Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
US$2 trillion rescue package passes US Senate, heads to House
Malaysia’s king and queen in ‘self-quarantine’ after staff test positive
Police commandos in Sri Lanka hand out food to homeless people during a nationwide curfew against the spread of coronavirus. Photo: AFP
More than three billion people are living under lockdown measures as soaring death tolls in Europe and the US underlined a United Nations warning that the coronavirus, which has now infected nearly half a million people globally, threatens all of humanity.
The global death toll from the virus now stands at more than 21,000, with Spain joining Italy in seeing its number of fatalities overtake China, where the virus first emerged just three months ago.
“Covid-19 is threatening the whole of humanity – and the whole of humanity must fight back,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, launching an appeal for US$2 billion to help the world’s poor.
“Global action and solidarity are crucial. Individual country responses are not going to be enough.”
The G20 major economies will hold an emergency videoconference on Thursday to discuss a global response to the crisis, as will the 27 leaders of the European Union, the outbreak’s new epicentre.
The economic damage of the virus – and the lockdowns – could also be devastating, with fears of a worldwide recession worse than the financial meltdown more than a decade ago.
Here are the developments:
US$2 trillion rescue package passes US Senate
The US Senate passed the nation’s largest-ever rescue package late Wednesday, a US$2 trillion lifeline to suffering Americans, depleted hospitals and an economy all ravaged by a rapidly spreading coronavirus crisis.
The monster deal thrashed out between Republicans, Democrats and the White House includes cash payments to American taxpayers and several hundred billion dollars in grants and loans to small businesses and core industries. It also buttresses hospitals desperately in need of medical equipment and expands unemployment benefits.
The measure cleared the Senate by an overwhelming majority and was headed next to the House of Representatives, which must also pass it before it goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.
US President Donald Trump has voiced hope the US will be “raring to go” by mid-April, but his optimism appeared to stand almost alone among world leaders.
Unemployment benefit filings by Americans workers to surge to 3.3 million last week – the highest number ever recorded, the Labour Department reported on Thursday.
The normally routine report is at the front lines of the economic crisis caused by the outbreak, which has forced widespread closures of restaurants, shops and hotels, and brought airline travel to a virtual halt, prompting the stunning increase in people filing for benefits nationwide in the week ending March 21.
Nearly every state cited Covid-19 for the jump in initial jobless claims, with heavy impacts in food services, accommodation, entertainment and recreation, health care and transport, the report said.
Malaysia’s king and queen in quarantine after staff test positive
The official residence of Malaysia’s monarchy on Thursday confirmed seven of its staff have tested positive for Covid-19 and are currently receiving treatment at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
Malaysia’s king, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah and queen, Tunku Azizah, have also been tested, but their results showed a clean bill of health, a spokesman for the Istana Negara said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, Their Majesties are now observing a 14-day self-quarantine, starting yesterday, ” he said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, along with all federal ministers and their deputies, announced they will take a two-month pay cut, with the savings to be donated to Putrajaya’s Covid-19 fund.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the decision was made during a cabinet meeting and showed the government’s sincerity in helping those affected by the pandemic.
“The Covid-19 fund was launched on March 11 as part of the government’s efforts to help those who were affected by the disease outbreak,” the office said, adding that 8.5 million ringgit (US$1.97 million) has been collected, including government grants.
Malaysia on Wednesday announced a two-week extension of a national lockdown as part of stepped-up measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
The “movement control order,” which requires people to stay home and was originally set to expire on March 31, will now continue until April 14.
Moscow monitors people in coronavirus quarantine with 100,000 ‘under the skin’ surveillance cameras
Russia to ground international flights
Russia will halt all international flights from midnight on Friday under a government decree listing new measures against the coronavirus outbreak.
The decree published on Thursday orders aviation authorities to halt all regular and charter flights, with the exception of special flights evacuating Russian citizens from abroad.
The announcement came after Russia on Wednesday recorded its biggest daily spike in confirmed coronavirus infections so far, with 163 new cases for a total of 658 across the country.
Denis Protsenko, head doctor of Moscow’s new hospital treating coronavirus patients, told President Vladimir Putin that Russia needed to be ready for an “Italian scenario”, referring to what is now the hardest-hit country in the world in terms of deaths.
Singapore boosts stimulus package to 11 per cent of GDP
Singapore reported 52 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking its tally to 683 infections.
The health ministry said that out of the 52, 28 were imported while 24 were locally transmitted.
Drawing on national reserves for the first time since the global financial crisis to support an economy heading for recession, the additional spending will push up the government’s virus-related relief to almost S$55 billion, or 11 per cent of gross domestic product, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said in a speech in parliament Thursday. It also will widen the budget deficit for the financial year starting April 1 to 7.9 per cent of GDP, from a previous target of 2.1 per cent.
“This extraordinary situation calls for extraordinary measures,” Heng said. “We have saved up for a rainy day. The Covid-19 pandemic is already a mighty storm, and is still growing.”
Coronavirus: Italy’s slowing infection rate boosts case for lockdowns
26 Mar 2020
‘If you catch it, don’t spread it to others’, 1949 flu advice still applies to coronavirus pandemic
Imported cases rise in China
Mainland China reported a second consecutive day of no new local coronavirus infections as the epicentre of the epidemic Hubei province opened its borders, but imported cases rose as Beijing ramped up controls to prevent a resurgence of infections.
A total of 67 new cases were reported as of end-Wednesday, up from 47 a day earlier, all of which were imported, China’s National Health Commission said in a statement on Thursday.
The total number of cases now stands at 81,285.
The commission reported a total of 3,287 deaths at the end of Wednesday, up six from the previous day.
All of the new patients were travellers who came to China from overseas, with the mainland reporting no locally transmitted infections on Wednesday.
Fearing a new wave of infections from imported cases, authorities have ramped up quarantine and screening measures in other major cities including Beijing, where any travellers arriving from overseas must submit to centralised quarantine.
Coronavirus could become seasonal
There is a strong chance the new coronavirus could return in seasonal cycles, a senior US scientist said Wednesday, underscoring the urgent need to find a vaccine and effective treatments.
Anthony Fauci, who leads research into infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told a briefing the virus was beginning to take root in the southern hemisphere, where winter is on its way.
“What we’re starting to see now … in southern Africa and in the southern hemisphere countries, is that we’re having cases that are appearing as they go into their winter season,” he said.
“And if, in fact, they have a substantial outbreak, it will be inevitable that we need to be prepared that we’ll get a cycle around the second time.
“It totally emphasises the need to do what we’re doing in developing a vaccine, testing it quickly and trying to get it ready so that we’ll have a vaccine available for that next cycle.”
There are currently two vaccines that have entered human trials -one in the US and one in China – and they could be a year to a year-and-a-half away from deployment.
British Columbia is testing for Covid-19 faster per head than South Korea
27 Mar 2020
Spain extends emergency by two weeks
Spain’s parliament has voted in favour of the government’s request to extend the state of emergency by two weeks that has allowed it to apply a national lockdown in hopes of stemming its coronavirus outbreak.
The parliamentary endorsement will allow the government to extend the strict stay-at-home rules and business closings for a full month. The government declared a state of emergency on March 14. It will now last until April 11.
Spain’s government solicited the two-week extension after deaths and infections from the Covid-19 virus have skyrocketed in recent days. Spain 47,600 total cases. Its 3,434 deaths only trail Italy’s death toll as the hardest-hit countries in the world.
The parliament met with fewer than 50 of its 350 members in the chamber, with the rest voting from home to reduce the risk of contagion.
Greece locks down Muslim towns
Greek authorities have quarantined a cluster of Muslim-majority towns and villages in the country’s northeast after several cases and a death from the new coronavirus in the area.
The area in Xanthi prefecture was placed in lockdown as of Wednesday evening as nine people in the region overall have tested positive for the virus over the past six days, civil protection deputy minister Nikos Hardalias told reporters.
“All residents have been temporarily confined at home. No exceptions are allowed,” Hardalias said.
The centre of the outbreak appears to be the small Pomak town of Ehinos, a community of about 2,500.
“Ehinos residents will be provided with food and medicine,” Hardalias said.
Police were deployed on Thursday on a bridge leading into town to enforce the lockdown, television footage showed.
One 72-year-old Ehinos man has died from the virus, local mayor Ridvan Deli Huseyin told Antenna television.
“It’s better to take some measures now than to cry about this later,” said Huseyin, the mayor of the local administrative centre of Miki.
The Pomaks are a Muslim group of Slavic origin who live mainly in neighbouring Bulgaria.
They make up part of Greece’s roughly 110,000-strong Muslim minority in the country’s northeast bordering Turkey.
Many of them work as migrant industrial workers in other European countries.
Economy seats go for business-class fares as travellers flee
27 Mar 2020
Colombia goes into lockdown, Chile extends schools closures
Countries across Latin America tightened measures on Wednesday to halt the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus, with more lockdowns, border closings and school closures as well as increased aid to the region’s poorest.
As cases of Covid-19 cases continue to rise – more than 7,400 and 123 deaths up to now – Bolivia and Colombia became the latest countries to impose a total lockdown, while Chile extended its schools closures until the end of April.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has warned of possible “chaos” and the “looting” of supermarkets if state shutdowns ordered by the governors of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro aren’t ended.
Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly scoffed at the severity of the deadly pandemic, had previously criticised the closing of schools and businesses in Sao Paulo and Rio states, two of the country’s most populous states.
Germany ramps up testing, approves huge bailout
Germany has boosted its coronavirus test rate to 500,000 a week, Christian Drosten, who heads the Institute of Virology at Berlin’s Charite University Hospital, said on Thursday, adding that early detection has been key in keeping the country’s death rate relatively low.
Drosten also highlighted Germany’s dense network of laboratories spread across its territory as a factor contributing to early detection.
The news came after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government secured emergency spending, unlocking a historic rescue package designed to cushion the blow of the coronavirus pandemic.
A majority of lawmakers in the Bundestag voted on Wednesday to allow additional borrowing to combat the crisis, according to the legislature’s president. The Bundesrat, or upper house of parliament, will vote on Friday.
The extraordinary authorisation is part of a packet of legislation aimed at protecting German jobs and businesses. The new borrowing of €€156 billion (US$169 billion) is equivalent to half of the country’s normal annual spending.
The country, which tightened lockdown measures this week, has about 32,700 cases and more than 150 deaths.
Trump and Widodo back chloroquine treatment, but fake news is deadly
25 Mar 2020
Ukraine declares ‘emergency situation’
Ukraine on Wednesday declared a month-long “emergency situation” to slow the coronavirus outbreak, as the number of confirmed cases jumped to 113.
Ukraine has already closed schools, universities and public spaces to stem the spread of the disease, but the measures were due to expire at the beginning of April.
The emergency situation announced on Wednesday effectively extends existing measures for 30 days until April 24, a government spokesperson said.
“We are extending quarantine and imposing an emergency situation in Ukraine,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said.
Unlike an official state of emergency, the initiative announced by the prime minister does not have to be rubber stamped by both the parliament and president. Ukraine has confirmed 113 cases of Covid-19 and four deaths, according to official statistics.
Prince Charles tests positive for coronavirus
Mexican governor says poor are ‘immune’
The governor of a state in central Mexico is arguing that the poor are “immune” to the new coronavirus, even as the federal government suspends all non-essential government activities beginning Thursday in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.
Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa’s comment on Wednesday was apparently partly a response to indications that the wealthy have made up a significant percentage of Mexicans infected to date, including some prominent business executives.
Officials say three-quarters of Mexico’s 475 confirmed cases are related to international travel, and the poor do not make many international trips. Some people apparently caught the virus on ski trips to Italy or the United States. The country has seen six deaths so far.
“The majority are wealthy people. If you are rich, you are at risk. If you are poor, no,” Barbosa said of the coronavirus. “We poor people, we are immune.”
Barbosa also appeared to be playing on an old stereotype held by some Mexicans that poor sanitation standards may have strengthened their immune systems by exposing them to bacteria or other bugs.
There is no scientific evidence to suggest the poor are in any way immune to the virus that is causing Covid-19 disease around the world.
No agreement on ‘Wuhan virus’ name as G7 spars over infection source
26 Mar 2020
Japan belatedly bans entry from Europe, Iran
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has established a task force under the country’s revised emergency law to deal with the global rise in coronavirus infections and deaths.
In Tokyo on Thursday, Abe said it was necessary for people to act as one to overcome what can be described as a national crisis.
Japan will ban entry from 21 European countries as well as Iran, to take effect from Friday, he added.
The country has already begun asking visitors and its nationals arriving from some countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Arrivals from a total of seven Southeast Asian countries and four in the Middle East and Africa are also asked to refrain from using public transport.
Similar steps are in place for visitors from China, South Korea, most of Europe and the United States.
Malaysia to lock down two communities to curb spread
Malaysia on Thursday announced that 3,570 residents in two communities in the country’s south will be placed under complete lockdown due to their high coronavirus infection rates.
Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said in a statement that the residents in Kluang district of Johor state are banned from leaving home for two weeks beginning Friday, to enable the health authorities to conduct door-to-door screening.
The tough measure was taken after 73 per cent of the 83 infection cases found in the district were traced to the two small communities of Kampung Dato Ibrahim Majid and Bandar Baru Dato Ibrahim Majid.
Ismail said the residents cannot leave home, not even to buy food, as the welfare department will supply them with two weeks’ worth of food. All businesses must close and all access into the two areas will be sealed. The police and army have been deployed to ensure compliance.
The Australian government scrapped a time limit on haircuts following a backlash.
The government had imposed a rule on hairdressers and barbers on Tuesday that haircuts should take less than 30 minutes, as part of social distancing restrictions to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
The restriction put around 40,000 hairdressers at risk, the Australian Hairdressing Council said in response.
“This decision is outrageous,” the council’s chief executive Sandy Chong said in a statement.
“Whilst many barbers can do a male haircut within that time frame, it really isn’t feasible for a majority of hairdressing salons.”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a statement Thursday saying the policy would be reversed with immediate effect.
But salons and barbers must still strictly observe new rules that there may only be one person per four square metres within the premises, Morrison said.
India unveils US$22.6 billion stimulus package
India’s government announced a 1.7 trillion rupee (US$22.6 billion) stimulus package, as it stepped up its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The measures will include cash transfers as well as steps on food security, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in New Delhi on Thursday, adding that the package will benefit migrant workers.
Asia’s third-largest economy joins countries from the US to Germany that have pledged spending to contain the economic fallout of the pandemic. India is on a total lockdown for three weeks from Wednesday in the world’s biggest isolation effort, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to prevent the virus from spreading locally.
The government will also provide an insurance cover of 5 million rupees to medical workers, Sitharaman said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The Netherlands has been among the countries reporting faulty Chinese-made equipment
A number of European governments have rejected Chinese-made equipment designed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
Thousands of testing kits and medical masks are below standard or defective, according to authorities in Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands.
Europe has reported hundreds of thousands of cases of coronavirus.
More than 10,000 people have died in Italy since the outbreak began.
The virus was first detected in China at the end of 2019. The government implemented strict lockdown measures to bring it under control.
What’s wrong with the equipment?
On Saturday, the Dutch health ministry announced it had recalled 600,000 face masks. The equipment had arrived from a Chinese manufacturer on 21 March, and had already been distributed to front-line medical teams.
Dutch officials said that the masks did not fit and that their filters did not work as intended, even though they had a quality certificate,
“The rest of the shipment was immediately put on hold and has not been distributed,” a statement read. “Now it has been decided not to use any of this shipment.”
Spain’s government encountered similar problems with testing kits ordered from a Chinese company.
It announced it had bought hundreds of thousands of tests to combat the virus, but revealed in the following days that nearly 60,000 could not accurately determine if a patient had the virus.
The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that the company behind the kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology, did not have an official license from Chinese medical authorities to sell its products.
It clarified that separate material donated by the Chinese government and technology and retail group Alibaba did not include products from Shenzhen Bioeasy.
Turkey also announced that it had found some testing kits ordered from Chinese companies were not sufficiently accurate, although it said that some 350,000 of the tests worked well.
Allegations of defective equipment come after critics warned China could be using the coronavirus outbreak to further its influence.
“China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the US, it is a responsible and reliable partner,” he wrote. “Armed with facts, we need to defend Europe against its detractors.”
What’s the situation in Europe?
On Monday, Spain reported 812 new deaths in the space of 24 hours – bringing its total death toll to 7,340. It now has more than 85,000 infections – surpassing the number of cases reported in China.
Media caption Spanish doctor “scared and exhausted” by pandemic
New measures have also come into force in Spain banning all non-essential workers from going to their jobs. The restrictions will be in place for at least two weeks.
Italy remains the worst affected country worldwide. More than 10,000 people have died from the virus there, and it has recorded nearly 100,000 infections. Only the US has more confirmed cases, although the death toll there is far lower.
US death toll passes 3,000 as New York’s hospitals are pushed to breaking point
Italy extends lockdown as cases exceed 100,000; UN Security Council votes by email for first time
The USNS Comfort passes the Statue of Liberty as it enters New York Harbour on Monday. Photo: Reuters
Harsh lockdowns aimed at halting the march of the coronavirus pandemic extended worldwide Monday as the death toll soared toward 37,000 amid new waves of US outbreaks.
The tough measures that have confined some two-fifths of the globe’s population to their homes were broadened. Moscow and Lagos joined the roll call of cities around the globe with eerily empty streets, while Virginia and Maryland became the latest US states to announce emergency stay-at-home orders, followed quickly by the capital city Washington.
In a symbol of the scale of the challenge facing humanity, a US military medical ship sailed into New York to relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals bracing for the peak of the pandemic.
France reported its highest daily number of deaths since the outbreak began, saying 418 more people had succumbed in hospital.
Spain, which announced another 812 virus deaths in 24 hours, joined the United States and Italy in surpassing the number of cases in China, where the disease was first detected in December.
On Tuesday, mainland China reported a rise in new confirmed coronavirus cases, reversing four days of declines, due to an uptick in infections involving travellers arriving from overseas.
Mainland China had 48 new cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, up from 31 new infections a day earlier.
All of the 48 cases were imported, bringing the total number of imported cases in China to 771 as of Monday.
There was no reported new case of local infection on Monday, according to the National Health Commission. The total number of infections reported in mainland China stood at 81,518 and the death toll at 3,305. Globally, more than 760,000 have been infected, according to official figures.
Here are the developments:
Hospital ship arrives in New York
New York’s governor issued an urgent appeal for medical volunteers Monday amid a “staggering” number of deaths from the coronavirus, saying: “Please come help us in New York, now.”
The plea from Governor Andrew Cuomo came as the death toll in New York State climbed past 1,200 – with most of the victims in the big city – and authorities warned that the crisis pushing New York’s hospitals to the breaking point is just a preview of what other cities across the US could soon face.
Cuomo said the city needs 1 million additional health care workers.
“We’ve lost over 1,000 New Yorkers,” he said. “To me, we’re beyond staggering already. We’ve reached staggering.”
The governor’s plea came as a 1,000-bed US Navy hospital ship docked in Manhattan on Monday and a field hospital was going up in Central Park for coronavirus patients.
New York City reported 914 deaths from the virus as of 4:30pm local time Monday, a 16 per cent increase from an update six hours earlier. The city, the epicentre of the US outbreak, has 38,087 confirmed cases, up by more than 1,800 from earlier in the day.
Coronavirus field hospital set up in New York’s Central Park as city’s health crisis deepens
Gloom for 24 million people in Asia
The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will prevent almost 24 million people from escaping poverty in East Asia and the Pacific this year, according to the World Bank.
In a report released on Monday, the Washington-based lender also warned of “substantially higher risk” among households that depend on industries particularly vulnerable to the impact of Covid-19. These include tourism in Thailand and the Pacific islands; manufacturing in Vietnam and Cambodia; and among people dependent on “informal labour” in all countries.
The World Bank urged the region to invest in expanding conventional health care and medical equipment factories, as well as taking innovative measures like converting ordinary hospital beds for ICU use and rapidly trining people to work in basic care.
Billionaire blasted for his Instagram-perfect isolation on luxury yacht
31 Mar 2020
Indonesia bans entry of foreigners
Indonesia barred foreign nationals from entering the country as the world’s fourth-most populous country stepped up efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The travel ban, to be effective soon, will also cover foreigners transiting through the country, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said after a cabinet meeting in Jakarta Tuesday. The curbs will not apply to holders of work permits, diplomats and other official visitors, she said.
The curbs on foreign citizens is the latest in a raft of measures taken by Indonesia to combat the deadly virus that’s sickened more than 1,400 people and killed 122. President Joko Widodo’s administration previously banned flights to and from mainland China and some of the virus-hit regions in Italy, South Korea and Iran. The president on Monday ordered stricter implementation of social distancing and health quarantine amid calls for a lockdown to contain the pandemic.
Indonesia has highest coronavirus mortality rate in Southeast Asia
First US service member dies
The first US military service member has died from the coronavirus, the Pentagon said on Monday, as it reported another sharp hike in the number of infected troops.
The Pentagon said it was a New Jersey Army National Guardsman who had tested positive for Covid-19 and had been hospitalised since March 21. He died on Saturday, it said.
Earlier on Monday, the Pentagon said that 568 troops had tested positive for the coronavirus, up from 280 on Thursday. More than 450 Defence Department civilians, contractors and dependents have also tested positive, it said.
US military has decided to stop providing more granular data about coronavirus infections within its ranks, citing concern that the information might be used by adversaries as the virus spreads.
The new policy, which the Pentagon detailed in a statement on Monday, appears to underscore US military concerns about the potential trajectory of the virus over the coming months – both at home and abroad.
School to resume in South Korea … online
South Korean children will start the new school year on April 9 with only online classes, after repeated delays due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the government said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Chung Sye Kyun said that despite the nation’s utmost efforts to contain the virus and lower the risk of infection, there is consensus among teachers and others that it is too early to let children go back to school.
The nation’s elementary schools, and junior and senior high schools were supposed to start the new academic year in early March, but the government has repeatedly postponed it to keep the virus from spreading among children.
The start was last postponed until April 6, but has now been delayed three more days to allow preparations to be made for online classes.
The nation now has 9,786 confirmed cases in total, with 162 deaths.
Italy extends lockdown as cases exceed 100,000
Italy’s government on Monday said it would extend its nationwide lockdown measures
against a coronavirus outbreak, due to end on Friday, at least until the Easter season in April.
The Health Ministry did not give a date for the new end of the lockdown, but said it would be in a law the government would propose. Easter Sunday is April 12 this year. Italy is predominantly Roman Catholic and contains the Vatican, the heart of the church.
Italians have been under lockdown for three weeks, with most shops, bars and restaurants shut and people forbidden from leaving their homes for all but non-essential needs.
Italy, which is the world’s hardest hit country in terms of number of deaths and accounts for more than a third of all global fatalities, saw its total death tally rise to 11,591 since the outbreak emerged in northern regions on February 21.
The death toll has risen by 812 in the last 24 hours, the Civil Protection Agency said, reversing two days of declines, although the number of new cases rose by just 4,050, the lowest increase since March 17, reaching a total of 101,739.
Deadliest day in Italy and Spain shows worst not over yet
28 Mar 2020
Women stand near the body of a man who died on the sidewalk in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Photo: Reuters
Ecuador struggles to collect the dead
Ecuadorean authorities said they would improve the collection of corpses, as delays related to the rapid spread of the new coronavirus has left families keeping their loved ones’ bodies in their homes for days in some cases.
Residents of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, have complained they have no way to dispose of relatives’ remains due to strict quarantine and curfew measures designed to prevent spread of the disease. Last week, authorities said they had removed 100 corpses from homes in Guayaquil.
But delays in collecting bodies in the Andean country, which has reported 1,966 cases of the virus and 62 deaths, were evident midday on Monday in downtown Guayaquil, where a man’s dead body lay on a sidewalk under a blue plastic sheet. Police said the man had collapsed while waiting in line to enter a store. Hours later, the body had been removed.
More than 70 per cent of the country’s coronavirus cases, which is among the highest tallies in Latin America, are in the southern province of Guayas, where Guayaquil is located.
Panama to restrict movement by gender
The government of Panama announced strict quarantine measures that separate citizens by gender in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
From Wednesday, men and women will only be able to leave their homes for two hours at a time, and on different days. Until now, quarantine regulations were not based on gender.
Men will be able to go to the supermarket or the pharmacy on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and women will be allowed out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
No one will be allowed to go out on Sundays. The new measures will last for 15 days.
Police in Kenya use tear gas to enforce coronavirus curfew
Remote vote first for UN Security Council
The UN Security Council on Monday for the first time approved resolutions remotely after painstaking negotiations among diplomats who are teleworking due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Security Council unanimously voted by email for four resolutions, including one that extended through April 2021 the expiring mandate of UN experts who are monitoring sanctions on North Korea, diplomats said.
The UN mission in Somalia was also prolonged, until the end of June, and the mission in Darfur until the end of May – two short periods decided due to uncertainty over the spread of the pandemic.
The Council also endorsed a fourth resolution aimed at improving the protection for peacekeepers.
The resolutions are the first approved by the Security Council since it began teleworking on March 12 and comes as Covid-19 rapidly spreads in New York, which has become the epicenter of the disease in the United States.
Congo ex-president dies in France
Former Republic of Congo president Jacques Joaquim Yhombi Opango died in France on Monday of the new coronavirus, his family said. He was 81.
Yhombi Opango, who led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, died at a Paris hospital of Covid-19, his son Jean-Jacques said. He had been ill before he contracted the virus.
Yhombi Opango was an army officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien Ngouabi.
Yhombi Opango was ousted by long-time ruler Denis Sassou Nguesso. Accused of taking part in a coup plot against Sassou Nguesso, Yhombi Opango was jailed from 1987 to 1990. He was released a few months before a 1991 national conference that introduced multiparty politics in the central African country.
When civil war broke out in Congo in 1997, Yhombi Opango fled into exile in France. He was finally able to return home in 2007, but then divided his time between France and Congo because of his health problems.
‘When I wake I cry’: France’s nurses face hell on coronavirus front line
31 Mar 2020
EU asks Britain to extend Brexit talks
The European Union expects Britain to seek an extension of its post-Brexit transition period beyond the end of the year, diplomats and officials said on Monday, as negotiations on trade have ground to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Europe has gone into a deep lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of the disease, with more than 330,000 infections reported on the continent and nearly 21,000 deaths.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his health minister have both tested positive for the virus and the prime minister’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings – one of the masterminds behind Britain’s departure from the EU earlier this year – was self-isolating with symptoms.
London and the EU have been seeking to agree a new trade pact by the end of the year to kick in from 2021, even though the bloc has long said that such a time frame was extremely short to agree rules on everything from trade to security to fisheries.
The pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the Giza pyramid complex. Photo: Reuters
Great Pyramid in Egypt lights up in solidarity
Egypt’s famed Great Pyramid was emblazoned Monday evening with messages of unity and solidarity with those battling the novel coronavirus the world over.
“Stay safe”, “Stay at home” and “Thank you to those keeping us safe,” flashed in blue and green lights across the towering structure at the Giza plateau, southwest of the capital Cairo.
Egypt has so far registered 656 Covid-19 cases, including 41 deaths. Of the total infected, 150 reportedly recovered.
Egypt has carried out sweeping disinfection operations at archaeological sites, museums and other sites across the country.
In tandem, strict social distancing measures were imposed to reduce the risk of contagion among the country’s 100 million inhabitants.
Tourist and religious sites are shuttered, schools are closed and air traffic halted.
Myanmar braces for ‘big outbreak’ after migrant worker exodus from Thailand
30 Mar 2020
Saudi king to pay for all patients’ treatment
Saudi Arabia will finance treatment for anyone infected with the coronavirus in the country, the health minister said on Monday.
The kingdom has registered eight deaths among 1,453 infections, the highest among the six Gulf Arab states.
Health Minister Tawfiq Al Rabiah said King Salman would cover treatment for citizens and residents diagnosed with the virus, urging people with symptoms to get tested.
“We are all in the same boat,” he told a news conference, adding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was overseeing containment efforts “night and day”.
Denmark eyes gradual reopening after Easter
Denmark may gradually lift a lockdown after Easter if the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths remain stable, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday.
The Nordic country, which has reported 77 coronavirus-related deaths, last week extended until after Easter a two-week lockdown to limit physical contact between its citizens that began on March 11.
The number of daily deaths slowed to five on Sunday from eight and 11 on Saturday and Friday respectively. Denmark has reported a total of 2,577 coronavirus infections.
“If we over the next two weeks across Easter keep standing together by staying apart, and if the numbers remain stable for the next two weeks, then the government will begin a gradual, quiet and controlled opening of our society again, at the other side of Easter,” Frederiksen said.
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.
Coronavirus: as Malaysia braces for third wave, doctors make their own face masks
27 Mar 2020
The case has come to widespread attention partly because the workers were wearing a mix of standard surgical masks and the N95 mask, which doctors see as the gold standard as it filters out 95 per cent of airborne particles.
The conclusion, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine this month, was this: “That none of the health care workers in this situation acquired infection suggests that surgical masks, hand hygiene, and other standard procedures protected them from being infected.”
Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande mentioned the case in an article for The New Yorker on how health care workers could continue seeing patients without becoming patients. He said there were things to learn from Asia and that some of the lessons came out of the “standard public health playbook”. In other words, there is much to be said for social distancing, basic hand hygiene and cleaning regimens.
A health worker in protective gear walks into a quarantine room at a hospital in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Photo: AFP
COMING TOGETHER
With critical supplies running short in many countries, experts say it is increasingly vital that countries share both knowledge and resources.
To this end, China has been donating personal protective equipment to places including the Philippines, Pakistan and Europe. China’s richest man Jack Ma is donating 1.8 million masks, 210,000 Covid-19 test kits and 36,000 pieces of protective clothing to 10 countries in Asia.
At the same time, doctors are encouraging the Western world to learn from Asia.
Infectious diseases expert Leong Hoe Nam said that being “bitten by Sars” (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003 had prepared Asia for Covid-19, while Western countries were not similarly prepared and hence lacked sufficient protective equipment.
He pointed to how about 2,000 health care workers had fallen sick in China early in the outbreak because workers did not initially have protective gear. The trend reversed as equipment became available.
“Once the defences were up, there were very few health care workers who fell sick at work. Rather, they fell sick from contact with sick individuals outside the workplace,” he said.
Malaysia is a case in point. While it has reported 80 health care workers falling ill, most are thought to be community infections.
Coronavirus: Doctor explains the proper way to wash your hands and put on a face mask
In a webinar organised by Caixin Global on Thursday night, Peng Zhiyong, an intensive care specialist at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, shared how they managed a shortage of personal protective equipment early on in the outbreak by rationing workers to two sets of gear per shift.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, doctors from Manila’s Chinese General Hospital held a video conference call with doctors in Zhejiang to learn from China’s experience of treating Covid-19 patients.
Crowdsourcing platforms have also been created to share advice. The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has released guidelines for treating critically ill patients and its website includes information from Chinese doctors.
Why Singapore’s coronavirus response worked – and what we can all learn
27 Mar 2020
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.
Coronavirus: Covid-19 could live on in Indonesia long after world recovers
22 Mar 2020
“The objective is that you can run essential services with the greatest amount of security. Make sure functional units have redundancy built in, and are separate from each other. It depends on what you feel is sufficient to carry on services if one team is affected, factoring in rest periods and some system of rotation,” said Chia Shi-Lu, an orthopaedic surgeon.
The key is to ensure a good doctor-to-patient ratio and ensure there are enough specialists for the critical work, such as doctors and nurses who can provide intensive care, and know how to operate mechanical ventilators or machines to pump and oxygenate a patient’s blood outside the body.
At the emergency department where paediatrics emergency specialist Jade Kua treats Covid-19 cases in addition to regular emergencies, doctors are split into four teams of 21. Each team takes alternate 12-hour shifts and does not interact with other teams.
“We are in modular teams so the teams move together. So you and I would both do morning, off, night, off, morning off. Together. And then the other teams would do the same and we don’t intermingle,” said Kua.
US now has world’s most coronavirus cases, surpassing China
Chia, who works at the Singapore General Hospital, said doctors had been split up according to their functions.
“We try not to meet at all with the other teams as much as possible. We’ll just say hi from across the corridor. Meals are the same. All our cafeterias and everything have got social distancing spaced in already,” said Chia, who is also a member of parliament and chairs a shadow committee on health.
Chia said the health care system could also tap on doctors in the private sector.
Not every country has a plan like this. Last year’s Global Health Security Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that 70 per cent of 195 countries scored poorly when it came to having a national plan for dealing with epidemics or pandemics. Almost three in 10 had failed to identify which areas were insufficiently staffed. In India, with a population of 1.3 billion, only about 20,000 doctors are trained in key areas such as critical care, emergency medicine and pulmonology.
Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan: the real coronavirus world leaders
19 Mar 2020
In contrast, Singapore published its first Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response Plan in June 2005 and has since honed it to a tee. Hospitals regularly war-game scenarios such as pandemics or terrorist attacks and the simulations are sometimes observed by the Ministry of Health, which grades the performance and recommends areas for improvement.
The plan also covers the need to stockpile equipment to avoid the sort of shortages many countries are now facing, another lesson inspired by Sars when masks, gloves and gowns were in short supply.
In a pandemic preparation paper published in 2008, Singapore public health specialist Jeffery Cutter wrote that Singapore’s stockpile was sufficient to cover at least 5 to 6 months’ use by all front-line health care workers.
During the Covid-19 outbreak, it has also told citizens to not wear masks so it can conserve supply for medical staff.
Having enough protective gear has reassured Singapore’s health care workers such as Kua, a mother of six who blogged about her experience fighting Covid-19. Kua said: “I’m safe and my family is safe.”
India’s poor hit hard by 21-day nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic
SOMETHING YOU CAN’T GUARD AGAINST
Despite the many positives to emerge from the Lion City, its health care workers are struggling with another problem: discrimination.
While in France, Italy and Britain, residents cheer health care workers from their windows, in Singapore health care workers are seen by some people as disease carriers.
“I try not to wear my uniform home because you never know what kind of incidents you may encounter,” said one Singapore nurse. “The public is scared and wearing our uniforms actually causes quite a bit of inconvenience. One of my staff tried to book a private-hire car to the hospital for an emergency and she was rejected by five drivers.”
There is a similar stigma in India, where the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has appealed to the government for help after health workers were forced out of their homes by panicked landlords and housing societies.
“Many doctors are stranded on the roads with all their luggage, nowhere to go, across the country,” the institute said in a letter.
Lim, from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, said the worst human impulses and “every man for himself” attitudes could emerge in crises and “that is exactly why governments have to step in”.
Discrimination could affect both the performance and motivation of health care workers, Lim warned.
Meanwhile, when health care workers are infected, it creates a “triple whammy” threat.
“It means one fewer professional in an already-strained system, another patient to care for and, potentially, a team of colleagues who need to be quarantined,” said Lim.
“We must do everything possible to keep our health care workforce safe and free from Covid-19.” ■
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.
Singapore’s new social distancing laws send needed signal, experts say
27 Mar 2020
“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
27 Mar 2020
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.
Giuseppe Remuzzi’s comments were seized on by Chinese state media amid the acrimonious row with the US, but he says the key question is how far Covid-19 had spread before it was identified
Academic says ‘strange pneumonias’ in Italy last November suggest it may have reached Europe before anyone knew what the disease was
Giuseppe Remuzzi told NPR there had been ‘strange pneumonias’ in Italy in November and December. Photo: Handout
The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 may have spread beyond China before the health authorities had even discovered the disease, according to the Italian professor who recently said there had been “very strange pneumonias” in Europe as early as November last year.
Remuzzi’s comments attracted much attention in China, where the authorities have been working hard to steer the international narrative about the pandemic, and stop people describing it as the “China virus” or “Wuhan virus” after the city where the disease was first identified.
In an interview with the Chinese science and technology news outlet DeepTech, which was published on Tuesday, Remuzzi said the key point in his NPR interview was not where the virus came from, but how far it had spread before it was discovered.
Coronavirus: Italy has a brief glimpse of hope as new cases drop to a five-day low
24 Mar 2020
He said a major question was how long the disease, which has so far infected more than 378,000 and killed over 16,500 people worldwide, had been spreading in China before health authorities realised its severity.
Taking into account the long incubation period, Remuzzi said he would not be surprised if some asymptomatic carriers had travelled around China or even abroad before December.
The professor also said that while it was possible it originated outside Wuhan, there had so far been no proof to support the theory.
As the outbreak gathered pace in the US, where it has now killed more than 500 people, Washington has escalated its rhetoric. President Donald Trump had repeatedly referred to it publicly as the “Chinese virus” until he changed tone on Monday and declined to use the phrase.
China, meanwhile, has described the rhetoric adopted by “certain US politicians and senior officials” as an attempt to defame and stigmatise China over the pandemic.
A number of Chinese state media outlets, including party mouthpiece People’s Daily and its tabloid affiliate Global Times, seized on Remuzzi’s comments about “strange pneumonias” to counter the “Chinese virus rhetoric”.
Coronavirus: why are so many more people dying in Italy than Germany?
23 Mar 2020
In the NPR interview, Remuzzi tried to explain why Italy had been caught off guard when the outbreak started gathering pace in February.
He discussed the difficulty of combating a disease that people did not know existed, and said the unusual cases in November and December could mean that virus was already circulating in Lombardy, the country’s worst-hit region, before people were aware of what was unfolding in Wuhan.
Remuzzi also shared details of the early suspected cases in Lombardy with DeepTech and Chinese state-run international network CGTN.
Remuzzi said he had learned about the cases from a few general practitioners and he has not yet been able to verify the information.
But he said there are some other suspicious cases he “knows for sure”, including two pneumonia cases in Scanzorosciate in northern Italy in December, where the patients developed high fever, a cough and had difficulty in breathing.
He said there had also been 10 patients who developed bilateral interstitial pneumonia in two other nearby towns, Fara Gera D’Adda and Crema, who had similar symptoms.
Coronavirus: confusion as Chinese face masks bound for Italy end up in Czech Republic
23 Mar 2020
Remuzzi said local doctors considered these cases to be “unusual” but ruled out the possibility of seasonal influenza, as all these patients had been vaccinated.
“The reason we don’t know if it was Covid-19 is because at that time this could not be tested; the patients didn’t have X-rays,” he told CGTN.
They recovered within 15 days, with some receiving two or three courses of antibiotics.
Remuzzi added there had also been a patient diagnosed with bilateral interstitial pneumonia in Alzano Lombardo Hospital in Lombardy around the time.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Punjab has 30 confirmed cases of the virus
Indian authorities in the northern state of Punjab have quarantined around 40,000 residents from 20 villages following a Covid-19 outbreak linked to just one man.
The 70-year-old died of coronavirus – a fact found out only after his death.
The man, a preacher, had ignored advice to self quarantine after returning from a trip to Italy and Germany, officials told BBC Punjabi’s Arvind Chhabra.
India has 640 confirmed cases of the virus, of which 30 are in Punjab.
However, experts worry that the real number of positive cases could be far higher. India has one of the lowest testing rates in the world, although efforts are under way to ramp up capacity.
There are fears that an outbreak in the country of 1.3 billion people could result in a catastrophe.
The man, identified as Baldev Singh, had visited a large gathering to celebrate the Sikh festival of Hola Mohalla shortly before he died.
The six-day festival attracts around 10,000 people every day.
A week after his death, 19 of his relatives have tested positive.
“So far, we have been able to trace 550 people who came into direct contact with him and the number is growing. We have sealed 15 villages around the area he stayed,” a senior official told the BBC.
Another five villages in an adjoining district have also been sealed.
This is not the first time that exposure has resulted in mass quarantining in India.
In Bhilwara, a textile city in the northern state of Rajasthan, there are fears that a group of doctors who were infected by a patient could have spread the disease to hundreds of people.
Seven thousand people in villages neighbouring the city are under home quarantine.
India has also declared a 21-day lockdown, although people are free to go out to buy essential items like food and medicine.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The number of U.S. coronavirus infections climbed above 82,000 on Thursday, surpassing the national tallies of China and Italy, as New York, New Orleans and other hot spots faced a surge in hospitalizations and looming shortages of supplies, staff and sick beds.
With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200.
“Any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. He described the state’s projected shortfall in ventilators – machines that support the respiration of people have cannot breathe on their own – as “astronomical.”
“It’s not like they have them sitting in the warehouse,” Cuomo added. “There is no stockpile available.”
RELATED COVERAGE
Trump to receive new coronavirus recommendations this weekend, plans Xi call
How many Americans have coronavirus? New Reuters poll might offer a hint
At least one New York City hospital, New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, has begun a trial of sharing single ventilators between two patients.
While New York was the coronavirus epicenter in the United States this week, the next big wave of infections appeared headed for Louisiana, where demand for ventilators has already doubled. In New Orleans, the state’s biggest city, Mardi Gras celebrations late last month are believed to have fueled the outbreak.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said New Orleans would be out of ventilators by April 2 and potentially out of bed space by April 7 “if we don’t flatten the infection curve soon.”
“It’s not conjecture, it’s not some flimsy theory,” Edwards told a press conference. “This is what is going to happen.”
About 80% of Louisiana’s intensive care patients are now on breathing machines, up from the normal rate of 30-40%, said Warner Thomas, chief executive of Ochsner Health System, the state’s hospital group.
Scarcities of protective masks, gloves, gowns and eyewear for doctors and nurses – reports abound of healthcare workers recycling old face masks, making their own or even using trash bags to shield themselves – have emerged as a national problem.
“Our nurses across the country do not have the personal protective equipment that is necessary to care for COVID patients, or any of their patients,” Bonnie Castillo, head of the largest U.S. nurses union, National Nurses United, told MSNBC.
In an ominous milestone for the United States as a whole, at least 82,153 people nationwide were infected as of Thursday, according to a Reuters tally from state and local public health agencies. China, where the global pandemic emerged late last year, had the second highest number of cases, 81,285, followed by Italy with 80,539.
At least 1,204 Americans have died from COVID-19, which has proven especially dangerous to the elderly and people with underlying chronic health conditions, Reuters’ tally showed.
MORE BEDS NEEDED
For New York state, Cuomo said a key goal was rapidly to expand the number of available hospital beds from 53,000 to 140,000.
New York hospitals were racing to comply with Cuomo’s directive to increase capacity by at least 50%. At Mount Sinai Hospital’s Upper East Side location, rooms were being constructed within an atrium to open up more space for beds.
At Elmhurst Hospital in New York’s borough of Queens, about a hundred people, many wearing masks with their hoods pulled up, lined up behind barriers outside the emergency room entrance, waiting to enter a tent to be screened for the coronavirus.
The city coroner’s office has posted refrigerated trucks outside Elmhurst and Bellevue Hospital to temporarily store bodies of the deceased.
Deborah White, vice chair of emergency medicine at Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the city’s Bronx borough, said 80% of its emergency room visits were patients with coronavirus-like symptoms.
A ventilator shortfall and surge in hospitalizations has already raised the prospect of rationing healthcare.
Asked about guidelines being drafted on how to allocate ventilators to patients in case of a shortage, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told reporters such bioethical discussions “haunted him” but were unavoidable.
Outside New York and New Orleans, other hot spots appeared to be emerging around the country, including Detroit.
Brandon Allen, 48, was buying groceries in Detroit for his 72-year-old mother, who has tested positive and was self-quarantining at home.
“It’s surreal,” Allen said. “People around me I know are dying. I know of a couple people who have died. I know a couple of people who are fighting for their lives. Everyday you hear of another person who has it.”
RECORD UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS
Desperate to slow virus transmissions by limiting physical contact among people, state and local governments have issued stay-at-home orders covering about half the U.S. population. A major side effect has been the strangulation of the economy, and a wave of layoffs.
The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits last week soared to a record of nearly 3.28 million – almost five times the previous weekly peak of 695,000 during the 1982 recession.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said warmer weather may help tamp down the U.S. outbreak as summer approaches, though the virus could re-emerge in the winter.
“We hope we get a respite as we get into April, May and June,” Fauci said on WNYC public radio.
Washington state Governor Jay Inslee said he may extend a stay-at-home order tentatively set to expire April 6, encouraged by what he called a “very modest improvement” in the Seattle area.
Washington experienced the first major U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 and has been among the hardest-hit states. As of Thursday the state reported about 3,200 cases and 147 deaths.
In California’s Coachella Valley, a region rife with retirees who are especially vulnerable, 25 members of the state’s National Guard helped a non-profit distribute food to people stuck in their homes, as most of the regular volunteers are senior citizens.
More than 10,000 troops have been deployed in 50 states to provide humanitarian aid during the pandemic.
Image copyright EPAImage caption Wuhan has been sealed off since mid-January
The lockdown in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the global coronavirus outbreak began, will be partially lifted on 8 April, officials say.
Travel restrictions in the rest of Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, will be lifted from midnight on Tuesday – for residents who are healthy.
A single new case of the virus was reported in Wuhan on Tuesday following almost a week of no reported new cases.
Countries around the world have gone into lockdown or imposed severe curbs.
The UK is getting to grips with sweeping new measures to tackle the spread of coronavirus, including a ban on public gatherings of more than two people and the immediate closure of shops selling non-essential goods.
Image copyright AFPImage caption The WHO has urged the G20 group of nations to boost production of protective equipment
Meanwhile, health experts say Americans must limit their social interactions or the number of infections will overwhelm the health care system in the US.
Spanish soldiers helping to fight the coronavirus pandemic have found elderly patients in retirement homes abandoned and, in some cases, dead in their beds, the defence ministry has said.
An ice rink in Madrid is to be used as a temporary mortuary for Covid-19 victims.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the pandemic is accelerating, with more than 300,000 cases now confirmed. It is urging countries to adopt rigorous testing and contact-tracing strategies.
Wuhan has been shut off from the rest of the world since the middle of January. But officials now say anyone who has a “green” code on a widely used smartphone health app will be allowed to leave the city from 8 April.
Earlier, the authorities reported a new case of coronavirus in Wuhan, ending a five-day run of no reported new cases in the city.
Media caption Coronavirus: People in Beijing begin to head outdoors
It comes after health officials there confirmed that they were not counting cases of people who were positive but had not been admitted to hospital or did not show any symptoms of the disease.
Official government figures say there have been 78 new cases reported on the Chinese mainland in the last 24 hours. All but four of them were caused by infected travellers arriving from abroad.
This so-called “second wave” of imported infections is also affecting countries like South Korea and Singapore, which had been successful in stopping the spread of disease in recent weeks.
South Korea has been seeing a drop in its daily tally of new cases. On Tuesday it reported its lowest number since 29 February.
China looks to repair its reputation
By Robin Brant, BBC News, Shanghai
China considers itself to be – very nearly – a “post corona” country.
In the last week we’ve heard Wuhan medics warning the UK and others that they need to do more to protect frontline health workers, citing the mistakes they made early on when some treated patients without wearing proper protective clothing.
But there’s also been reporting in state media of the reported death toll in Italy surpassing that in China. This has been combined with some commentary from prominent media figures that has appeared distasteful, almost triumphalist.
At the same time there is a panic about the threat of a second wave from imported cases – travellers arriving from abroad. This has fuelled the view – right or wrong – that some other countries aren’t taking the threat seriously because they aren’t doing what China did. (Almost all the cases in Beijing that have been made public are of Chinese nationals returning home).
Meanwhile, well away from senior leaders, there are some high-profile diplomatic figures using international-facing social media to spread theories that the US may have weaponised and dumped the virus in China. Or that Italy had cases that may have been Covid-19 earlier than China. China is sowing seeds of doubt and questioning assumed truths as it looks to repair its reputation.
Almost all of India with its 1.3bn people is under lockdown. Buses, trains and other forms of public transport are suspended. On Monday, the authorities said domestic flights would also stopped. The country has reported 485 cases and nine people have died. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation again this evening.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Mumbai’s suburban train network carries eight million passengers a day
Neighbouring Pakistan has almost twice as many confirmed cases – 878 as of Monday evening. Sweeping restrictions are in place although the government has stopped short of imposing a nationwide lockdown. However, several provinces have announced them independently. The army is being brought in to help enforce the restrictions.
Bangladesh, which has reported 33 cases and three deaths, is also deploying its armed forces to help maintain social distancing and boost Covid-19 preventive measures. The soldiers will also monitor thousands of quarantined expatriate returnees. Across South Asia, there are concerns that the actual number of cases could be much higher than is being reported.
Indonesia, which has 49 confirmed Covid-19 deaths – the highest in South-East Asia – has converted an athlete’s village built for the 2018 Asian Games into a makeshift hospital for coronavirus patients. A state of emergency was declared in Jakarta on Monday.
In Thailand, a month-long state of emergency which will include curfews and checkpoints will begin on Thursday. The government has been criticised for failing to take strong action so far. Four people have died and nearly 900 tested positive.
Talks between the Japanese PM and the International Olympic Committee are expected this evening.
The most populous country that was without a case until now – Myanmar – has announced two cases.
Europe’s battle against virus intensifies
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday night that, with immediate effect, “people will only be allowed to leave their home…for very limited purposes”. They include shopping for basic necessities, taking one form of exercise per day, fulfilling any medical need, or travelling to work if working from home is impossible.
Media caption Reality Check tackles misleading health advice being shared online
The number of people who have died in the UK rose to 335 on Monday.
In Italy, the worst-hit country in the world, the authorities said 602 people with Covid-19 had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll there to 6,077.
But the daily increase in cases was the smallest since Thursday, raising hope that the stringent restrictions imposed by the government were starting to have an effect.
Spain, however, said on Tuesday that its death toll had risen by 514 to 2,696. Nearly 40,000 are infected, about 5,400 of them healthcare workers.
But in Delhi and the financial capital, Mumbai, people fearing shortages quickly thronged shops and pharmacies.
“I have never witnessed such a chaos in my life,” the owner of one store in the Shakarpur district of Delhi said, quoted by the Press Trust of India.
“All our stocks, including rice, flour, bread, biscuits, edible oils, have been sold out.”
Police in the busy city of Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh state, patrolled the streets with megaphones to tell residents to stay indoors.
Image copyright AFPImage caption People in Mumbai rushed to stock up on essentials following Mr Modi’s address
Under the new measures, all non-essential businesses will be closed but hospitals and other medical facilities will continue to function as normal. Schools and universities will remain shut and almost all public gatherings will be banned.
Anyone flouting the new rules faces up to two years in prison and heavy fines.
In his address, Prime Minister Modi also:
Stressed that the 21-day lockdown was “very necessary to break the chain of coronavirus”
Emphasised the seriousness of the situation and said that even developed countries had faced problems in combating it
Said that “social distancing was the only way to stop” the virus spreading
Announced that nearly $2bn (£1.8bn) would be made available to boost the country’s health infrastructure
Called on people not to “spread rumours” and to follow instructions
His announcement came after several Indian states introduced measures of their own, such as travel restrictions and the closure of non-essential services.
India has already issued a ban on international arrivals and grounded domestic flights. The country’s rail network has also suspended most passenger services.
Many parts of India, including cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, are already under tight restrictions. But this move extends those provisions to every corner of the country.
An earlier one-day curfew, which was seen as a trial, was flouted by many.
Mr Modi called on Indians to clap and cheer the emergency services from their balconies on Sunday. But many misunderstood the call and congregated in the streets as they danced and chanted.
“It’s impossible to fathom the cost that India may have to pay if such irresponsible behaviour continues,” Mr Modi warned at the time. “Social distancing is the only option to combat coronavirus.”
The implications of a total lockdown in India are huge, not just economically, but socially.
This is a nation where community is everything. Going to worship at a temple, mosque or church is an essential part of daily life for so many.
This is a seismic cultural shift but – like the rest of the world facing similar restrictions – a necessary one.
What’s the latest from around Asia?
Neighbouring Pakistan has almost twice as many confirmed cases – 878 as of Monday evening. Sweeping restrictions are in place although the government has stopped short of imposing a nationwide lockdown. However, several provinces have announced them independently. The army is being brought in to help enforce the restrictions
Bangladesh, which has reported 33 cases and three deaths, is also deploying its armed forces to help maintain social distancing and boost Covid-19 preventive measures. The soldiers will also monitor thousands of quarantined expatriate returnees. Across South Asia, there are concerns that the actual number of cases could be much higher than is being reported.
Indonesia, which has 49 confirmed Covid-19 deaths – the highest in South East Asia – has converted an athlete’s village built for the 2018 Asian Games into a makeshift hospital for coronavirus patients. A state of emergency was declared in Jakarta on Monday
In Thailand, a month-long state of emergency which will include curfews and checkpoints will begin on Thursday. The government has been criticised for failing to take strong action so far. Four people have died and nearly 900 tested positive
The most populous country that was without a case until now – Myanmar – has announced two cases
And what about the rest of the world?
Elsewhere, governments are continuing to work to stem the spread of the virus which has now affected more than 190 countries worldwide
More than 2.6 billion people are in lockdown now India has introduced its new measures, according to a tally by the AFP news agency
Media caption Reality Check tackles misleading health advice being shared online
Europe remains at the epicentre of the pandemic. On Tuesday, the death toll jumped by 514 in a single day in Spain and other European countries also reported sharp increases
Italy is the worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths. The virus has killed almost 7,000 people there over the past month
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the US has the potential to become the new epicentre of the pandemic
In other developments, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the International Olympic Committee has agreed that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics should be postponed by a year
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 