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Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Within a week of reopening, India has seen a sharp spike in cases
India is roaring – rather than inching – back to life amid a record spike in Covid-19 infections. The BBC’s Aparna Alluri finds out why.
On Saturday, India’s government announced plans to end a national lockdown that began on 25 March.
This was expected – the roads, and even the skies, have been busy for the last 10 days since restrictions started to ease for the first time in two months. Many businesses and workplaces are already open, construction has re-started, markets are crowded and parks are filling up. Soon, hotels, restaurants, malls, places of worship, schools and colleges will also reopen.
But the pandemic continues to rage. When India went into lockdown, it had reported 519 confirmed cases and 10 deaths. Now, its case tally has crossed 173,000, with 4,971 deaths. It added nearly 8,000 new cases on Saturday alone – the latest in a slew of record single-day spikes.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Fast food chains like McDonald’s have begun reopening outlets in parts of India.
So, why the rush to reopen?
The lockdown is simply unaffordable
“It’s certainly time to lift the lockdown,” says Gautam Menon, a professor and researcher on models of infectious diseases.
“Beyond a point, it’s hard to sustain a lockdown that has gone on for so long – economically, socially and psychologically.”
From day one, India’s lockdown came at a huge cost, especially since so many of its people live on a daily wage or close to it. It put food supply chains at risk, cost millions their livelihood, and throttled every kind of business – from car manufacturers to high-end fashion to the corner shop selling tobacco. As the economy sputtered and unemployment rose, India’s growth forecast tumbled to a 30-year-low.
Raghuram Rajan, an economist and former central bank governor, said at the end of April that the country needed to open up quickly, and any further lockdowns would be “devastating”.
The opinion is shared by global consultant Mckinsey, whose report from earlier this month said India’s economy must be “managed alongside persistent infection risks”.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption As restrictions ease, Indians are slowly getting used to the new normal
“The original purpose of the lockdowns was to delay the spike so we can put health services and systems in place, so we are able handle the spike [when it comes],” says Dr N Devadasan, a public health expert. “That objective, to a large extent, has been met.”
In the last two months, India has turned stadia, schools and even train coaches into quarantine centres, added and expanded Covid-19 wards in hospitals, and ramped up testing as well as production of protective gear. While grave challenges remain and shortages persist, the consensus seems to be that the government has bought as much time as possible.
“We have used the lockdown period to prepare ourselves… Now is the time to revive the economy,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said last week.
The silver lining
For weeks, India’s relatively low Covid-19 numbers baffled experts everywhere. Despite the dense population, disease burden and underfunded public hospitals, there was no deluge of infections or fatalities. Low testing rates explain the former, but not the latter.
In fact, India made global headlines not for its caseload but for its botched handling of the lockdown – millions of informal workers, largely migrants, were left jobless overnight. Scared and unsure, many tried to return home, often desperate enough to walk, cycle or hitchhike across hundreds of kilometres.
Perhaps the choice – between a virus that didn’t appear to be wreaking havoc yet, and a lockdown that certainly was – seemed obvious to the government.
But that is changing quickly as cases shoot up. “I suspect we will keep finding more and more cases, but they will mostly be asymptomatic or will have mild symptoms,” Dr Devadasan says.
The hope – which is also encouraging the government to reopen – is that most of India’s undetected infections are not severe enough to require hospitalisation. And so far, except in Mumbai city, there has been no dearth of hospital beds.
The government, for instance, has been touting India’s mortality rate as a silver lining – at nearly 3%, it’s among the lowest in the world.
But some are unconvinced by that. Dr Jacob John, a prominent virologist, says India has never had, and still doesn’t have, a robust system for recording deaths – in his view, the government is certainly missing Covid-19 deaths because they have no way of knowing of every fatality.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Indians are venturing out again but it’s unclear how many of them are asymptomatic.
And, he says, “what we must aim for is flattening the mortality curve, not necessarily the epidemic curve”.
Dr John, like several other experts, also predicts a peak in July or August, and believes the country is reopening so quickly because the “government realised the futility of such leaky lockdowns”.
A shift in strategy
So is the government gearing up for another lockdown when the peak comes?
While Dr Menon believes the lockdown was well-timed, he says it was too focused on cases coming from abroad.
“There was a hope that by controlling that, we could prevent epidemic spread, but how effective was our screening [at airports]?”
Now, he adds, is the time for “localised lockdowns”.
Media caption Coronavirus: Death and despair for migrants on Indian roads
The federal government has left it to states to decide where, how and to what extent to lift the lockdown as the virus’ progression varies wildly across India.
Maharashtra alone accounts for more than a third of India’s active cases. Add Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Delhi, and that makes up 67% of the national total.
But other states – such as Bihar – are already seeing a sharp uptick as migrant workers return home.
“Initially, most of your cases were in the cities,” Dr Devadasan says. “But we kept the migrant workers in cities and didn’t allow them to go home. Now, we are sending them back. We have facilitated transporting the virus from urban areas to rural areas.”
While the government has said how many infections have been avoided – up to 300,000 – and lives saved – up to 71,000 – by the lockdown, there is no indication of what lies ahead.
There is only advice: The day the government began to ease restrictions, Mr Kejriwal tweeted, urging people to “follow discipline and control the coronavirus disease” as it was their “responsibility”.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Social distancing will prove to be India’s biggest post-lockdown challenge
Because the alternative – of curfews and constant policing – is unsustainable.
“My worry is more the circumstances of people – it’s not as though they have an option to practise social distancing,” Dr Menon says.
And they don’t – not in joint family homes or one-room hovels packed together in slums, not in crowded markets or busy streets where jostling is second nature, or in temples, mosques, weddings or religious processions where more is always merrier.
The overwhelming message is that the virus is here to stay, and we have to learn to live with it – and the only way to do that, it appears, is to let people live with it.
A COVID-19 patient is wheeled out from an EHPAD (Housing Establishment for Dependant Elderly People) in Epinay sur Seine near Paris, France, on April 22, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua)
The first suspected cases of COVID-19 infection in France could date back to Nov. 16 last year, a hospital in eastern France said. Before this announcement, the first COVID-19 infection cases officially recorded in France were on Jan. 24, 2020.
PARIS, May 8 (Xinhua) — The first suspected cases of COVID-19 infection in France could date back to Nov. 16 last year, some nine weeks earlier than the official record of the country’s first confirmed cases, a hospital in eastern France said Thursday.
“Doctor Michel Schmitt, head of the medical imaging department at the Albert Schweitzer hospital in Colmar, has reviewed 2,456 chest scans performed between Nov. 1 and April 30, for all reasons (cardiac, pulmonary, traumatic, tumor pathologies),” said the hospital in a press release.
A suspected patient of COVID-19 is transferred to an EHPAD in Epinay sur Seine near Paris, France, April 22, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua)
The typical scans compatible with COVID-19 infection have been also reviewed in a second then a third reading by two other experienced radiologists. According to this retrospective study, the first cases of contamination with COVID-19 were thus identified from Nov. 16 in this hospital, it said.
Albert Schweitzer hospital added that it has launched a collaboration with France’s National Center for Scientific Research to start an epidemiological exploitation of these results.
Before this announcement, the first case of COVID-19 infection in east France was officially identified in late February. It involved a 36-year-old man who returned from a trip to Lombardy, then hotspot of the epidemic in Italy.
A giant mask is seen on a residential building in Saint-Mande, near Paris, France, on May 2, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua)
The first COVID-19 infection cases officially recorded in France were on Jan. 24, 2020 relating to individuals who had recently arrived or returned from China.
France on Thursday registered 178 new deaths caused by the novel coronavirus, taking the tally to 25,987. As hospitalization data continued to slow, the government said on Thursday that the country would start to unwind the nearly-two-month anti-coronavirus lockdown from Monday.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Tang Yue, a 27-year-old teacher from the city of Guilin in southwest China, steam-presses a blue dress and takes dozens of photographs before picking one to clinch her 200th online sale.
For a growing number of Chinese like Tang, hit by job losses, furloughs and salary cuts, the consumer economy has begun to spin in reverse. They are no longer buying – they are selling.
Instead of emerging from the coronavirus epidemic and returning to the shopping habits that helped drive the world’s second-largest economy, many young people are offloading possessions and embracing a new-found ethic for hard times: less is more.
With Tang’s monthly salary of about 7,000 yuan ($988), the self-described shopaholic said she has bought everything from Chanel lipsticks to Apple’s (AAPL.O) latest iPad in the past three years.
But the adrenaline rush that comes with binge-shopping is gone, said Tang, whose wages have been slashed with the suspension of all the classes on tourism management she usually teaches.
“The coronavirus outbreak was a wake-up call,” she said. “When I saw the collapse of so many industries, I realised I had no financial buffer should something unfortunate happen to me.”
There is no guarantee that the nascent minimalist trend will continue once the coronavirus crisis is fully over, but if it does, it could seriously damage China’s consumer sector and hurt thousands of businesses from big retailers to street-corner restaurants, gyms and beauty salons.
To be sure, there are signs that pent-up demand will drive a rush of spending as authorities reopen malls, leisure venues and tourist spots. In South Korea, the first major economy outside of China to be hit by the virus, people thronged malls this weekend to go “revenge shopping” to make up for time lost in lockdown.,
There are some signs that a similar trend will take hold in China, where some upscale malls are starting to get busy, although luxury firm Kering SA (PRTP.PA) – which owns Gucci, Balenciaga and other fashion brands – has said it is hard to predict how or when sales in China might come back.
A recent McKinsey & Co survey showed that between 20% and 30% of respondents in China said they would continue to be cautious, either consuming slightly less or, in a few cases, a lot less.
“The lockdown provided consumers with a lot of time and reasons to reflect and consider what is important to them,” said Mark Tanner, managing director at Shanghai-based research and marketing consultancy China Skinny.
“With much more of their days spent in their homes, consumers also have more time and reasons to sort through things they don’t feel they need – so they’re not living around clutter that is common in many apartments.”
#DITCHYOURSTUFF
Tang made a spreadsheet to keep track of her nearly 200 cosmetic products and hundreds of pieces of clothing. She then marked a few essentials in red that she wanted to keep. In the past two months, she has sold items worth nearly 5,000 yuan on second-hand marketplaces online.
Bargain-hunting online has become a new habit for some Chinese as the stigma that once hung over second-hand goods has begun to fade.
Idle Fish, China’s biggest online site for used goods, hit a record daily transaction volume in March, its parent company Alibaba (BABA.N) told Reuters.
Government researchers predict that transactions for used goods in China may top 1 trillion yuan ($141 billion) this year.
Posts with the hashtag #ditchyourstuff have trended on Chinese social media in recent weeks, garnering more than 140 million views.
Jiang Zhuoyue, 31, who works as an accountant at a traditional Chinese medicine company in Beijing – one of the few industries that may benefit from the health crisis – has also decided to turn to a simpler life.
“I used to shop too much and could be easily lured by discounts,” said Jiang. “One time Sephora offered 20% off for all goods, I then bought a lot of cosmetics because I feel I’m losing money if I don’t.”
Jiang, the mother of a 9-month-old baby, said she recently sold nearly 50 pieces of used clothing as the lockdown gave her the opportunity to clear things out. “It also offered me a chance to rethink what’s essential to me, and the importance of doing financial planning,” she said.
Eleven Li, a 23-year-old flight attendant, said she used to spend her money on all manner of celebrity-endorsed facial masks, snacks, concert tickets and social media activity, but now has no way to fund her spending.
“I just found a new job late last year, then COVID-19 came along, and I haven’t been able to fly once since I joined, and I’ve gotten no salary at all,” said Li, who said she was trying to sell her Kindle.
Some are even selling their pets, as they consider leaving big cities like Beijing and Shanghai where the high cost of living is finally catching up with them.
NO RETURN TO OLD WAYS?
As the coronavirus comes under control in China, the government is gradually releasing cities from lockdown, easing transport restrictions and encouraging consumers to venture back into malls and restaurants by giving out billions-worth of cash vouchers, worth between 10 yuan and 100 yuan.
But many people say they are still worried about job security and potential wage cuts because of the struggling economy. Nationwide retail sales have plunged every month so far this year.
Xu Chi, a Shanghai-based senior strategic analyst with Zhongtai Securities, said some Chinese consumers may prove the ‘21 Day Habit Theory,’ a popular scientific proposition that it only takes that long to establish new habits.
“We believe people’s spending patterns follow the well-known theory, which means most people in China, having been cooped-up at home for more than a month and not having binge-shopped, may break the habit and not return to their old ways,” Xu said.
Jiang said she was determined not to return to her free-spending ways and planned to cook more at home.
“I’ll turn to cheaper goods for some luxury brands,” she said. “I’ll choose Huawei’s smartphone, because (Apple’s) iPhone has too much brand premium.”
Tang, who has recently used 100 yuan of shopping coupons to stock up on food, is going to hold the purse strings even tighter.
“I’ve set my monthly budget at 1,000 yuan,” she said. “Including one – and just one – bottle of bubble tea.”
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China expects to import more soybeans and pork this year following the novel coronavirus outbreak and African swine fever, which has decimated its pig herds.
Soybean imports are forecast at 92.48 million tonnes this year, rising to 96.62 million tonnes in 2025 and 99.52 million tonnes in 2029, an official from the agriculture ministry told a video conference on the outlook for agriculture released on Monday.
Pork imports this year are seen rising to 2.8 million tonnes, a 32.7% increase from the previous year.
China is a key buyer and consumer of soybeans and pork globally, and typically imports millions of tonnes of soybeans per year to crush for meal to feed its livestock.
The African swine fever outbreak, however, had slashed China’s pig herd by over 40% last year, reducing supplies in the world’s biggest pork consumer.
Combined with the coronavirus outbreak, which hit the transport of pigs and delayed the restart of slaughtering plants, prices of China’s favourite meat rose to record levels in February.
China has been increasing pork imports in recent months to make up for the drop in domestic supply.
Despite the expected surge in imports, China’s 2020 pork consumption is forecast to fall to 42.06 million tonnes, down 5.6% year-on-year, hit by high prices and a fall in consumer demand due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the agriculture ministry.
In line with the slowing consumption, China’s slaughtered pig herd this year will fall 7.8% year-on-year to 501.49 million heads. Pork output this year will also decline to 39.34 million tonnes from 2019, but will rebound to around 54 million tonnes in 2022.
In the longer term, however, pork imports are expected to gradually fall, the ministry forecast, while beef and mutton imports are set to increase in the next decade.
Meanwhile, China’s domestic soybean output is seen at 18.81 million tonnes in 2020, a 3.9% gain from the previous year, while crushing volumes were pegged at 85.98 million tonnes.
Soybean consumption will increase steadily and continue to rely mainly on imports in the next 10 years, said a ministry official.
The ministry also said China’s corn acreage and output are both set to increase in 2020, with production forecast to reach over 260 million tonnes this year, while annual rice output is expected to hold steady above 200 million tonnes per year in the next 10 years.
Unit 121 on Lanman Hutong, about 10 minutes’ drive from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, changed hands last month for 1.28 million yuan
The new owner bought a 5.6-square metre (72 square feet) cubicle covered in bathroom tiles large enough to fit a bunk bed, with standing room only
A view of the 5.6 square metre cubicle-size home in Beijing on 15 November 2019. The home sold for 1.28 million yuan at auction. Photo: Louise Moon
A subdivided home in a run-down alley in Beijing recently sold for a record price at auction, as eager buyers piled in to get hold of its much sought-after address to gain access to some of the Chinese capital’s best schools.
A subdivided unit at No. 121 Lanman Hutong, about 10 minutes’ drive from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, changed hands on November 11 for 1.28 million yuan (US$182,400) after 136 rounds of furious bidding during an auction in Beijing.
For 230,000 yuan per square metre (HK$23,850 per square foot), the new owner bought a 5.6-square metre (72 square feet) cubicle covered in bathroom tiles large enough to fit a bunk bed, with standing room only. That’s smaller than even Hong Kong’s notorious micro-apartments – also known derisively as shoebox flats or nano flats – which average about 200 square feet. A standard car parking space measures 126 square feet.
What the dilapidated space does have is an address that entitles its owner to a hukou, the household registration that is the prerequisite for access to schools, homes, civil service jobs, public health care and almost every aspect of daily life in the Chinese capital.
The alley on which No. 121 Lanman Hutong sits in Beijing on 15 November 2019. Photo: Louise Moon
Lanman Hutong, or the Alley of the Brilliant Drapes, sits in Xicheng district, a chequerboard neighbourhood criss-crossed with hundreds of alleyways that boasts three of the five highest-ranked schools in the city.
According to Beijing’s real estate regulations, one square metre entitles the owner a hukou. That fuelled the rush by parents to buy property in the area to qualify for sending their children to such eminent schools as the Beijing No. 4 High School, whose alumni include former Chongqing Commissar Bo Xilai, former China Development Bank president Chen Yuan and Citic’s chairman Kong Dan. Most of these bolt holes are now unoccupied after they have served their purposes, local residents said.
Lanman Hutong, or the Alley of the Brilliant Drapes, in the Xicheng district of Beijing, about 10 minutes drive from the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, on 15 November 2019. Photo: Louise Moon
The auction result offers a peek into the growing speculative bubble in Beijing’s property market, a development that has defied more than two years of policymakers’ attempts to control. The average price of newly built homes rose 4.3 per cent in October to 60,894 yuan per square metre in Beijing, according to China’s statistics bureau data and Lianjia, a major real estate broker.
“Beijing’s homes have always been expensive, [particularly so] in Xicheng, where only the ultra-wealthy can afford to stay,” said Midland Beijing’s analyst Zhao Jia. “A million yuan is not expensive at all, to find space that close to the Forbidden City.”
Beijing’s average home price is equivalent to 24.9 years of the city’s median net income, excluding expenditures, according to data by E-House China Research and Development Institution. Hong Kong, the world’s most expensive urban centre to live and work in, requires 21 years of average income to affordable the average abode, according to the Demographia International Housing Affordability Study, as the city also boasts of a higher income and lower tax rate.
A tiny alleyway leading to No. 121 Lanman Hutong, which sold earlier this week for 1.28 million yuan in Beijing. Photo: Louise Moon
“It is not that easy for the average person to own property in Beijing,” said Midland’s Zhao. “For most homes in the city, 1 million yuan is only enough for a down payment.”
Unit 121 on Lanman Hutong is located among a cluster of siheyuan, as Beijing’s traditional courtyard homes are called. Bicycles, old washing machines and other household junk are piled along the maze of alleyways leading to the ground-floor unit.
Its auction drew 29 bidders starting from 470,000 yuan. The final winning bid prices the Lanman cubicle 35 per cent higher than a 100-million yuan villa with view of the Summer Palace in Beijing’s outskirts, on a per square foot basis.
To be sure, the unidentified buyer of the unit may be speculating for a quick flip, when the property is torn down, said Zhang Dawei, an analyst at Centaline Property Agency.
“This is more like a gamble, betting on the unit being demolished,” Zhang said. “If the odds are good, the buyer can pocket the [compensation], which could be several times what he bought it for. Even if it is not demolished in the short term, it is not bad to have some asset in the heart of Beijing.”
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 