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.
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Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption An empty stretch of the road and Delhi Police barricades to screen commuters during lockdown, at Delhi Gate on April 16, 2020 in New Delhi, India.
India has eased some restrictions imposed as part of a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Most of the new measures are targeted at easing pressure on farming, which employs more than half the nation’s workforce.
Allowing farms to operate again has been seen as essential to avoid food shortages.
But some other measures announced last week, will not be implemented.
This includes the delivery of non-essential items such as mobile phones, computers, and refrigerators by e-commerce firms – the government reversed its decision on that on Sunday.
And none of the restrictions will be lifted in areas that are still considered “hotspots” for the virus – this includes all major Indian cities.
Domestic and international flights and inter-state travel will also remain suspended.
So what restrictions are being eased?
Most of the new measures target agricultural businesses – farming, fisheries and plantations. This will allow crops to be harvested and daily-wagers and others working in these sectors to continue earning.
To restore the supply chain in these industries, cargo trucks will also be allowed to operate across state borders to transport produce from villages to the cities.
Essential public works programmes – such as building roads and water lines in rural areas – will also reopen, but under strict instructions to follow social distancing norms. These are a huge source of employment for hundreds of thousands of daily-wage earners, and farmers looking to supplement their income.
Banks, ATMs, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and government offices will remain open. And the self-employed – such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters – will also be allowed to work.
Some public and even private workplaces have been permitted to open in areas that are not considered hotspots.
But all businesses and services that reopen are expected to follow social distancing norms.
Who decides what to reopen?
State governments will decide where restrictions can be eased. And several state chief ministers, including Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, have said that none of the restrictions will be lifted in their regions.
Mr Kejriwal said the situation in the national capital was still serious and the decision would be reviewed after one week.
India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, will also see all restrictions in place, as will the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.
The southern state of Kerala, which has been widely acknowledged for its success in dealing with the virus, has announced a significant easing of the lockdown in areas that it has demarcated as “green” zones.
This includes allowing private vehicular movement and dine-in services at restaurants, with social distancing norms in place. However, it’s implementing what is known as an “odd-even” scheme – private cars with even and odd number plates will be allowed only on alternate days, to limit the number of people on the road.
Image copyright PTIImage caption This city of five million people has been under a lockdown since last week
At 05:00 local time (23:30 GMT) of 8 March, the intensive care unit of a private hospital in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan received a 68-year-old man suffering from pneumonia. He was also having problems breathing.
At the Brijesh Bangar Memorial Hospital in Bhilwara, the new patient was examined by 58-year-old Alok Mittal, a doctor of internal medicine, and his team. The patient wasn’t asked about any travel history; nor did he disclose anything. There were six other patients in the ICU.
The man’s condition did not improve much, and two days later, he was sent to a private hospital in Jaipur, some 250km (155 miles) away, for specialised treatment. In Jaipur, he was treated in two hospitals. “We had no idea what was in store,” Shantilal Acharya, an intensive care nurse who received the patient in the Bhilwara hospital, told me.
For reasons that are still unclear, even the hospitals in Jaipur didn’t test a patient with severe pneumonia for coronavirus. His condition deteriorated swiftly and he died a few days later, on 13 March. The news of his death was conveyed to Dr Mittal and his team.
Image copyright SHAUKAT AHMEDImage caption The infection possibly spread from a private hospital in Bhilwara
Strangely enough, the doctors didn’t appear to comprehend the gravity of the situation even though it was clear that India was facing an imminent outbreak of Covid-19. The country has reported more than 460 confirmed cases and nine deaths so far, and testing remains low. On 9 March, according to reports, Dr Mittal and a few others travelled to the city of Udaipur, put up in a resort and played Holi, the Indian spring festival of colours. (Repeated attempts at getting through to Dr Mittal by phone and text yielded no results.)
Days after the death of the pneumonia patient, Dr Mittal and a colleague checked themselves into an isolation ward of a government hospital. Over the next few days, a few more colleagues from the hospital joined them in isolation. Twelve of them, including Dr Mittal, tested positive for Covid-19.
Next day, as news of the infections leaked, all hell broke loose. The private hospital was popular with its residents, and many regularly visited its thriving out-patient department for treatment. As people panicked and began blaming the doctors for spreading the infection, authorities moved swiftly.
Image copyright SHAUKAT AHMEDImage caption People have been stopped from entering or leaving Bhilwara
They imposed a “civil curfew”, prohibiting people from coming out of their homes and banning public gatherings. They shut schools, colleges, offices, and stopped people from leaving or entering the district. The private hospital was sealed and its 88 patients moved to other healthcare facilities in the area. “Officials were telling us the threat was serious and there was a chance of an outbreak,” local journalist Pramod Tiwari told me.
So Bhilwara, fearing a serious outbreak, did everything that India did a few days later. So could this city of 400,000 people and a major textile making hub, turn out to be India’s first coronavirus “hotspot”?
Of the 69 people tested in the city until Sunday evening, 13 people – including doctors and paramedics – aged between 24 and 58, have tested positive. They include three doctors and nine health workers. Thirty-one people – mostly hospital workers – are in isolation. “Most of them are doing fine,” Dr Arun Gaur, the chief medical officer of the district, told me.
But things could get really bad.
Between 20 February and before going into isolation last week, Dr Mittal and his team of doctors at the hospital saw 6,192 patients who came from 13 districts of Rajasthan and 39 patients belonging to four other states. Drawing from the experience in China and Italy, doctors now know that hospitals might turn out to be the “main source” of Covid-19 transmission. Also, both MERS and SARS had high transmission rates within hospitals. The potential for community transmission of the infection across a large geographical area from the Bhilwara hospital is real, officials fear.
Image copyright SHAUKAT AHMEDImage caption The city’s borders have been sealed
So did the virus reach this city through the patient who was treated at three hospitals and went untested before he died? Or did one of the more than 80 patients admitted in the hospital transmit it? Or was it spread by another patient in the intensive care? Or had one of the doctors picked up the infection separately and spread it unknowingly?
Nobody will know until all the contact tracing and testing is complete, and that’s the scary part.
The lack of early credible information on the transmission meant that rumours had a field day. Local media reported that one of the infected doctors had received guests from Saudi Arabia at home and had contracted the infection. He had then gone to the hospital and spread the infection to co-workers, the reports added.
Dr Niyaz Khan had to record a mobile phone video from his intensive care bed to squelch the rumour. With monitors beeping around him, Dr Khan, masked and breathless, implored: “Just to set the record straight, I have no relative in Saudi Arabia. I have a son and a wife. None of them is positive. Please don’t believe what is coming in the media.” Another doctor said it was unfair to blame the hospital: “The patient fooled us and told us he didn’t travel outside the country for the two days he was in the ICU with us.” And Dr Mittal himself – his wife has also tested positive – recorded videos in isolation saying that he had tested positive, and he was doing well. “Please do not panic,” the well-known doctor said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Residents in the city have begun panicking
That is easier said than done.
Realising the gravity of the situation, 300 teams of government workers and volunteers have fanned out in Bhilwara city. They are knocking on the doors of some 78,000 houses, and asking residents whether they’ve had a guest from outside the country, been treated in the hospital or know anyone who has tested positive. The survey began on 18 March and will finish on 25 March. “They are asking if we have cold, cough and fever and telling us if we have any of the symptoms we should report for tests at the government hospital,” a resident told me.
Another 1,900 similar teams have travelled out into neighbouring villages where more than 2.5 million people live. People in homes with suspect cases are being put into quarantine. Seven thousand people have been put into home quarantine so far.
Fearing a surge in infections, 20 more beds are being added to the hospital’s 30-bed isolation ward, which is already full. Six private hospitals have promised to provide an additional 35 beds for isolation. Thirteen places with 450 beds – extendable to 2,000 beds – where people can be quarantined have also been identified, Rajendra Bhatt, the senior-most official of the district told me. “It’s like fighting a war, but we have been agile and alert,” he said.
Meanwhile the residents, like elsewhere in India, are enduring an extended lockdown and curfew. Rajkumar Jain, a professor of computer science, is locked down with 14 members of his joint family in a two-storey home. “We are in complete panic,” he told me. “People are saying here that Bhilwara is going to become India’s Italy.”
Media captionWATCH: Millions of Indians bang pots and pans in support of health workers
Image copyright AFPImage caption Lekima has brought heavy rain to Taiwan
Chinese authorities have declared a red alert as a powerful typhoon heads towards the eastern coast.
Typhoon Lekima is currently battering Taiwan with winds of more than 190km/h (120mph) and is due to make landfall in China’s Zhejiang province on Saturday.
Emergency teams have been deployed to the region to guide relief work, China’s emergency ministry said.
Thousands of people further up the coast in Shanghai have been warned to prepare to evacuate.
Lekima, which is the ninth typhoon so far this year, strengthened into a super typhoon late on Wednesday, but Taiwanese authorities have since downgraded it to a regular typhoon.
Flood warnings have been issued for eastern sections of China’s Yangtze River and the Yellow River until Wednesday. The provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong are also on alert.
Cruise liners have been told to delay their arrival in Shanghai and some train services have been suspended over the weekend.
Beijing has also cancelled some trains heading to and from the Yangtze delta region.
Lekima is one of two typhoons in the western Pacific at the moment. Further east, Typhoon Krosa is spreading heavy rain across the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. It is moving north-west and could strike Japan some time next week, forecasters said.
Media caption BBC Weather’s Sarah Keith-Lucas on typhoons Lekima and Krosa
Lekima was passing the north of Taiwan on Friday, causing flight cancellations and the closures of schools and offices.
Power was cut to more than 40,000 homes and the island’s high speed rail service was suspended north of the city of Taichung, local media reported.
The huge storm came a day after eastern Taiwan was rattled by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake. Experts said the risks of landslides triggered by the tremor were made more likely by the typhoon dumping up to 900mm (35 inches) of rain on Taiwan’s northern mountains.
Media caption The 6.0 earthquake in Taiwan was caught on cat cam
Lekima also brought heavy rain and high winds to south-west Japan on Friday, cutting power to about 14,000 homes, broadcaster NHK reported.
China’s weather bureau said Lekima was expected to have weakened further by the time it made landfall. The country has a four-stage colour-coded warning system, with red representing the most severe weather.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Food giant Nestle (NESN.S) on Thursday started selling Starbucks-branded (SBUX.O) coffee in mainland China, seeking to tap growth in a market where it says coffee consumption per capita remains low compared to global standards.
Nestle last year paid $7.15 billion for exclusive rights to sell the U.S. chain’s coffees and teas globally, and began selling Starbucks-labelled products in Europe, Asia and Latin America in February.
The world’s largest food company will start selling 21 Starbucks-branded capsule and instant coffee products on Chinese e-commerce platforms like Alibaba’s (BABA.N) Tmall and JD.com (JD.O), as well as to offices and hotels in tier-1 cities, both companies said.
“We believe China is the most exciting market in general but especially for coffee because… per capita cup consumption is quite low as compared to Asia,” said Rashid Aleem Qureshi, Nestle’s chief executive officer for the Greater China region.
“Right now the overall soluble coffee in China is growing between 3-5% (a year) and we believe that by bringing this exciting new business opportunity we should be able to grow faster than that,” he said, referring to a category that includes capsule and instant coffee.
Nestle’s move comes as the Swiss company experienced a slower first-half growth in China, its second-largest market, where other categories like mainstream baby foods have struggled compared to pricier options.
China’s per capita coffee consumption is about 6 cups a year, compared to 400 in Japan and 300 in South Korea, Nestle said.
The partnership with Starbucks would help Nestle add a premium coffee option to the range of products it already sells in China, such as Nescafe instant coffee range and Nespresso capsule coffees, Qureshi said.
Starbucks China CEO Belinda Wong said the Nestle deal would open two new avenues to sell its products in China, where it has been investing heavily in its store network and delivery amid tougher competition from local startups.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 