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’.
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Embassy in France removes ‘false image’ on Twitter in latest online controversy amid accusations of spreading disinformation
After months of aggressive anti-US posts by Chinese diplomats Beijing is cracking down on ‘smear campaigns’ at home
Beijing’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomacy has coincided with a rise of nationalist content on Chinese social media. Photo: Reuters
Beijing is battling allegations that it is running a disinformation campaign on social media, as robust posts by its diplomats in Western countries promoting nationalist sentiment have escalated into a spat between China and other countries, especially the United States.
In the latest in a series of online controversies, the Chinese embassy in France claimed its official Twitter account had been hacked after it featured a cartoon depicting the US as Death, knocking on a door marked Hong Kong after leaving a trail of blood outside doors marked Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. The inclusion in the image of a Star of David on the scythe also prompted accusations of anti-Semitism.
Top China diplomats call for ‘Wolf Warrior’ army in foreign relations
25 May 2020
“Someone posted a false image on our official Twitter account by posting a cartoon entitled ‘Who is Next?’. The embassy would like to condemn it and always abides by the principles of truthfulness, objectivity and rationality of information,” it said on Monday.
The rise of China’s aggressive “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy has been regarded by analysts as primarily aimed at building support for the government at home but the latest incident is seen as an attempt by Beijing to take back control of the nationalist narrative it has unleashed.
Florian Schneider, director of the Leiden Asia Centre in the Netherlands, said the removal of the embassy’s tweet reflected a constant concern in Beijing about the range of people – including ordinary citizens – who were involved in spreading nationalistic material online.
“The state insists that its nationalism is ‘rational’, meaning it is meant to inspire domestic unity through patriotism but without impacting national interests or endangering social stability,” he said.
“This makes nationalism a mixed blessing for the authorities … if nationalist stories demonise the US or Japan or some other potential enemy, then any Chinese leader dealing diplomatically with those perceived enemies ends up looking weak.
“Trying to guide nationalist sentiment in ways that further the leadership’s interests is a difficult balancing act and I suspect this is partly the reason why the authorities are currently trying to clamp down on unauthorised, nationalist conspiracy theories.”
Too soon: Chinese advisers tell ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomats to tone it down
The report came after months of social media posts – including by Chinese diplomats – defending China against accusations it had mishandled the coronavirus pandemic and attacking the US and other perceived enemies.
In March, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian promoted a conspiracy theory on Twitter suggesting the virus had originated in the US and was brought to China by the US Army. His comments were later downplayed, with China’s ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai saying questions about the origin of the virus should be answered by scientists.
Schneider said this showed that the state-backed nationalistic propaganda online was at risk of backfiring diplomatically.
“The authorities have to constantly worry that they might lose control of the nationalist narrative they unleashed, especially considering how many people produce content on the internet, how fast ideas spread, and how strongly commercial rationales drive misinformation online,” he said.
Last month, a series of widely shared social media articles about people in different countries “yearning to be part of China” resulted in a diplomatic backlash against Beijing. Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador in April to lodge a formal protest against the article.
Following the incident, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator which manages the “firewall” and censors material online, announced a two-month long “internet cleansing” to clear privately owned accounts which engage in “smear campaigns”.
The article had at least 100,000 readers, with 753 people donating money to support the account. According to Xigua Data, a firm that monitors traffic on Chinese social media, the account garnered more than 1.7 million page views for 17 articles in April.
According to a statement from WeChat, the account was closed for fabricating facts, stoking xenophobia and misleading the public.
A journalism professor at the University of Hong Kong said this case differed from the Chinese embassy’s tweet, despite both featuring anti-US sentiment.
Masato Kajimoto, who leads research on news literacy and the misinformation ecosystem, said the closure of the WeChat account seemed to be more about Chinese authorities feeling the need to regulate producers of media content whose motivations were often financial rather than political.
“I would think the government doesn’t like some random misinformation going wild and popular, which affects the overall storylines they would like to push, disseminate and control,” he said.
One way for China to respond to the situation was to fact-check social media and to position itself as a protector facts and defender of the integrity of public information, he said.
“In the age of social media, both fake news and fact-checking are being weaponised by people who try to influence or manipulate the narrative in one way or another,” Kajimoto said.
“Not only China but also many other authoritarian states in Asia are now fact-checking social media. Governments in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries all do that.
“Such initiatives benefit them because they can decide what is true and what is not.”
Pou Chen makes footwear for the likes of Nike and Adidas, but says it has suffered from a lack of orders as global value chains strain under the impact from the virus
Chinese workers moved to Vietnam to help set-up new factories as the company expand its production, but have now become expendable
With the likes of Nike and Adidas closing retail stores around the world to comply with social distancing requirements, analysts also said orders plummeted 50 per cent in the second quarter, although the company declined to comment on the media reports. Photo: Bloomberg
A group of 150 Chinese workers believe the world’s largest maker of trainers used the coronavirus as an excuse to fire them, having helped Taiwanese firm Pou Chen successfully expand its production into Vietnam for more than a decade.
Pou Chen, which makes footwear for the likes of Nike and Adidas, informed the group in late April that they would no longer be needed as they were unable to return to
from their hometowns in China due to the coronavirus lockdowns.
“We believe we contributed greatly to the firm’s relocation process, copying the production line management experience and successful model of China’s factories to Vietnamese factories,” said Dave Zhang, who started working for Pou Chen in Vietnam in 2003.
“Now, when the factories over there have matured, and there is a higher automation level in production, our value has faded in the management’s eyes and we got laid off, in the name of the automation level.”
Rush hour chaos returns to Vietnam’s streets as coronavirus lockdown lifted
The group claims the firm began to fire Chinese employees several years ago, with the total number dropping from over 1,000 at its peak to around 400 last year.
“We 150 employees were the first batch of Chinese employees to be laid off this year. We are all pessimistic and expect more will be cut,” added Zhang.
In its email on April 27, Pou Chen said it was forced to terminate the contracts of the Chinese employees across five of its factories due to an unprecedented decline in orders and financial losses.
The Chinese employees, many of whom have been working for the shoemaker for decades, said the compensation offered was unfair and below the levels required by labour law in both Vietnam and China.
In a further statement to the South China Morning Post, Pou Chen stood by the move as the coronavirus pandemic had reduced demand for footwear products and so required an “adjustment of manpower.”
“[The dismissals were] in accordance with the relevant labour laws of the country of employment … and employee labour contracts,” added the statement from Pou Chen, which employs around 350,000 people worldwide.
Company data showed Pou Chen’s first quarter revenues tumbled 22.4 per cent year-on-year to NT$59.46 billion (US$1.99 billion), the weakest in six years.
With the likes of Nike and Adidas closing retail stores around the world to comply with social distancing requirements, analysts also said orders plummeted 50 per cent in the second quarter, although the company declined to comment on the media reports.
Last month, the company was also mulling pay cuts and furloughs that would affect 3,000 employees in Taiwan and officials based in its overseas factories, according to the Taipei Times.
Andy Zeng, who had worked for the firm since 1995, said the group were “very upset” when they received the news last month as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic began to reverberate around the world, disrupting global value chains.
“Most of us joined Pou Chen in the 1990s when we were in our late teens or early 20s, when the Taiwan-invested company started investing and setting up factories in mainland China. Now more than two decades have passed,” he said.
Zeng was among the first generation of skilled workers in China as Pou Chen developed rapidly, enjoying the benefits of cheap labour, although the workers themselves were rewarded with regular pay rises.
The company needed a group of skilled Chinese workers to go to its new factories in Vietnam. I said yes because I thought it was a good opportunity to see the outside world – Andy Zeng
“I worked at the Dongguan branch of Pou Chen for 11 years from 1995.” Zeng added “In the 1990s and early 2000s, the company expanded rapidly in Dongguan with a growing number of large orders, and every worker had to work hard around the clock. I remember I earned 300 yuan (US$42) a month in 1995, and my monthly salary rose to 1,000 yuan (US$141) in 1998.”
Zeng’s salary eventually rose to over 3,000 yuan in 2005 as China’s economy boomed, leading Pou Chen to seek alternative production sites in Vietnam and Indonesia where labour and land were even cheaper. However, in the early 2000s, the new locations lacked skilled shoe manufacturing workers like Zeng.
“The company needed a group of skilled Chinese workers to go to its new factories in Vietnam. I said yes because I thought it was a good opportunity to see the outside world and the offer of US$700 per month was not bad.” Zeng said.
“We actively cooperated with their plans. Over the past decade, we have been away from our families and hometowns, and followed the company’s strategy to work hard in Vietnam.
With no deaths and cases limited to the hundreds, Vietnam’s Covid-19 response appears to be working
“In 2005, the company sent me to its newly-built factory in Vietnam. This year was my 14th year in Dong Nai in Vietnam. I have witnessed the company’s production capacity in Vietnam become larger and larger. When I arrived, there were only a few production lines, and now there are at least dozens of them, employing more than 10,000 workers in each factory.”
According to a report in the Taipei Times on April 14, citing both Reuters and Bloomberg, Pou Chen was ordered to temporarily shut down one of its units in Vietnam over coronavirus concerns, according to Vietnamese state media.
The company was forced to suspend production for two days after failing to meet local rules on social distancing, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
“We Chinese employees actually were pathfinders for the company’s relocation from China to Vietnam,” said Zhang, who was in charge of a 1,700-worker factory producing 1.7 million shoe soles per month.
What our Chinese employees have done in Vietnam for more than a decade can be said to be very simple but very difficult – Dave Zhang
“We were sent to resolve any ‘bottlenecks’ in the production lines that were slowing down the rest of the plant, because during the launch of every new production line, Vietnamese workers would strike and get into disputes. As far as I know, there were over a thousand Chinese employees managing various aspects of the production lines in the company’s Vietnamese factories.
“In fact, what our Chinese employees have done in Vietnam for more than a decade can be said to be very simple but very difficult. That is to teach Vietnamese workers our experience of working on a production line, improve the productivity of the Vietnamese workers, and help the factories become localised.”
Overall, Pou Chen says it produces more than 300 million pairs of shoes per year, accounting for around 20 per cent of the combined wholesale value of the global branded athletic and casual footwear market.
“Because of cultural shock and great pressure to expedite orders, Vietnamese workers were not used to the management style of Taiwan factories,” Zhang added.
“Many of our Chinese employees were beaten by Vietnamese workers [due to cultural differences about work]. During anti-China protests in Vietnam, we were still under great pressure to keep the local production lines operating.”
But trade with partner countries might not be as badly affected as with countries elsewhere in the world, observers say
China’s trade with belt and road countries rose by 3.2 per cent in the January-March period, but second-quarter results will depend on how well they manage to contain the pathogen, academic says
China’s investment in foreign infrastructure as part of its Belt and Road Initiative has been curtailed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Xinhua
The coronavirus pandemic is set to cause a slump in Chinese investment in its signature
and a dip in trade with partner countries that could take a year to overcome, analysts say.
But the impact of the health crisis on China’s economic relations with nations involved in the ambitious infrastructure development programme might not be as great as on those that are not.
China’s total foreign trade in the first quarter of 2020 fell by 6.4 per cent year on year, according to official figures from Beijing.
Trade with the United States, Europe and Japan all dropped in the period, by 18.3, 10.4 and 8.1 per cent, respectively, the commerce ministry said.
By comparison, China’s trade with belt and road countries increased by 3.2 per cent in the first quarter, although the growth figure was lower than the 10.8 per cent reported for the whole of 2019.
China’s trade with 56 belt and road countries – located across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America – accounts for about 30 per cent of its total annual volume, according to the commerce ministry.
Despite the first-quarter growth, Tong Jiadong, a professor of international trade at Nankai University in Tianjin, said he expected China’s trade with belt and road countries to fall by between 2 and 5 per cent this year.
His predictions are less gloomy than the 13 to 32 per cent contraction in global trade forecast for this year by the World Trade Organisation.
“A drop in [China’s total] first-quarter trade was inevitable but it slowly started to recover as it resumed production, especially with Southeast Asian, Eastern European and Arab countries,” Tong said.
“The second quarter will really depend on how the epidemic is contained in belt and road countries.”
Nick Marro, Hong Kong-based head of global trade at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said he expected China’s total overseas direct investment to fall by about 30 per cent this year, which would be bad news for the belt and road plan.
“This will derive from a combination of growing domestic stress in China, enhanced regulatory scrutiny over Chinese investment in major international markets, and weakened global economic prospects that will naturally depress investment demand,” he said.
The development of the Chinese built and operated special economic zone in the Cambodian town of Sihanoukville is reported to have slowed, while infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, including the Payra coal-fired power plant, have been put on hold.
The development of the Chinese built and operated special economic zone in the Cambodian town of Sihanoukville is reported to have slowed. Photo: AFP
Marro said the reduction of capital and labour from China might complicate other projects for key belt and road partner, like Pakistan, which is home to infrastructure projects worth tens of billions of US dollars, and funded and built in large part by China.
“Pakistan looks concerning, particularly in terms of how we’ve assessed its sovereign and currency risk,” Marro said.
“Public debt is high compared to other emerging markets, while the coronavirus will push the budget deficit to expand to 10 per cent of GDP [gross domestic product] this year.”
Last week, Pakistan asked China for a 10-year extension to the repayment period on US$30 billion worth of loans used to fund the development of infrastructure projects, according to a report by local newspaper Dawn.
China’s overseas investment has been falling steadily from its peak in 2016, mostly as a result of Beijing’s curbs on capital outflows.
Last year, the direct investment by Chinese companies and organisations other than banks in belt and road countries fell 3.8 per cent from 2018 to US$15 billion, with most of the money going to South and Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan.
Tong said the pandemic had made Chinese investors nervous about putting their money in countries where disease control measures were becoming increasingly stringent, but added that the pause in activity would give all parties time to regroup.
“Investment in the second quarter will decline and allow time for the questions to be answered,” he said.
“Past experience along the belt and road has taught many lessons to both China and its partners, and forced them to think calmly about their own interests. The epidemic provides both parties with a good time for this.”
Dr Frans-Paul van der Putten, a senior research fellow at Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands, said China’s post-pandemic strategy for the belt and road in Europe
might include a shift away from investing in high-profile infrastructure projects like ports and airports.
Investors might instead cooperate with transport and logistics providers rather than invest directly, he said.
“Even though in the coming years the amount of money China loans and invests abroad may be lower than in the peak years around 2015-16, I expect it to maintain the belt and road plan as its overall strategic framework for its foreign economic relations,” he said.
Young people starting out in the jobs market face a hit to their prospects that could endure years after the Covid-19-induced downturn has run its course
A generation of angry youth raises the spectre of political instability
Freelance filmmaker Anita Reza Zein had grown used to jam-packed production schedules requiring her to put in long hours and run on little sleep. Until Covid-19 struck.
Today, the talented Indonesian is suddenly free. With five projects on hold and many more potentially cancelled, she now spends her time working on a personal project, doing research for her work and occasionally going for a ride on a bicycle.
“I feel calm and patient although I’m jobless. Maybe because it’s still the third week [of social distancing] and I still have enough savings from my previous work,” said the 26-year-old, who is from Yogyakarta. “But I imagine life will become tougher in the next few months if the situation gets worse.”
Like her, millions of youths are now part of a job market in Southeast Asia that has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic. They are the unlucky cohort of 2020 whose fortunes have changed so drastically, so quickly.
Freelance filmmaker Anita Reza Zein now spends most of her time at home as her projects have all been frozen due to the spread of Covid-19. Photo: Anita Reza Zein
Just three months ago, many eager graduates were about to partake in a strong economy and possibly land decent pay cheques.
Today, job offers are being withdrawn and hiring halted, leading to a spike in regional youth unemployment in the short term. In the long term, the effects on the Covid-19 cohort could lead to wider social and political problems.
JOB MARKETS SHUT
The virus’ impact on economies and the job market in the region has been swift and devastating. Borders have been slammed shut, workers ordered to stay at home, and thousands of companies closed every week.
The biggest problem is the lack of certainty about how long this will last – the longer the governments keep their countries on lockdown, the worse the economic impact.
In Indonesia, for example, the virus has caused almost 2.8 million people to lose their jobs, according to the Manpower Ministry and the Workers Social Security Agency. Likewise, in Malaysia, an estimated 2.4 million people are expected to lose their jobs, going by data from the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER).
is bracing itself for a 5.3 per cent contraction in GDP for the full year, the worst since the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
“We think about seven million jobs have been lost already, and the figure will hit 10 million if the outbreak drags on for two to three more months,” said Kalin Sarasin, council member and head of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.
Lockdown for 34 million people in capital Jakarta as Indonesia fights surge in coronavirus deaths
For young jobseekers, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic could hurt even more, with companies unwilling to open up new jobs for them.
“My clients who were open to fresh graduates previously have realigned searches [for candidates] who have at least one year of experience, as it’s a lot faster for someone with experience to scale up quickly and contribute,” said Joanne Pek, a recruiter at Cornerstone Global Partners’ Singapore office.
For many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) such as Singapore-based restaurant chain The Soup Spoon, saving jobs – rather than recruiting – is the priority.
“We don’t want to let anyone go during this period, so we’re focused on protecting jobs,” said co-founder and director Benedict Leow, who employs some 250 workers.
THE COVID-19 COHORT
The looming economic downturn could have distinct consequences for the Class of 2020 that will outlast the economic downturn itself.
For one thing, the paucity of jobs could result in the Covid-19 cohort becoming a “lost generation” of sorts, said Achim Schmillen, a senior economist at the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice.
“Research from around the globe shows that graduating in a recession can have significant and long-lasting impacts that can affect the entire career. In particular, it can lead to large initial earnings losses which only slowly recede over time,” he said.
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12 Apr 2020
Economics professor Jeff Borland of the University of Melbourne said that international studies showed that what happened to people when they first entered the labour market would affect them for the rest of their working lives.
“Many international studies have shown that trying to move into employment during a major economic downturn cuts the probability of employment and future earnings for a decade or more.
“Why this occurs is less well-established. Reasons suggested include being forced to take lower-quality jobs, losing skills and losing psychological well-being,” he said in a piece published on The Conversation website.
Malaysia sets up Covid-19 test zones in the capital to hunt for ‘hidden’ coronavirus cases
This could create “lasting scarring” on the graduates this year, said labour economist Walter Theseira.
“If their careers start badly, it would affect their earnings for a number of years because they would lack the same experience as peers who started in a more secure position,” the associate professor of economics at Singapore University of Social Sciences said.
Shrinking salaries and the downsizing of companies mean that graduates might have to seek out professions outside their areas of study to survive, said Grace Lee Hooi Yean, head of the Economics Department at Monash University, Malaysia.
She said youth unemployment in the country, which stands at 11.67 per cent, could rise sharply.
“This looming crisis could trap a generation of educated and capable youth in a limbo of unmet expectations and lasting vulnerability if the graduates are not ready to face reality and adapt to the new challenges,” she said.
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12 Apr 2020
This is fast becoming the reality for final-year medical student Rebecca K. Somasundaram, who has been left without a job due to the pandemic.
After being offered a residency programme at a top specialist hospital in Kuala Lumpur, she was notified a month ago that her placement had been made void until further notice. This has thrown the 24-year-old’s plans into disarray as she was hoping to enter the workforce soon to pay off her student debts. Her plans to get married next year have also been put on hold temporarily.
“I am in constant talks with the hospital to see if there is any way I can join them soon but seeing how things are unfolding so quickly, I am slowly losing hope,” she said.
Over in Indonesia, the pandemic will trigger job losses on a national scale. To combat this, the government would need to introduce strong fiscal measures and beef up its social protection policies, said the country’s former minister of finance Muhamad Chatib Basri.
Many people on lower incomes tend to work in the extraction industry, such as mining and palm oil, and these are the first industries hit due to the global slowdown.
“The rich will be able to brave the storm, but the poor have no means to do so,” he said.
Singapore migrant workers under quarantine as coronavirus hits dormitories
SPECTRE OF 1997
With partial lockdowns imposed in the capital of Jakarta, more needs to be done to ensure that vulnerable citizens have access to food and financial support.
Without government intervention, economic woes could soon translate into political instability, a scenario last seen in the Asian financial crisis.
In 1997, waves of discontent sparked racial riots in Indonesia that toppled the country’s long-time strongman Suharto, while in Thailand a political crisis created the conditions for populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra to rise.
Rising discontent could have serious implications at the ballot boxes, warned Basri, who said young voters were a key voting bloc for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
Coronavirus: food security, Asia’s next battle in a post-Covid world
6 Apr 2020
In last year’s general elections, Jokowi proved a hit among the lower-educated youth who had benefited from the creation of largely unskilled jobs during his tenure.
“With more young people expected to become unemployed in the coming months, things will only get worse from here,” said Basri, who added that the country’s youth unemployment stood at almost 20 per cent in 2018.
Indonesia, which has 268 million people and is Southeast Asia’s largest economy, had 133 million workers as of last August, according to official data.
Close to 10 per cent or about 12.27 million are university graduates but among this group, about 5.67 per cent or some 730,000 were unemployed. This was higher than the country’s overall unemployment rate at that time, which was 5.28 per cent.
‘Ghosts’ deployed to scare Indonesians into staying home to slow spread of the coronavirus
GETTING IT RIGHT
Economists say, however, that all is not lost. Much will depend on policy and how governments focus on battling the virus on the public health and economic fronts. They point to Singapore, which has launched a robust response to the crisis.
On April 6, the Singapore government announced its third budget in two months to help companies and households tide over the crisis. In all, Singapore’s total stimulus package, which aims to save jobs and keep funds flowing to companies, will cost the government a massive S$59.9 billion (US$42 billion).
The Singapore government was also preparing for a labour market that would be reluctant to hire fresh graduates on a full-time basis, said Theseira.
“There are plans to implement large-scale subsidised traineeships, which may be more palatable to companies which are worried about taking on permanent headcount this year,” he noted. “As the economic situation improves, they can be converted to permanent positions.”
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4 Mar 2020
While jobs were being created for fresh graduates, many would still have to temper their expectations, such as taking jobs with lower starting pay, said DBS Bank economist Irvin Seah.
“There are still some jobs to go around. There are still some companies that may need workers. But they will need to be realistic,” he said.
For instance, despite the downturn, Singapore telco Singtel expects to recruit over 300 fresh graduates for various permanent positions this year, according to Aileen Tan, the company’s Group Chief Human Resources Officer. Many of the new hires will be in new growth areas such as the Internet of Things, analytics and cloud.
The Singtel Comcentre building in Singapore. Photo: Roy Issa
Other companies that continue to hire include those in tech across the region, including e-commerce giant Shopee, food-delivery service Foodpanda and Amazon.
In Australia, Borland suggested helping young people to remain plugged into the labour market through government-funded paid internships, or even offering them loans to go for further studies and prevent a spell of unemployment.
For now, while some young jobseekers are taking a wait-and-see approach, the reality is hitting hard for others.
Final-year National University of Singapore student H.P. Tan had all but secured a job at a public relations firm last month, after three rounds of interviews.
The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences undergraduate was rejected via an email from the agency, which said that they could no longer hire after Covid-19 started to drastically cut business.
“When I got that rejection, it was a turning point. I didn’t think I would be directly impacted,” said the 23-year-old.
“I also applied to a few other agencies but the response has been slow, so I am now freaking out at the possibility of not being able to find a job after graduation.”
Malfunction happened during third stage of launch after earlier stages were completed successfully, state media says
Failed mission is second in less than a month after Long March-7A encountered problems after lift-off on March 16
A Long March-3B carrier rocket blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan province in November. A similar launch on Thursday ended in failure. Photo: Xinhua
China’s space programme suffered another setback on Thursday night with its second rocket launch failure in less than a month.
Officials are investigating what caused a malfunction during the third stage of the Long March-3B launch after lift-off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest Sichuan province at 7.46pm with an Indonesian Palapa-N1 satellite, Xinhua reported.
“The first and second stages of the rocket performed well, but the third stage malfunctioned,” the report said.
“Debris from the third stage of the rocket and the satellite fell [to the ground]. The launch mission failed.”
Debris from the failed mission rained down over Guam on Thursday night. Photo: Twitter
China’s state media did not say where the rocket landed, but the office of Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defence said “a fiery object over the Marianas sky” observed on Thursday evening was likely connected to the failed launch.
Video footage of the burning debris falling from the sky was widely circulated on social media.
The setback follows another failed launch on March 16, when China’s new Long March-7A, a three-stage, medium-lift, liquid-fuel rocket, encountered an “abnormality” minutes after lifting off from its launch site in the southern island province of Hainan.
China’s BeiDou system one satellite closer to full operation
11 Mar 2020
The satellite lost on Thursday – the Nusantara 2 – was built in China for Indonesian telecommunication companies Pasifik Satelit Nusantara and Indosat Ooredoo. It was intended to replace an older satellite to provide internet and broadcasting services in Indonesia and across the Asia-Pacific region to Australia, The Jakarta Post reported earlier this month.
It is not known if the failed launch will have an impact on other Long March-3B satellite launches planned for later in the year.
Introduced in 1996, the Long March-3B – also known as the CZ-3B or LM-3B – has been the main orbital carrier rocket of China’s space programme. It was used to carry many of the satellites that make up China’s BeiDou navigation system, with the latest addition being in March.
For that launch, engineers used parachutes to control where the rocket’s boosters would land after being discarded after lift-off so as to minimise the impact on people living below, state media reported.
The latest version of the Long March-3B entered service in 2007 and is dedicated to launching heavy communications satellites of up to 5.5 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbits.
Image copyright MAJORITY WORLDImage caption Indian doctors have been working extra hours to halt the spread of the coronavirus
Several healthcare workers in India have been attacked as they battle to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Reports say doctors have been spat at and chased away from homes, and that in one case patients directed abusive and vulgar language towards female nurses.
Some physicians and their families have also been ostracised by their neighbours because of their exposure to patients infected with Covid-19.
India has reported more than 2,300 cases and at least 50 people have died.
One video, which has gone viral, showed a mob throwing stones at two female doctors wearing personal protective equipment in the central city of Indore.
The doctors had gone to a densely-populated area to check on a woman suspected of having Covid-19 when they came under attack.
Despite being injured, one of the doctors seen in the video, Zakiya Sayed, said the incident “won’t deter me from doing my duty”.
“We were on our usual round to screen suspected cases,” she told the BBC. “We never thought that we would be attacked.”
“I had never seen scenes like that. It was frightening. We somehow fled from the mob. I am injured but not scared at all.”
Dr Sayed added: “We had no reason to suspect that people would be agitated against medical teams.”
“We are working to keep people safe. We had information about a person coming in contact with a Covid-19 patient. We were talking to the person when residents got agitated and attacked us.”
Image copyright HINDUSTAN TIMESImage caption Doctors have been abused and attacked in different parts of India
Seven people have been arrested in connection with the incident.
Dr Anand Rai, who is also a part of the Covid-19 taskforce in Indore, told the BBC: “Nothing can justify the attack against medical team. But it happened in a Muslim-dominated area where there is general distrust against the government.”
“So that anger spilled over and took the form of this attack. But whatever maybe the reason, nothing can justify violence, especially against doctors during a national health emergency,” he added.
Thousands who attended the gathering in Delhi, organised by Islamic preaching group Tablighi Jamaat, have been put in quarantine, and authorities are still tracing others. It is believed that the infections were caused by preachers who attended the event from Indonesia.
At the Ghaziabad hospital, some of the quarantined attendees allegedly used abusive and vulgar language against members of staff.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Almost 400 cases of Covid-19 have been traced to a Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi
“Some were walking naked in the hospital ward and harassing women doctors and nurses,” a doctor who works at the hospital told the BBC. “They kept asking for cigarettes and tobacco.”
A senior police officer in the city told the BBC that cases had been registered against some people after doctors filed a complaint.
“Registering cases was the last resort. Police are still trying to make them understand the severity of the situation,” he said.
Image copyright SOPA IMAGESImage caption Doctors and nurses have asked people to follow their advice and not panic
Similar incidents have been reported in neighbouring Delhi.
Some attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event who are being held in a quarantine facility run by the railways are said to have spat at doctors and misbehaved.
Deepak Kumar, spokesman for Northern Railways, said the situation there was now under control.
“The attendees have been counselled and they are now co-operating with the staff,” he said.
Delhi’s state government has reportedly written to the police, requesting more security for medical staff.
Reports of attacks on doctors and nurses have also come from the southern city of Hyderabad and the western city of Surat.
A doctor who was treating coronavirus patients is Hyderabad’s Gandhi Hospital was attacked on Wednesday.
Police have promised the doctor that “strict action will be taken against the culprits”.
Image copyright NARINDER NANUImage caption Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that doctors are “front-line soldiers”
But it is not just a work where medical workers are facing discrimination. It has followed them home.
One doctor, who did not wish to be identified, said she felt “extremely disheartened when I learnt that even my neighbours think that me and my family shouldn’t be allowed to live in the building”.
“We want our families to be safe. But we are being discriminated for doing our job.”
“A number of doctors have tested positive across India and that shows how tough our job is at the moment. And that is why we need everybody’s support to win this war against coronavirus.”
She added: “We are following all safety protocols. We are not meeting even our families and that is stressful.”
“But seeing this open discrimination just breaks my heart. But we will go on because there is really no other option.”
US death toll passes 3,000 as New York’s hospitals are pushed to breaking point
Italy extends lockdown as cases exceed 100,000; UN Security Council votes by email for first time
The USNS Comfort passes the Statue of Liberty as it enters New York Harbour on Monday. Photo: Reuters
Harsh lockdowns aimed at halting the march of the coronavirus pandemic extended worldwide Monday as the death toll soared toward 37,000 amid new waves of US outbreaks.
The tough measures that have confined some two-fifths of the globe’s population to their homes were broadened. Moscow and Lagos joined the roll call of cities around the globe with eerily empty streets, while Virginia and Maryland became the latest US states to announce emergency stay-at-home orders, followed quickly by the capital city Washington.
In a symbol of the scale of the challenge facing humanity, a US military medical ship sailed into New York to relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals bracing for the peak of the pandemic.
France reported its highest daily number of deaths since the outbreak began, saying 418 more people had succumbed in hospital.
Spain, which announced another 812 virus deaths in 24 hours, joined the United States and Italy in surpassing the number of cases in China, where the disease was first detected in December.
On Tuesday, mainland China reported a rise in new confirmed coronavirus cases, reversing four days of declines, due to an uptick in infections involving travellers arriving from overseas.
Mainland China had 48 new cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, up from 31 new infections a day earlier.
All of the 48 cases were imported, bringing the total number of imported cases in China to 771 as of Monday.
There was no reported new case of local infection on Monday, according to the National Health Commission. The total number of infections reported in mainland China stood at 81,518 and the death toll at 3,305. Globally, more than 760,000 have been infected, according to official figures.
Here are the developments:
Hospital ship arrives in New York
New York’s governor issued an urgent appeal for medical volunteers Monday amid a “staggering” number of deaths from the coronavirus, saying: “Please come help us in New York, now.”
The plea from Governor Andrew Cuomo came as the death toll in New York State climbed past 1,200 – with most of the victims in the big city – and authorities warned that the crisis pushing New York’s hospitals to the breaking point is just a preview of what other cities across the US could soon face.
Cuomo said the city needs 1 million additional health care workers.
“We’ve lost over 1,000 New Yorkers,” he said. “To me, we’re beyond staggering already. We’ve reached staggering.”
The governor’s plea came as a 1,000-bed US Navy hospital ship docked in Manhattan on Monday and a field hospital was going up in Central Park for coronavirus patients.
New York City reported 914 deaths from the virus as of 4:30pm local time Monday, a 16 per cent increase from an update six hours earlier. The city, the epicentre of the US outbreak, has 38,087 confirmed cases, up by more than 1,800 from earlier in the day.
Coronavirus field hospital set up in New York’s Central Park as city’s health crisis deepens
Gloom for 24 million people in Asia
The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will prevent almost 24 million people from escaping poverty in East Asia and the Pacific this year, according to the World Bank.
In a report released on Monday, the Washington-based lender also warned of “substantially higher risk” among households that depend on industries particularly vulnerable to the impact of Covid-19. These include tourism in Thailand and the Pacific islands; manufacturing in Vietnam and Cambodia; and among people dependent on “informal labour” in all countries.
The World Bank urged the region to invest in expanding conventional health care and medical equipment factories, as well as taking innovative measures like converting ordinary hospital beds for ICU use and rapidly trining people to work in basic care.
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Indonesia bans entry of foreigners
Indonesia barred foreign nationals from entering the country as the world’s fourth-most populous country stepped up efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The travel ban, to be effective soon, will also cover foreigners transiting through the country, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said after a cabinet meeting in Jakarta Tuesday. The curbs will not apply to holders of work permits, diplomats and other official visitors, she said.
The curbs on foreign citizens is the latest in a raft of measures taken by Indonesia to combat the deadly virus that’s sickened more than 1,400 people and killed 122. President Joko Widodo’s administration previously banned flights to and from mainland China and some of the virus-hit regions in Italy, South Korea and Iran. The president on Monday ordered stricter implementation of social distancing and health quarantine amid calls for a lockdown to contain the pandemic.
Indonesia has highest coronavirus mortality rate in Southeast Asia
First US service member dies
The first US military service member has died from the coronavirus, the Pentagon said on Monday, as it reported another sharp hike in the number of infected troops.
The Pentagon said it was a New Jersey Army National Guardsman who had tested positive for Covid-19 and had been hospitalised since March 21. He died on Saturday, it said.
Earlier on Monday, the Pentagon said that 568 troops had tested positive for the coronavirus, up from 280 on Thursday. More than 450 Defence Department civilians, contractors and dependents have also tested positive, it said.
US military has decided to stop providing more granular data about coronavirus infections within its ranks, citing concern that the information might be used by adversaries as the virus spreads.
The new policy, which the Pentagon detailed in a statement on Monday, appears to underscore US military concerns about the potential trajectory of the virus over the coming months – both at home and abroad.
School to resume in South Korea … online
South Korean children will start the new school year on April 9 with only online classes, after repeated delays due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the government said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Chung Sye Kyun said that despite the nation’s utmost efforts to contain the virus and lower the risk of infection, there is consensus among teachers and others that it is too early to let children go back to school.
The nation’s elementary schools, and junior and senior high schools were supposed to start the new academic year in early March, but the government has repeatedly postponed it to keep the virus from spreading among children.
The start was last postponed until April 6, but has now been delayed three more days to allow preparations to be made for online classes.
The nation now has 9,786 confirmed cases in total, with 162 deaths.
Italy extends lockdown as cases exceed 100,000
Italy’s government on Monday said it would extend its nationwide lockdown measures
against a coronavirus outbreak, due to end on Friday, at least until the Easter season in April.
The Health Ministry did not give a date for the new end of the lockdown, but said it would be in a law the government would propose. Easter Sunday is April 12 this year. Italy is predominantly Roman Catholic and contains the Vatican, the heart of the church.
Italians have been under lockdown for three weeks, with most shops, bars and restaurants shut and people forbidden from leaving their homes for all but non-essential needs.
Italy, which is the world’s hardest hit country in terms of number of deaths and accounts for more than a third of all global fatalities, saw its total death tally rise to 11,591 since the outbreak emerged in northern regions on February 21.
The death toll has risen by 812 in the last 24 hours, the Civil Protection Agency said, reversing two days of declines, although the number of new cases rose by just 4,050, the lowest increase since March 17, reaching a total of 101,739.
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Women stand near the body of a man who died on the sidewalk in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Photo: Reuters
Ecuador struggles to collect the dead
Ecuadorean authorities said they would improve the collection of corpses, as delays related to the rapid spread of the new coronavirus has left families keeping their loved ones’ bodies in their homes for days in some cases.
Residents of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, have complained they have no way to dispose of relatives’ remains due to strict quarantine and curfew measures designed to prevent spread of the disease. Last week, authorities said they had removed 100 corpses from homes in Guayaquil.
But delays in collecting bodies in the Andean country, which has reported 1,966 cases of the virus and 62 deaths, were evident midday on Monday in downtown Guayaquil, where a man’s dead body lay on a sidewalk under a blue plastic sheet. Police said the man had collapsed while waiting in line to enter a store. Hours later, the body had been removed.
More than 70 per cent of the country’s coronavirus cases, which is among the highest tallies in Latin America, are in the southern province of Guayas, where Guayaquil is located.
Panama to restrict movement by gender
The government of Panama announced strict quarantine measures that separate citizens by gender in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
From Wednesday, men and women will only be able to leave their homes for two hours at a time, and on different days. Until now, quarantine regulations were not based on gender.
Men will be able to go to the supermarket or the pharmacy on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and women will be allowed out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
No one will be allowed to go out on Sundays. The new measures will last for 15 days.
Police in Kenya use tear gas to enforce coronavirus curfew
Remote vote first for UN Security Council
The UN Security Council on Monday for the first time approved resolutions remotely after painstaking negotiations among diplomats who are teleworking due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Security Council unanimously voted by email for four resolutions, including one that extended through April 2021 the expiring mandate of UN experts who are monitoring sanctions on North Korea, diplomats said.
The UN mission in Somalia was also prolonged, until the end of June, and the mission in Darfur until the end of May – two short periods decided due to uncertainty over the spread of the pandemic.
The Council also endorsed a fourth resolution aimed at improving the protection for peacekeepers.
The resolutions are the first approved by the Security Council since it began teleworking on March 12 and comes as Covid-19 rapidly spreads in New York, which has become the epicenter of the disease in the United States.
Congo ex-president dies in France
Former Republic of Congo president Jacques Joaquim Yhombi Opango died in France on Monday of the new coronavirus, his family said. He was 81.
Yhombi Opango, who led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, died at a Paris hospital of Covid-19, his son Jean-Jacques said. He had been ill before he contracted the virus.
Yhombi Opango was an army officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien Ngouabi.
Yhombi Opango was ousted by long-time ruler Denis Sassou Nguesso. Accused of taking part in a coup plot against Sassou Nguesso, Yhombi Opango was jailed from 1987 to 1990. He was released a few months before a 1991 national conference that introduced multiparty politics in the central African country.
When civil war broke out in Congo in 1997, Yhombi Opango fled into exile in France. He was finally able to return home in 2007, but then divided his time between France and Congo because of his health problems.
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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.
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Saudi king to pay for all patients’ treatment
Saudi Arabia will finance treatment for anyone infected with the coronavirus in the country, the health minister said on Monday.
The kingdom has registered eight deaths among 1,453 infections, the highest among the six Gulf Arab states.
Health Minister Tawfiq Al Rabiah said King Salman would cover treatment for citizens and residents diagnosed with the virus, urging people with symptoms to get tested.
“We are all in the same boat,” he told a news conference, adding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was overseeing containment efforts “night and day”.
Denmark eyes gradual reopening after Easter
Denmark may gradually lift a lockdown after Easter if the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths remain stable, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday.
The Nordic country, which has reported 77 coronavirus-related deaths, last week extended until after Easter a two-week lockdown to limit physical contact between its citizens that began on March 11.
The number of daily deaths slowed to five on Sunday from eight and 11 on Saturday and Friday respectively. Denmark has reported a total of 2,577 coronavirus infections.
“If we over the next two weeks across Easter keep standing together by staying apart, and if the numbers remain stable for the next two weeks, then the government will begin a gradual, quiet and controlled opening of our society again, at the other side of Easter,” Frederiksen said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Hundreds have been leaving the mosque to be monitored or tested for the virus
Officials across India are searching for hundreds of people who attended a religious event in the capital that has set off several Covid-19 clusters.
At least six regions have reported cases that can be directly traced to the days-long congregation at a mosque.
Delhi officials are now clearing the building, where more than 1,000 people have been stranded since the government imposed a lockdown last week.
At least 24 have tested positive so far, the state health minister said.
They are among some 300 people who showed symptoms and have been moved to various hospital to be tested, he told the media. Another 700 have been shifted into quarantine centres, he added.
It is believed that the infections were caused by preachers who attended the event from Indonesia.
State officials have called for action to be taken against mosque officials, but they have denied any wrongdoing.
Local media reports say that Nizamuddin – the locality where the mosque is located – has been cordoned off and more than 35 buses carrying people to hospitals or quarantine centres.
The congregation – part of a 20th Century Islamic movement called Tablighi Jamaat – began at the end of February, but some of the main events were held in early March.
It’s unclear if the event was ticketed or even if the organisers maintained a roster of visitors as people attended the event throughout, with some staying on and others leaving. Even overseas visitors, some of them preachers, travelled to other parts of the country where they stayed in local mosques and met people.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
So officials have no easy way of finding out how many people attended the event or where they went. But they have already begun to trace and test.
The southern state of Telangana reported on Sunday night that six people who had attended the event died from the virus. The state’s medical officer told the BBC that more than 40 of Telangana’s 71 cases were either directly or indirectly linked to the event.
Indian-administered Kashmir reported its first death from the virus last week – a 65-year-old who had been in Delhi for the congregation. Officials told BBC Urdu that more than 40 of the region’s 48 cases could be traced back to that one patient.
A cluster has even appeared in the distant Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where six of the nine who have tested positive, had returned from the Delhi event.
The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have said more than 3,000 people from their states had attended the event, and Tamil Nadu has traced 16 positive patients to it.
States have also asked other people who attended to come forward for testing.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has asked for a police complaint to be registered against the head of the mosque.
However, the event’s organisers have issued a statement, saying they had suspended the event and asked everyone to leave as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that there would be a day-long national curfew on 22 March.
While many were able to leave, they say, others were stranded because states began to seal their borders the following day, and two days later, India imposed a 21-day lockdown, suspending buses and trains.
The mosque’s premises include dormitories that can house hundreds of people.
The organisers say they informed the local police about all of this and continued to cooperate with medical officers who came to inspect the premises.
The mosque, the statement says, “never violated any provision of law, and always tried to act with compassion and reason towards the visitors who came to Delhi from different states. It did not let them violate the medical guidelines by thronging ISBTs (bus stops) or roaming on streets.”
This is not the first time religious congregations have been blamed for the spread of coronavirus.
Tablighi Jamaat events have also been blamed for spreading cases in Indonesia and Malaysia.
And in South Korea, many positive cases were linked to the Schincheonji church, a secretive religious sect, that has since apologised for its role in the outbreak.
Throughout the world, overworked health care professionals are being infected with Covid-19, yet the Lion City has kept numbers low
Preparation, planning, patient ratios and protective equipment have all played a part. Still, even the best gear cannot guard against discrimination
Medical staff walk to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases building at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore. Photo: AFP
Uncooperative patients, long hours and a lack of protective equipment are hampering health care workers across the world as they take the fight to the coronavirus, leading many to fall sick themselves.
In Malaysia, a pregnant woman who did not disclose that her father was infected tested positive after giving birth, leading to the shutdown of the entire hospital for cleaning. In the Philippines, nine doctors have died, two of whom had dealt with a patient who lied about her travel history.
In Spain, where more than 5,400 health care workers have been infected, accounting for about 14 per cent of the country’s patients, there are no longer enough workers to care for patients.
In Italy, which has more than 69,000 patients, the virus killed a doctor who had no choice but to work without gloves.
In the United States, which has surpassed China to become the world’s most infected nation with more than 83,000 people testing positive for Covid-19, hospitals are being overrun with patients.
Health care staff in the country say patients are packed into emergency wards and intensive care units (ICUs), further raising the risk of infections. They also report shortages of ventilators, face masks, gowns and shields.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on March 7 released interim guidelines saying health care workers exposed to the coronavirus could be asked to return to work as long as they wore face masks and were not showing symptoms, if their employers had no other manpower available.
Malaysian health workers at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Photo: AFP
A REASON FOR OPTIMISM
However, amid all the gloom, Singapore’s experienceis being held up as a reason for optimism. The city state has reported more than 630 cases of infection, all of which are being treated in hospital, yet only a handful of its health care professionals have been infected. What’s more, even these cases, according to Vernon Lee, director of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health, are thought to have been infected outside the health care setting.
Experts suggest this has been more than just luck, pointing to a case in which 41 health workers were exposed to the coronavirus in a Singapore hospital yet evaded infection.
The workers had all come within two metres of a middle-aged man with Covid-19 who was being intubated, a procedure which involves a tube being inserted into the patient’s trachea. The procedure is seen as being particularly hazardous for health workers as it is “aerosol generating” – patients are likely to cough.
The workers had not known at the time that the man had the virus and all were quarantined after he tested positive. However, on their release two weeks later, none of them had the virus.
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The case has come to widespread attention partly because the workers were wearing a mix of standard surgical masks and the N95 mask, which doctors see as the gold standard as it filters out 95 per cent of airborne particles.
The conclusion, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine this month, was this: “That none of the health care workers in this situation acquired infection suggests that surgical masks, hand hygiene, and other standard procedures protected them from being infected.”
Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande mentioned the case in an article for The New Yorker on how health care workers could continue seeing patients without becoming patients. He said there were things to learn from Asia and that some of the lessons came out of the “standard public health playbook”. In other words, there is much to be said for social distancing, basic hand hygiene and cleaning regimens.
A health worker in protective gear walks into a quarantine room at a hospital in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Photo: AFP
COMING TOGETHER
With critical supplies running short in many countries, experts say it is increasingly vital that countries share both knowledge and resources.
To this end, China has been donating personal protective equipment to places including the Philippines, Pakistan and Europe. China’s richest man Jack Ma is donating 1.8 million masks, 210,000 Covid-19 test kits and 36,000 pieces of protective clothing to 10 countries in Asia.
At the same time, doctors are encouraging the Western world to learn from Asia.
Infectious diseases expert Leong Hoe Nam said that being “bitten by Sars” (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003 had prepared Asia for Covid-19, while Western countries were not similarly prepared and hence lacked sufficient protective equipment.
He pointed to how about 2,000 health care workers had fallen sick in China early in the outbreak because workers did not initially have protective gear. The trend reversed as equipment became available.
“Once the defences were up, there were very few health care workers who fell sick at work. Rather, they fell sick from contact with sick individuals outside the workplace,” he said.
Malaysia is a case in point. While it has reported 80 health care workers falling ill, most are thought to be community infections.
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In a webinar organised by Caixin Global on Thursday night, Peng Zhiyong, an intensive care specialist at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, shared how they managed a shortage of personal protective equipment early on in the outbreak by rationing workers to two sets of gear per shift.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, doctors from Manila’s Chinese General Hospital held a video conference call with doctors in Zhejiang to learn from China’s experience of treating Covid-19 patients.
Crowdsourcing platforms have also been created to share advice. The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has released guidelines for treating critically ill patients and its website includes information from Chinese doctors.
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The Jack Ma Foundation has also launched an online platform for doctors and nurses around the world to share knowledge on fighting the virus. “One world, one fight,” it said in a tweet.
Associate Professor Jeremy Lim from the global health programme at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health said it was crucial for countries to work together.
“Viruses don’t respect borders. Countries have to share information and help each other as we are only as strong as the weakest link. Any country can become a reservoir of disease and the world may then be forced to endure a ping-pong of outbreaks over and over again.”
And the advice of Lee, at Singapore’s Ministry of Health? “Practise good hygiene and wash hands regularly.”
Indonesian medical staff administer mass testing for Covid-19 in Bekasi, West Java. Photo: AFP
SINGAPORE, A CASE STUDY
Amid this sharing of advice, it is often Singapore that is held up as an example to replicate. Despite the country grappling with a rising load of Covid-19 patients, most of whom have recently returned to the city state from abroad, its health care system has continued to run smoothly. Doctors say this is because it has been preparing for a pandemic ever since Sars caught it by surprise. During the Sars outbreak, health care workers accounted for 41 per cent of Singapore’s 238 infections.
Consequently its hospitals swung into contingency planning mode early on in the coronavirus outbreak, telling staff to defer leave and travel plans after its first cases emerged.
Meanwhile, its hospitals swiftly split their workforces into teams to ensure there were enough workers if the outbreak worsened, and to ensure workers got enough rest.
Singapore has 13,766 doctors, or 2.4 doctors for every 1,000 people. That compares to 2.59 in the US, 1.78 in China and 4.2 in Germany. Places like Myanmar and Thailand have fewer than one doctor for every 1,000 people.
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“The objective is that you can run essential services with the greatest amount of security. Make sure functional units have redundancy built in, and are separate from each other. It depends on what you feel is sufficient to carry on services if one team is affected, factoring in rest periods and some system of rotation,” said Chia Shi-Lu, an orthopaedic surgeon.
The key is to ensure a good doctor-to-patient ratio and ensure there are enough specialists for the critical work, such as doctors and nurses who can provide intensive care, and know how to operate mechanical ventilators or machines to pump and oxygenate a patient’s blood outside the body.
At the emergency department where paediatrics emergency specialist Jade Kua treats Covid-19 cases in addition to regular emergencies, doctors are split into four teams of 21. Each team takes alternate 12-hour shifts and does not interact with other teams.
“We are in modular teams so the teams move together. So you and I would both do morning, off, night, off, morning off. Together. And then the other teams would do the same and we don’t intermingle,” said Kua.
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Chia, who works at the Singapore General Hospital, said doctors had been split up according to their functions.
“We try not to meet at all with the other teams as much as possible. We’ll just say hi from across the corridor. Meals are the same. All our cafeterias and everything have got social distancing spaced in already,” said Chia, who is also a member of parliament and chairs a shadow committee on health.
Chia said the health care system could also tap on doctors in the private sector.
Not every country has a plan like this. Last year’s Global Health Security Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 70 per cent of 195 countries scored poorly when it came to having a national plan for dealing with epidemics or pandemics. Almost three in 10 had failed to identify which areas were insufficiently staffed. In India, with a population of 1.3 billion, only about 20,000 doctors are trained in key areas such as critical care, emergency medicine and pulmonology.
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In contrast, Singapore published its first Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response Plan in June 2005 and has since honed it to a tee. Hospitals regularly war-game scenarios such as pandemics or terrorist attacks and the simulations are sometimes observed by the Ministry of Health, which grades the performance and recommends areas for improvement.
The plan also covers the need to stockpile equipment to avoid the sort of shortages many countries are now facing, another lesson inspired by Sars when masks, gloves and gowns were in short supply.
In a pandemic preparation paper published in 2008, Singapore public health specialist Jeffery Cutter wrote that Singapore’s stockpile was sufficient to cover at least 5 to 6 months’ use by all front-line health care workers.
During the Covid-19 outbreak, it has also told citizens to not wear masks so it can conserve supply for medical staff.
Having enough protective gear has reassured Singapore’s health care workers such as Kua, a mother of six who blogged about her experience fighting Covid-19. Kua said: “I’m safe and my family is safe.”
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SOMETHING YOU CAN’T GUARD AGAINST
Despite the many positives to emerge from the Lion City, its health care workers are struggling with another problem: discrimination.
While in France, Italy and Britain, residents cheer health care workers from their windows, in Singapore health care workers are seen by some people as disease carriers.
“I try not to wear my uniform home because you never know what kind of incidents you may encounter,” said one Singapore nurse. “The public is scared and wearing our uniforms actually causes quite a bit of inconvenience. One of my staff tried to book a private-hire car to the hospital for an emergency and she was rejected by five drivers.”
There is a similar stigma in India, where the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has appealed to the government for help after health workers were forced out of their homes by panicked landlords and housing societies.
“Many doctors are stranded on the roads with all their luggage, nowhere to go, across the country,” the institute said in a letter.
Lim, from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, said the worst human impulses and “every man for himself” attitudes could emerge in crises and “that is exactly why governments have to step in”.
Discrimination could affect both the performance and motivation of health care workers, Lim warned.
Meanwhile, when health care workers are infected, it creates a “triple whammy” threat.
“It means one fewer professional in an already-strained system, another patient to care for and, potentially, a team of colleagues who need to be quarantined,” said Lim.
“We must do everything possible to keep our health care workforce safe and free from Covid-19.” ■
Anyone caught breaking Singapore’s social distancing rules could be jailed from Friday, as the city state ramped up its coronavirus defence and announced the introduction of distance learning for schools.
Under updates to its powerful infectious diseases law, anyone who intentionally sits less than 1 metre away from another person in a public place or on a fixed seat demarcated as not to be occupied, or who stands in a queue less than a metre away from another, will be guilty of an offence.
Offenders can be fined up to S$10,000 (US$6,990), jailed for up to six months, or both. The rules, in place until April 30, can be applied to individuals and businesses.
The news was followed later by an announcement from the education ministry that starting from April, schools will start conducting one day of home-based learning for students per week.
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“The recent spike in imported cases signals a new phase in our nation’s fight against Covid-19. To support further safe distancing, schools will progressively transit to a blended learning model, starting with one day of home-based learning a week,” the ministry said in a statement.
It added schools will remain open for students whose parents are not able to secure alternative childcare arrangements.
Hundreds of thousands of students in Singapore returned to class on Monday after a week of school holidays, despite growing calls for schools to be closed.
Singapore is one of the few jurisdictions in the region that has yet to suspend schools, unlike Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Education Minister Ong Ye Kung had earlier cited scientific evidence, saying that the pneumonia-like Covid-19 illness does not affect the young as much as adults.
Authorities in the city state, however, have said that suspending schools and closing workplaces are among the next steps to be taken should the situation worsen. Singapore has confirmed 683 cases so far, of which 172 have recovered and two died.
Global condom shortage looms amid virus lockdowns
A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world’s biggest producer said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production.
Malaysia’s Karex makes one in every five condoms globally. It has not produced a single condom from its three Malaysian factories in the past 10 days because of the lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus.
That’s already a shortfall of 100 million condoms, normally marketed internationally by brands such as Durex, supplied to state health care systems such as Britain’s NHS or distributed by aid programmes such as the UN Population Fund.
“We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” Karex Chief Executive Goh Miah Kiat said this week.
“My concern is that for a lot of humanitarian programmes deep down in Africa, the shortage will not just be two weeks or a month. That shortage can run into months.”
The other major condom-producing countries are China, where the coronavirus led to widespread factory shutdowns, and India and Thailand, which are seeing infections spiking only now.
Goh said Karex was in the process of appealing to the government for an exemption to operate under specific conditions. Malaysia is approving other essential goods producers to operate with half of their workforce.
“The good thing is that the demand for condoms is still very strong because like it or not, it’s still an essential to have,” Goh said. “Given that at this point in time people are probably not planning to have children. It’s not the time, with so much uncertainty.”
China to ban most foreign arrivals
China has banned most foreigners from entering the country in an effort to block the spread of the coronavirus through imported cases.
With several exceptions, including transit visas and foreigners arriving via Hong Kong and Macau with short-term entry permits, entry visas issued to foreigners will be suspended as an “interim measure”, according to a statement late on Thursday by the country’s foreign ministry.
“In view of the rapid spread of the new coronavirus epidemic worldwide, China has decided to temporarily suspend entry of foreigners with currently valid visas and residence permits in China,” the ministry said.
“This is an interim measure that China has to take in order to respond to the current epidemic situation, with reference to the practice of many countries,” it added. “The Chinese side will adjust the above measures according to the epidemic situation through separate announcements.”
Pakistan aid workers lack basic kit
Pakistan’s biggest charity, famous for its emergency services for the poor, is kitting staff out in raincoats and rubber boots in the battle against the coronavirus as it can’t get hold of proper personal protective equipment, the organisation says.
Pakistan has reported the highest number of coronavirus infections in South Asia, with 1,179 cases and nine deaths, but health experts say there is a lack of public awareness about the virus and the cash-strapped government is ill-prepared to tackle it.
The Edhi Foundation has for decades stepped in to help when government services fail communities and it runs the country’s largest ambulance service.
Now it has had to train dozens of staff on how to handle suspected coronavirus patients. But providing them with proper protection is a problem given a nationwide shortage of the equipment.
“We’ve compromised on certain things and use alternatives,” Facial Edhi, head of the Edhi Foundation, said at his office in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, on Thursday.
“Full aprons are in short supply in the market.”
He said he was confident the raincoats would work just as well.
South Korea pleads with residents to stay indoors
Authorities in South Korea pleaded with residents on Friday to stay indoors and avoid large gatherings as new coronavirus cases hovered close to 100 per day.
South Korea reported 91 new infections on Friday, taking the national tally to 9,332, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said. The country has reported similar daily numbers for the past two weeks, down from a high of over 900 in late February.
The government has sought to convince a restless public that several more weeks of social distancing and self-isolation may be needed to allow health authorities to tamp down the smaller but still steady stream of new cases.
“As the weather is getting nicer, I know many of you may have plans to go outside,” said Yoon Tae-ho, director general for public health policy at the health ministry. “But social distancing cannot be successful when it’s only an individual, it needs to be the whole community.”
Coronavirus: California officials alarmed by rate of infection
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Italy reports 662 new deaths, with uptick in new cases
Italy is reporting an uptick in new novel coronavirus infections, after four consecutive days in which new cases had decreased.
The country now has 62,013 active cases, a daily increase of 4,492, the Italian Civil Protection Agency said in its bulletin.
On Wednesday the daily variation was 3,491, on Tuesday 3,612, on Monday 3,780, on Sunday 3,957, and on Saturday a record 4,821.
There are also 662 new fatalities, bringing the total death toll to 8,165, while overall infections, including deaths and recoveries, have risen to 80,539, a daily increase of 8.3 per cent.
Recoveries are up by around 11 per cent to 10,361, while the number of intensive care patients – a closely watched figure given the shortage of hospital beds – has risen by 3.5 per cent, to 3,612.
Russia closes all restaurants nationwide
Russia is temporarily closing restaurants nationwide for a nine-day period starting on Saturday to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Restaurants will still be able to provide delivery services during that time, according to the decree by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, published on his website on Friday.
Russia has reported more than 800 cases of coronavirus, predominantly in Moscow, which has seen at least two virus-related deaths. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has warned that the actual number of cases is probably “significantly more”.
The country has already prohibited regular international flights, and imposed strict quarantine measures for anyone entering the country and anyone who could have been exposed to someone infected with the virus – though has not yet opted to impose lockdown measures like those seen elsewhere.
Coronavirus containment measures spark prison protests across Italy as nation goes into lockdown
First casualty in Kenya
Kenya has recorded its first coronavirus death as a rapid rise in confirmed cases puts Africa’s fragile health systems to the test.
Kenyan Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said a 66-year-old Kenyan man died on Thursday afternoon despite treatment in an intensive care unit.
Kagwe said the man, who arrived into the country on March 13 from South Africa via Swaziland, was a diabetic. Also on Thursday, three women aged between 30 and 61 tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, taking the country’s total to 31.
Kenya is the second country in East Africa and the 15th on the continent to confirm a coronavirus-related death. Algeria has the highest death toll in Africa with 25 fatalities, while Egypt has reported 24 and Morocco 11.
About a week ago, the continent of 54 countries had reported fewer than 300 cases. But by Friday Africa had 3,221 confirmed cases and 87 deaths. WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said on Thursday that the situation in Africa was “evolving very quickly in terms of geographic spread and the increasing number of cases”.
Australian military to enforce quarantine
The Australian military will help enforce the quarantine of travellers returning to the country, with the prime minister unveiling strict new measures and door-to-door checks on Friday to rein in the spread of Covid-19.
With some two-thirds of Australia’s 3,000 Covid-19 cases still linked to overseas travel, Scott Morrison said 14-day home quarantines would now be actively policed with the help of the military.
Thousands of citizens and residents are still arriving in Australia every day and there have been instances of return travellers repeatedly breaking a promise to stay at home.
Morrison said all returnees arriving after midnight Saturday would now be kept in hotels in the city of arrival for the duration of their quarantine.
Those already on Australian soil and under orders to self-quarantine for two weeks will face active checks, he said.
Quarantine measures will be getting “a lot tougher and a lot stricter,” Morrison said, adding the Australian Defence Force would “assist in the compliance with these arrangements.”
Afghanistan to release 10,000 prisoners
Afghanistan will release at least 10,000 prisoners over the age of 55 in an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, officials said on Thursday.
“The president has issued a decree that several thousand prisoners will be released soon due to coronavirus,” an official in President Ashraf Ghani’s office said.
Those released will not include members of Islamist militant groups the Taliban or Islamic State, and the process will be completed within 10 days, said two government officials.
Afghanistan has reported 91 cases of coronavirus and three deaths. The country’s western Herat province has recorded at least 54 of the 75 total cases reported in the last week.
International aid groups in recent weeks have raised concerns about the possibility of the coronavirus spreading in prisons across Afghanistan.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
Coronavirus: Chinese workers in Vietnam cry foul after being fired by Taiwanese firm making shoes for Nike, Adidas
A group of 150 Chinese workers believe the world’s largest maker of trainers used the coronavirus as an excuse to fire them, having helped Taiwanese firm Pou Chen successfully expand its production into Vietnam for more than a decade.
Pou Chen, which makes footwear for the likes of Nike and Adidas, informed the group in late April that they would no longer be needed as they were unable to return to
from their hometowns in China due to the coronavirus lockdowns.
“We 150 employees were the first batch of Chinese employees to be laid off this year. We are all pessimistic and expect more will be cut,” added Zhang.
In its email on April 27, Pou Chen said it was forced to terminate the contracts of the Chinese employees across five of its factories due to an unprecedented decline in orders and financial losses.
The Chinese employees, many of whom have been working for the shoemaker for decades, said the compensation offered was unfair and below the levels required by labour law in both Vietnam and China.
“[The dismissals were] in accordance with the relevant labour laws of the country of employment … and employee labour contracts,” added the statement from Pou Chen, which employs around 350,000 people worldwide.
Company data showed Pou Chen’s first quarter revenues tumbled 22.4 per cent year-on-year to NT$59.46 billion (US$1.99 billion), the weakest in six years.
With the likes of Nike and Adidas closing retail stores around the world to comply with social distancing requirements, analysts also said orders plummeted 50 per cent in the second quarter, although the company declined to comment on the media reports.
Andy Zeng, who had worked for the firm since 1995, said the group were “very upset” when they received the news last month as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic began to reverberate around the world, disrupting global value chains.
“Most of us joined Pou Chen in the 1990s when we were in our late teens or early 20s, when the Taiwan-invested company started investing and setting up factories in mainland China. Now more than two decades have passed,” he said.
Zeng was among the first generation of skilled workers in China as Pou Chen developed rapidly, enjoying the benefits of cheap labour, although the workers themselves were rewarded with regular pay rises.
The company needed a group of skilled Chinese workers to go to its new factories in Vietnam. I said yes because I thought it was a good opportunity to see the outside world – Andy Zeng
What our Chinese employees have done in Vietnam for more than a decade can be said to be very simple but very difficult – Dave Zhang
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