.
Hundreds of cases have been reported in dozens of other countries and territories around the world, but only two people have died outside mainland China – one in Hong Kong and another in the Philippines.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday the world had to “wake up and consider this enemy virus as public enemy number one” and the first vaccine was 18 months away.
In China, total infections have hit 44,653, health officials said, including 2,015 new confirmed cases on Tuesday. That was the lowest daily rise in new cases since Jan. 30.
The number of deaths on the mainland rose by 97 to 1,113 by the end of Tuesday.
But doubts have been aired on social media about how reliable the figures are, after the government last week amended guidelines on the classification of cases.
‘STAY HOPEFUL’
The biggest cluster of cases outside China is aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined off Japan’s port of Yokohama, with about 3,700 people on board. Japanese officials on Wednesday said 39 more people had tested positive for the virus, taking the total to 175.
One of the new cases was a quarantine officer.
Thailand said it was barring passengers from another cruise ship, MS Westerdam, from disembarking, the latest country to turn it away amid fears of the coronavirus, despite no confirmed infections on board.
“We try to stay hopeful,” American passenger Angela Jones told Reuters in a video recording. “But each day, that becomes a little bit more difficult, when country after country rejects us.”
Echoing the comparison with the fight against terrorism, China’s state news agency Xinhua said late on Tuesday the epidemic was a “battle that has no gunpowder smoke but must be won”.
The epidemic was a big test of China’s governance and capabilities and some officials were still “dropping the ball” in places where it was most severe, it said, adding: “This is a wake-up call.”
The government of Hubei, the central province at the outbreak’s epicentre, dismissed the provincial health commission’s Communist Party boss, state media said on Tuesday, amid mounting public anger over the crisis.
China’s censors had allowed criticism of local officials but have begun cracking down on reporting of the outbreak, issuing reprimands to tech firms that gave free rein to online speech, Chinese journalists said.
The pathogen has been named COVID-19 – CO for corona, VI for virus, D for disease and 19 for the year it emerged. It is suspected to have come from a market that illegally traded wildlife in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan in December.
The city of 11 million people remains under virtual lockdown as part of China’s unprecedented measures to seal infected regions and limit transmission routes.
Travel restrictions that have paralysed the world’s second-biggest economy have left Wuhan and other Chinese cities resembling ghost towns.
Even if the epidemic ends soon, it has taken a toll of China’s economy, with companies laying off workers and needing loans running into billions of dollars to stay afloat. Supply chains for makers of items from cars to smartphones have broken down.
ANZ Bank said China’s first-quarter growth would probably slow to 3.2% to 4.0%, down from a projection of 5.0%.
The likely slowdown in China could shave 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points off both euro zone and British growth this year, credit rating agency S&P Global estimated.
Cathay Pacific is latest to wield axe, while Taiwan’s new restrictions on visitors from Hong Kong is another blow
More cancellations expected in the coming days as spread of deadly virus continues
The air industry in Hong Kong and beyond has been thrown into disarray by the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Reuters
Hundreds more Hong Kong flights are set to be dropped as the floodgates open on airlines cancelling services during the city’s fight against the coronavirus.
Carriers based in Asia, Australia, South Africa and Middle East revealed on Friday morning and the previous night they would cut all or some of their flights to the city.
Cathay Pacific is the latest to wield the axe, announcing on Friday afternoon new suspensions of major Hong Kong routes to London, New York and across mainland China because of the virus.
Flights running on the busy route between Hong Kong and Taiwan’s capital Taipei are subject to major cuts. Photo: Shutterstock
The contagion, which started in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has infected more than 31,400 people, mostly in mainland China, killing more than 635. In Hong Kong, 24 people have been infected, one of those fatally, as of Friday afternoon.
Passengers abandoning travel plans en masse have been compounded by the introduction of entry restrictions across the world against recent visitors to mainland China, some targeting those who had been to Hong Kong.
Destinations suspended by Cathay Pacific until March 28 include London Gatwick, Rome, Washington DC, Newark, Male, Davao, Clark, Jeju and Taichung.
All mainland cities with the exception of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xiamen would also be dropped over that period. The company said the decision was made “in view of the novel coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent drop in market demand”.
Hong Kong airport to segregate all flights to and from mainland China
7 Feb 2020
It followed Cathay Pacific Group revealing earlier this week there would be a 30 per cent reduction of flights across its worldwide schedule, as well as a 90% cut of mainland flights.
Budget carrier HK Express, controlled by Cathay, said on Thursday it would scrap 82 flights between February 12 and March 26, mostly to destinations such as Seoul and Osaka.
Hong Kong Airlines (HKA) at the same time revealed it would gradually impose even deeper cuts to flights it operated in mainland China and the rest of Asia until March 28.
The ailing carrier will suspend 10 routes and reduce flights on a further 15, amounting to an estimated 128 flights a week being axed. HKA has already cut 214 mainland Chinese flights between January 30 until February 11.
As Taiwan’s new restrictions took effect on Friday – ordering the home or hotel quarantine of anyone entering the self-ruled island who had visited Hong Kong or Macau within the previous 14 days – carriers based there slashed their schedules.
China Airlines would go from running 18 daily Hong Kong flights to just two from next week until March 28, according to Airline Route data published on Thursday.
Eva Air would switch from more than 11 daily flights to fewer than four a day for the rest of the month.
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Eighty flights operate between Hong Kong and Taipei every week, a journey that regularly tops tables ranking the world’s busiest. But under the cuts to come more than half have already been scrapped.
Outside Asia, two airlines on Thursday cut ties with Hong Kong. The struggling Virgin Australia blamed the coronavirus and the anti-government protests that have gripped Hong Kong since June.
It concluded that “current circumstances demonstrate that Hong Kong is no longer a commercially viable route”.
The near-bankrupt South African Airways (SAA) has cancelled its route from Johannesburg amid a wholesale restructuring of the state-owned business. SAA had suspended flying to Hong Kong after November 21 last year amid the city’s civil unrest.
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Meanwhile, American Airlines said on Thursday it would restart flights between Dallas Fort Worth and Hong Kong on February 21, while Hong Kong’s Airport Authority extended the cancellation of its Los Angeles flight to the city until March 27.
The US carrier warned its schedules were subject to an ongoing “review”. Currently there is no US carrier flying to Hong Kong International Airport after United Airlines also withdrew all services until February 20.
Among the Middle East carriers, Emirates was halving its four daily Airbus A380 flights to Hong Kong from next week until March 28. Etihad is also making minor adjustments, Airline Route data showed on Thursday.
Hong Kong and Thailand are likely to suffer most from the novel coronavirus outbreak because of close their economic ties with China
A drop in Chinese tourist arrivals and imports, as well as supply chain disruptions are likely to weigh on regional economy
Thailand’s economy could be one of the most affected by the coronavirus outbreak due to its close ties with China, especially in the tourism sector. Photo: Bloomberg
Hong Kong and Thailand are likely to be the hardest hit Asian economies outside mainland China from the deadly coronavirus outbreak, according to analysts.
The 2019-nCoV, which had claimed the lives of nearly 640 people and infected more than 31,000 in mainland China by Friday, is viewed as even more damaging than the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in 2002-2003 because of prolonged factory closures and transport restrictions that have locked down many Chinese cities.
China has become more closely integrated with the rest of Asia since the Sars outbreak, meaning the disruptions to China’s industrial and export sectors, combined with a sharp drop in economic activity in the first quarter, will have significant repercussions across the region, particularly through tourism and trade, analysts said.
“A collapse in tourism arrivals from China will be the first shock wave for the rest of the region,” said Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist at Capital Economics. “Factory closures in China will affect the rest of the region by disrupting regional supply chains.”
A collapse in tourism arrivals from China will be the first shock wave for the rest of the region. Factory closures in China will affect the rest of the region by disrupting regional supply chainsGareth Leather
Hong Kong would likely be the most affected because of its status as a trade hub, its tight linkages to the Chinese economy and the sharp decline in tourism expenditure that is expected, UBS economist William Deng noted.
“Due to the risk of infection, domestic households significantly reduced such activities as dining out, shopping and entertainment,” Deng wrote in a recent note. He cut Hong Kong’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to minus 1.8 per cent for 2020, against his previous projection of a 0.5 per cent drop.
A community outbreak spread by human-to-human transmission has started in the city, said Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a top microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Thailand could be the next most affected due to its dependence on Chinese tourism. Outside Hong Kong and Macau, the country has the highest exposure to China as a share of GDP in the region.
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ANZ Bank’s head of Asia research Khoon Goh said that the novel coronavirus could knock US$760 million from Thailand’s economy in the first quarter. Hong Kong could could see losses of US$1.4 billion. Travel services as a share of GDP were 11.2 per cent in Thailand and 9.4 per cent in Hong Kong.
“The Thai economy would expand at a slower rate in 2020 than previously forecast and much further below its potential due to the outbreak of coronavirus,” Bank of Thailand said in a statement after it slashed interest rates to a record low on Wednesday.
South Korean and Taiwanese businesses will also have negative spillover effects from the coronavirus outbreak because of supply chain disruptions and weaker consumer sentiment inside and outside China, analysts said.
South Korean car and tech companies that rely on parts from Chinese suppliers are exposed to potential production disruptions stemming from factory closures and the evacuation of Korean workers from China-based production lines, said Sean Hwang, corporate finance group analyst at Moody’s Investors Group.
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For instance, Hyundai Motor Company closed some if its South Korea-based plants on February 4 because of a shortage of wiring harnesses.
Korean customers are also limiting their trips to bricks-and-mortar retail stores such as E Mart and Lotte Shopping to avoid crowds amid the outbreak, potentially leading to a significant decline in revenue and earnings, Hwang said.
Although Singapore is not as closely tied to China as Hong Kong, the city state could still see a knock-on effect from China’s expected near-term downturn, as its economy has become much more integrated with the world’s second largest economy since the Sars outbreak.
The number of Chinese tourists rose six times from 568,000 in 2003 to 3.4 million in 2018, said Irvin Seah, senior economist at DBS Bank.
Coronavirus outbreak: global businesses shut down operations in China
“We expect a decline of about 1 million tourists or about SGD1 billion (US$722 million) of lost tourism receipts for every three months of travel ban,” Seah said. “We have lowered our full-year GDP growth forecast to 0.9 per cent, down from 1.4 per cent previously.”
Taiwan has banned Chinese visitors as well as foreigners who have visited Hong Kong and Macau from entering the island due the coronavirus. International cruise ships are also unable to dock on the island, which will lead to at least 112 liner visits cancelled by the end of March, affecting around 144,000 passengers, said the Taiwan International Ports Corporation.
Capital Economics’ Leather said the economic impact on Taiwan from 2019-nCoV could stand out from the rest of Asia, as it had the most exposure in value-added, intermediate exports to China – 18 per cent of GDP.
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Elsewhere, Malaysia’s commodity driven trade growth this year has been threatened by the almost 20 per cent fall in crude oil prices, a decline triggered by fears that the coronavirus outbreak would dampen China’s imports. Malaysia’s purchasing managers’ index, a survey of manufacturers, dropped to 48.8 in January from 50.0 the prior month prior, data released this week showed. The drop was blamed on slowing output, with new orders dropping the most since September amid a decline in exports.
“The Bank Negara Malaysia’s surprising policy rate cut at the last meeting on 22 January, just around the time the coronavirus started to dominate headlines, tells us that the central bank is ahead of the curve in recognising the risk,” said Prakash Sakpal, Asia economist at ING Bank said.
India and Indonesia will be the least affected given the small contribution the tourism sector makes to their economies, and the low share of visitors from China, ANZ’s Goh said.
SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s President Xi Jinping is enlisting the state-dominated financial sector in a war against a virus outbreak that has killed more than 500, mobilising lenders, brokerages and fund managers to pump resources into stricken parts of the economy.
Answering Beijing’s call, banks are rushing to offer virus-fighting loans at ultra-low rates, investment banks are helping companies issue anti-virus bonds faster, and managers of mutual funds are refraining from selling stocks, to damp market panic.
Concerted efforts to rein in the virus that emerged late last year in the central city of Wuhan highlight the centralized power the ruling Communist Party wields in a sector dominated by state-owned companies.
But the campaign, which has stirred memories of government rescue efforts during a market crash in 2015, deepens concern over corporate governance in China and risks sowing seeds of future trouble.
Wuhan DDMC Culture & Sports Co (600136.SS), a leisure company in the city, won Shanghai Stock Exchange approval to issue bonds of up to 600 million yuan (66.32 million pounds) via a “green channel” created for virus-hit companies, it said on Thursday.
“It’s like receiving charcoal on a snowy day,” the company, whose operations were wrecked by the epidemic, said on its website.
Three other companies – Zhuhai Huafa Group, Sichuan Kelun Pharmaceutical and China Nanshan Development Group – have raised a combined 2.1 billion yuan ($301 million) this week by issuing bonds via the interbank market, to fund virus-battling efforts.
Proceeds from the debt issuance, which won quicker-than-usual approval from regulators, will fund drug discovery programmes and hospital construction, the companies said.
Regulators have also asked banks to inject cheap funds into virus-stricken areas, and not to withdraw loans from companies suffering the impact. Sectors such as tourism, transport and leisure are the worst-hit.
Bank of Suzhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, vowed to cut financing costs for hundreds of small corporate clients and bolster lending.
For companies such as food producers, logistics firms and makers of anti-virus drugs, it will cut the rate on loans by 10 basis points below the lending benchmark, to stand as low as 3.98%.
A loan officer at Bank of China promised special treatment for those defaulting because of virus fallout, saying the central bank would cap interest on loans to firms with operations critical to beating the virus, such as makers of masks and drugs.
He added, “Such companies will enjoy the lowest possible rates.”
But the orchestrated support also triggered concerns of moral hazard among some.
“I’m afraid many companies about to go bankrupt will come and say their businesses are affected by the virus outbreak,” said a bond fund manager, who declined to be named.
A flurry of government support has helped stabilise stocks in China’s equity market after a plunge on Monday.
Regulators have told major mutual fund companies and insurers not to cut net equity positions this week, and urged brokerages to limit short-selling activities by clients, said sources who sought anonymity.
Fund managers were also nudged to do their bit. China’s fund association, which is supervised by the securities regulator, said employees at 26 mutual fund houses had put their own money – or more than 2 billion yuan ($287 million) – into fund products since Monday.
The Lunar New Year’s Eve in Wuhan, ground zero of the novel coronavirus outbreak in central China, is nothing but special. Behind the seemingly quiet streets, people in all walks of life are racing against time to fight against the invisible enemy.
WUHAN, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) — There were far fewer cars on the streets and bustling crowds were not seen in the shopping malls in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Jan. 24 — the Eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
The scene was quite different from the occasion in the previous years because of the novel coronavirus that has claimed over 40 lives and infected over a thousand nationwide. With a population of over 10 million, Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province, is the center of the epidemic.
Photo taken on Jan. 24, 2020 shows a medical aid team of Army Medical University leaving for Wuhan in southwest China’s Chongqing. On the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve, a group of 150 medical workers from the Army Medical University left for Wuhan, the center of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, to provide medical aid. (Xinhua)
Yang Yingchen, a volunteer of the Red Cross Society of China’s Wuhan branch, had a busy day answering calls.
“People from across the nation called to check on accounts and addresses to make donations,” said Yang. “Many would say ‘Come on, Wuhan’ to us, which makes me feel especially warm and deeply moved.”
Chen Li, a doctor in a Wuhan hospital, spent the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve at home to quarantine herself. She is a little bit worried about having had contact with infected patients, but luckily she has no signs of symptoms for the time being.
“Before joining the fight against the epidemic, I had sent my four-year-old son to my parents. I has disinfected all the articles in my house,” she said.
Chen’s husband is at the forefront of the fight against the epidemic. “We haven’t seen each other for over a week,” said Chen. On Saturday morning, she put on protective clothing again and returned to work.
“Actually, I can’t be isolated for too long. There’s still a lot of work to be done,” she said. “I just don’t know when I can see my boy again.”
Aerial photo taken on Jan. 24, 2020 shows mechanical equipment working at the construction site of a special hospital in the Caidian District of western suburb of Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province. The central China metropolitan of Wuhan will follow Beijing’s SARS treatment model to build a special hospital for admitting patients infected in the outbreak of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)
The virus had resulted in 41 deaths in China by the end of Friday, mostly in Wuhan, according to the National Health Commission. Nationwide, a total of 1,287 cases were confirmed, including 237 in critical condition.
Confirmed cases were also reported in China’s Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as Thailand, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States, Vietnam, Singapore, Nepal and France.
Wuhan is following Beijing’s SARS treatment model in 2003 to build a makeshift hospital with a capability of 1,000 beds for admitting infected patients. Construction on the facility began Thursday night. It will be completed and put into use prior to Feb. 3, less than 10 days away.
“It’s going to be another all-nighter. We need to speed up work and complete the hospital as soon as possible,” said Lyu Jun, a young truck driver at the construction site. This is his first Spring Festival away from home.
For ordinary people, this year’s Lunar New Year’s Eve lacks some gatherings but is still a time to extend greetings and wishes.
Yin Yeqiong, from Hunan Province, refunded her tickets back home after much debate. “I had it in my mind to still go home, but finally decided to stay in Wuhan,” she said. “Our stay will help reduce panic in other places.”
Liu Jie, a dough sculptor, put on a New Year costume and watched the Spring Festival Gala with his family. “We’re now at a critical period, so I texted New Year wishes to friends and relatives this year. I believe this is the best way,” he said.
Liu Jiapeng, a children’s book editor, stayed in Wuhan during the Spring Festival for the past four decades. “I always stayed with my family, and we would have every meal together,” said Liu. “But this year, I haven’t had one meal with them.”
On the day of the Lunar New Year’s Eve, he and his wife bought some goods for their parents, brought them to their house and briefly chatted. As they were waiting for the elevator, Liu looked back and saw his father standing at the windowsill, watching them leave.
Medical workers of Army Medical University assemble before leaving for Wuhan in southwest China’s Chongqing, Jan. 24, 2020. On the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve, a group of 150 medical workers from the Army Medical University left for Wuhan, the center of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, to provide medical aid. (Xinhua)
China is mobilizing medical resources nationwide to aid Wuhan and control the epidemic. Doctors, nurses and experts from across the nation have been selected to join the battle, and manufacturers have restarted their plants to produce medical consumables that have been running short in many places.
A national research team of 14 experts, headed by renowned respiratory scientist Zhong Nanshan, has been set up to help prevent and control the outbreak on Friday.
“This is going to be an unforgettable Spring Festival,” said Chen Ying, a writer. “Because I feel that at this moment, there are so many families that I do not know, in every corner of this city, praying for our home.”
“My New Year wish is simple,” said Liu Jie. “I hope the virus will soon be conquered and everyone in Wuhan and the whole nation would be safe and healthy.”
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Doctors and nurses from across China are being dispatched to help tackle the coronavirus epidemic in Hubei province. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese authorities and private enterprises are stepping up their support for embattled medical teams in Hubei province as they continue to fight the coronavirus epidemic, while neighbouring governments ramp up their efforts to prevent its further spread.
Hospitals across Wuhan – the city at the centre of the outbreak – have been overwhelmed by the flood of patients and doctors are becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of support, both in terms of supplies and personnel, they have received.
But national bodies say they are responding to the crisis.
On Saturday, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said that six medical teams comprising 1,230 staff had been set up and dispatched to help fight the deadly virus in Hubei.
Three medical units from Shanghai, Guangdong and the armed forces had already arrived in the province, it said, though did not make clear if they were in addition to or part of the six teams.
Chen Dechang, a doctor from Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai who is among those sent to Hubei, said it was important there were more medical staff on the scene.
“We can help save more patients in the intensive care unit if we are on the front line,” he said.
Authorities in Shanghai have also sent 81 ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) life-support machines to Jinyintan Hospital, which is one of the designated facilities treating patients in Wuhan.
The ECMO technique – which involves removing blood from a person’s body, removing the carbon dioxide and oxygenating red blood cells before pumping them back into the patient – has already been used on one critically ill patient at Wuhan University’s Zhongnan Hospital, according to Shanghai-based news outlet Thepaper.cn.
Though the report did not say how effective the treatment had been.
Medical teams in Wuhan have been under huge pressure since the outbreak began. Photo: Xinhua
The team from Guangdong comprised 42 doctors and 93 nurses, the NHC said. The deployment came after a group of current and former medical staff from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou – who had helped tackle the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2002-03 – signed a petition saying they were willing to help in Wuhan.
“We are a team of experienced practitioners who fought Sars,” they said in the petition, a copy of which was posted on the social media accounts of Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily.
“We cannot back away from our responsibility to help 17 years later as people are facing the outbreak of a new coronavirus. We are willing to be deployed to the front line to make our contributions.”
A team of 135 doctors from Chongqing arrived in Wuhan on Friday evening, the NHC said, without elaborating.
A medical team from Guangdong province prepares to travel to Wuhan. Photo: Xinhua
As well as the wave of medical support, several private companies said they had provided financial support to help fight the epidemic.
According to Chinese media reports, Shanghai Ocean Forest Assets has donated 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) to the cause, while Shanghai-based asset management firm, Jinglin Assets is coordinating efforts to buy urgently needed medical supplies from South Korea and Japan.
Shenzhen’s Fantasia Holdings said it would donate 6 million yuan and send medical supplies, including surgical masks, to Wuhan, while tech giant Tencent said it would donate 300 million yuan from its charity. E-commerce platform JD.com said it had donated 1 million surgical masks and 60,000 other medical items.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi said on Friday it had sent a first batch of medical equipment – masks and thermometers worth more than 300,000 yuan – to Wuhan, while tech firm Lenovo said on Saturday it would donate all of the IT equipment required by the new specialist treatment centre being built in the city.
Authorities set a target to have the 1,000-bed facility up and running within six days of starting construction.
Aside from the support from the private sector, state lender China Development Bank on Friday issued a 2 billion yuan emergency loan to Wuhan, while a day earlier, China’s finance ministry said it had allocated 1 billion yuan to authorities in Hubei to help tackle the epidemic.
Across the country, authorities have introduced a number of measures to help prevent the further spread of the coronavirus, including the closure of all cinemas in Shanghai.
Wuhan residents stockpile food, medical supplies
25 Jan 2020
Also on Saturday it was reported that Liang Wudong, a doctor at Xinhua Hospital in Wuhan, had become the first medical professional to die after treating people infected with the virus.
Liang, 62, was suspected of having contracted the virus last week and had been transferred to Jinyintan Hospital for treatment. He died at 7am on Saturday, Thepaper.cn reported.
According to official figures, 41 people have been killed by the coronavirus and there have been more than 1,280 confirmed cases. The vast majority are in the Chinese mainland, but there have also been confirmed cases in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and eight other countries, including the United States and Europe.
Tens of millions of people in cities across Hubei are effectively on lockdown after the introduction of travel bans to help control the spread of the virus.
As public health concerns rise over a new virus, the impact is being felt by China’s travel and tourism sector.
More than 400m Chinese were expected to travel over the Lunar New Year which starts today, normally one of the busiest periods for airlines, hotels and tourist attractions.
Instead, flights and hotels are being cancelled as people face travel restrictions or choose to stay home.
The virus has already taken 25 lives, with more than 800 cases globally.
Many airlines have agreed to refund fares or let passengers rebook free of charge if affected, while major hotel chains are now following suit as more travel restrictions are announced.
After the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that airlines should give refunds for cancelled flights, the country’s three major airlines, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and China Air all saw their share prices take a dive. China Eastern Airlines has seen its value fall about 13% this week.
Hong Kong’s national carrier Cathay Pacific was among the first airlines to allow passengers scheduled to fly to or from Wuhan to reschedule for free while, at the same time, allowing cabin crew to wear surgical masks on flights.
Wuhan is where the first cases in the outbreak were reported. The flu-like virus has since spread to several our parts of China and internationally with cases being confirmed in Singapore, Thailand and the US among others countries.
China’s biggest online travel agency, Trip.com, is also waiving cancellation fees on all hotels, car rentals and tickets for tourist attractions to Wuhan and is ”actively monitoring the situation to ensure the safety of all travellers”.
Hotels and casinos hit
Hotel groups are also paying out refunds to tourists who want to cancel trips to Wuhan and other parts of China.
Both InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Hyatt will allow guests to change or cancel stays at the majority of their Chinese hotels over the Lunar New Year holiday. IHG has 443 hotels in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan under different brands, with four in Wuhan.
Casino operators have also seen shares fall, particularly those with businesses in Macau. The city is home to casinos owned by Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts.
The release of seven movies over the Lunar New Year has also been postponed.
Blow to economy
Tourism has become an increasingly important part of the Chinese economy and is estimated to contribute about 11% of China’s economic growth and employ about 28 million people.
In 2018, 62.9 million tourists visited China, ranking it the fourth most popular tourist destination behind France, Spain and the US, according to the UN’s World Tourism Rankings.
Outside of China, luxury goods brands are also likely to take a battering as Chinese tourists stay at home rather than travel overseas for shopping sprees. LVMH, which owns the Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Hermes brands, saw its value slide this week.
BEIJING (Reuters) – The death toll from China’s coronavirus outbreak jumped on Saturday to 41 as the Lunar New Year got off to a gloomy start, with Hong Kong declaring a virus emergency, scrapping celebrations, and restricting links to mainland China.
Australia on Saturday confirmed its first four cases, Malaysia confirmed three and France reported Europe’s first cases on Friday, as health authorities around the world scrambled to prevent a pandemic.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Saturday declared a virus emergency in the Asian financial hub, with five confirmed cases, immediately halting official visits to mainland China and scrapping official Lunar New Year celebrations.
Inbound and outbound flights and high speed rail trips between Hong Kong and Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, would be halted, and schools, now on Lunar New Year holidays, would remain shut until Feb. 17. The territory was also treating 122 people suspected of having the disease.
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The death toll in China rose to 41 on Saturday from 26 a day earlier and more than 1,300 people have been infected globally with a virus traced to a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife.
Hu Yinghai, deputy director-general of the Civil Affairs Department in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, made an appeal on Saturday for masks and protective suits. Hospitals in the city have made similar pleas.
“We are steadily pushing forward the disease control and prevention … But right now we are facing an extremely severe public health crisis,” he told a news briefing.
Vehicles carrying emergency supplies and medical staff for Wuhan would be exempted from tolls and given traffic priority, China’s transportation ministry said on Saturday.
Wuhan said it would ban non-essential vehicles from its downtown starting Sunday to control the spread of the virus, further paralysing a city of 11 million that has been on virtual lockdown since Thursday, with nearly all flights cancelled and checkpoints blocking the main roads leading out of town.
Authorities have since imposed transport restrictions on nearly all of Hubei province, which has a population of 59 million.
In Australia, three men, aged 53, 43 and 35 in New South Wales were in stable condition after they were confirmed to have the virus after returning from Wuhan earlier this month.
A Chinese national in his 50s, who had been in Wuhan, was also in stable condition in a Melbourne hospital after arriving from China on Jan. 19, Victoria Health officials said.
State-run China Global Television Network reported in a tweet on Saturday that a doctor who had been treating patients in Wuhan, 62-year-old Liang Wudong, had died from the virus.
Police officers stand guard in front of the closed gate of Lama Temple where a notice saying that the temple is closed for the safety concern following the outbreak of a new coronavirus is seen, in Beijing, China January 25, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
It was not immediately clear if his death was already counted in the official toll of 41, of which 39 were in the central province of Hubei, where Wuhan is located.
U.S. coffee chain Starbucks said on Saturday that it was closing all its outlets in Hubei province for the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, following a similar move by McDonald’s in five Hubei cities.
PROTECTIVE SUITS
In Beijing on Saturday, workers in white protective suits checked temperatures of passengers entering the subway at the central railway station, while some train services in eastern China’s Yangtze River Delta region were suspended, the local railway operator said.
The number of confirmed cases in China stands at 1,287. The virus has also been detected in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Nepal, and the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it had 63 patients under investigation, with two confirmed cases. While China has called for transparency in managing the crisis, after cover-up of the 2002/2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome spread, officials in Wuhan have come in for criticism over their handling of the current outbreak.
In rare public dissent, a senior journalist at a Hubei provincial newspaper run by the ruling Communist Party on Friday called for a “immediate” change of leadership in Wuhan on the Twitter-like Weibo. The post was later removed.
REINFORCEMENTS TO WUHAN
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new coronavirus an “emergency in China” this week but stopped short of declaring it of international concern.
Human-to-human transmission has been observed in the virus.
China’s National Health Commission said it had formed six medical teams totalling 1,230 medical staff to help Wuhan.
Hubei province, where authorities are rushing to build a 1,000 bed hospital in six days to treat patients, announced on Saturday that there were 658 patients affected by the virus in treatment, 57 of whom were critically ill.
The newly-identified coronavirus has created alarm because there are still many unknowns surrounding it, such as how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads between people. It can cause pneumonia, which has been deadly in some cases.
Symptoms include fever, difficulty breathing and coughing. Most of the fatalities have been in elderly patients, many with pre-existing conditions, the WHO said.
NEW YEAR DISRUPTIONS
Airports around the world have stepped up screening of passengers from China, though some health officials and experts have questioned the effectiveness of such screenings.
There are fears the transmission could accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which began on Saturday, although many have cancelled their plans, with airlines and railways in China providing free refunds.
The virus outbreak and efforts to contain it have put a dampener on what is ordinarily a festive time of year.
Sanya, a popular resort destination on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, announced that it was shutting all tourist sites, while the island’s capital city, Haikou, said visitors from Wuhan would be placed under 14-day quarantine in a hotel.
Shanghai Disneyland was closed from Saturday. The theme park has a 100,000 daily capacity and sold out during last year’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Beijing’s Lama Temple, where people traditionally make offerings for the new year, has also closed, as have some other temples.
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