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.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central province of Hubei, excluding the provincial capital Wuhan, has reported zero new cases of coronavirus over 24 hours for the first time in the outbreak, as authorities seek to stem imported infections in other areas.
Wuhan, the centre of the epidemic, reported 126 new confirmed cases on Thursday but there were no new infections elsewhere in the province, the National Health Commission said on Friday.
Elsewhere in China, schools in provinces reporting no new cases for a number of days started to set reopening dates.
Qinghai, a northwesterly that had reported no new infections for 29 days as of March 5, said it would stagger the start date of different schools between March 11 and March 20, according to a notice posted on an official website.
The southwesterly province of Guizhou has said its schools will start reopening from March 16.
Outside of Hubei, there were 17 new confirmed cases, bringing the total new infections in mainland China to 143 on Thursday, up from 139 cases a day earlier.
Of the 17 new cases, 16 were imported from outside of China – 11 in Gansu province, four in Beijing and one in Shanghai.
A total of 311 passengers arriving at Gansu’s provincial capital Lanzhou from Iran were quarantined, state television reported late on Thursday.
Beijing’s four new cases had come from Italy. On Friday, one of the city’s government officials described its epidemic control campaign as being at its most challenging period, adding that roughly 827,000 people who had returned to the capital from outside – most of them from extended Lunar New Year holidays – were currently undergoing home observation.
Last month, Gansu became the first province to lower its emergency response measures from level I to level III, reflecting the lack of new infections.
Tibet became the latest region to lower its emergency response level on Friday, announcing on an official website that some areas had eased to level II and others to level III.
OPTIMISM FOR WUHAN
Health authorities in Shanghai said that the city had recorded three new cases in the first 12 hours of Friday. All were Chinese nationals who had studied in Iran, state media reported. [B9N28E04N]
All three had been transferred by Shanghai customs to quarantine on March 3, a spokeswoman for the city’s health commission told a news briefing.
Despite the fresh cases in Wuhan, senior Chinese government officials expressed optimism about its situation as the city shut its second makeshift hospital on Friday afternoon, state radio reported.
“As the situation in Wuhan and Hubei improves, relevant authorities, with approvals, will make timely adjustments according to China’s Infectious Diseases Law and public health emergency regulations,” Ding Xiangyang, vice secretary general at the State Council, told a news briefing.
“When I went out in the morning, the cherry blossoms were blooming in front of my door, telling us that winter has passed and spring has come. I think the day everyone has been looking forward to is not far away,” he said.
As new cases dwindle in China, attention has turned to potential infections arriving from overseas.
Authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong have all vowed to quarantine travellers from countries hit the hardest by the coronavirus, which Beijing identified as South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy.
The overall accumulated number of confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 80,552 as of Thursday.
The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China was 3,042 as of the end of Thursday, up by 30 from the previous day.
Hubei reported 29 new deaths, while in Wuhan, 23 people died.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Authorities are also asking overseas Chinese to reconsider travel plans
Travellers from countries with severe coronavirus outbreaks who arrive in some parts of China will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine, state media say.
Travellers from the virus hotspots of South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy arriving in the capital will have to be isolated, a Beijing official has said.
Shanghai and Guangdong announced similar restrictions earlier.
Authorities are worried the virus might be imported back into the country.
Although most virus deaths have been in China, Monday saw nine times more new infections outside China than in.
Shanghai said it would require new arrivals from countries with “relatively serious virus conditions” to be isolated, without naming the countries.
Authorities are also asking overseas Chinese to reconsider travel plans.
“For the sake of your family’s health and safety, please strengthen your precautions, carefully decide on your travel plans and minimise mobility,” officials in one southern Chinese province said.
China reported 125 new virus cases on Tuesday – the lowest number of new daily infections in six weeks. There were also 31 more deaths – all in Hubei province, where the virus emerged.
In other developments:
Finance ministers from the G7 countries have said they are “ready to take action”, including fiscal measures to aid the response to the virus and support the global economy
The Pope, who had cancelled a Lent retreat for the first time in his papacy because he was suffering from a cold, has tested negative for the virus, Italian media report
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has put the country into a “state of war” and ordered all government departments to shift to a 24-hour emergency system
Jailed British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is in good health, Iran’s judiciary has said. She was assessed after her husband said she was showing symptoms of Covid-19
Media caption Julie, who lives in Singapore, was diagnosed with coronavirus and then put into isolation
How are different countries affected?
There are now almost 90,000 cases worldwide in about 70 countries, although the vast majority – just under 90% – remain in China, and most of those are in Hubei province where the virus originated late last year.
Of the nearly 8,800 cases outside China, 81% are in four countries – Iran, South Korea, Italy and Japan.
One of the countries worst affected outside China – Italy – said on Monday that the death toll there had risen by 18 to 52. There are 1,835 confirmed cases, most of them in the Lombardy and Veneto areas of the north. Nearly 150 people are said to have recovered.
However, the country is seeing a slowdown in new cases. On Monday, the authorities said there were 258 new cases of the virus – a 16% increase on the previous day – after new cases spiked by 50% on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Iran said the latest death toll from the virus was 77 – although the real figure is believed to be much higher. More than 2,300 people are said to be infected, including senior political figures. The head of Iran’s emergency medical services, Pirhossein Kolivand, was one of them, the Ilna news agency reported on Tuesday.
Some 23 MPs are also reported to have tested positive for the virus, and an official close to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reported on Monday to have died of the disease.
Health officials in the US state of Washington said on Monday that four more people had died, bringing the total there to six. They are the only deaths in the US so far. Local officials say they are buying a hotel to convert it into an isolation hospital.
On Tuesday, Ukraine confirmed its first case of coronavirus, while Portugal, Iceland, Jordan, Tunisia, Armenia, Latvia, Senegal, Morocco and Andorra confirmed their first cases on Monday.
How deadly is Covid-19?
The WHO says the virus appears to particularly affect those over 60, and people already ill.
In the first large analysis of more than 44,000 cases from China, the death rate was 10 times higher in the very elderly compared to the middle-aged.
Most patients have only mild symptoms and the death rate appears to be between 2% and 5%, the WHO said.
By comparison, seasonal flu has an average mortality rate of about 0.1%, but is highly infectious – with up to 400,000 people dying from it each year.
Other strains of coronavirus, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), have much higher death rates than Covid-19.
Materials can bought cheaply online and combined to filter out germs, while people exchange tips in online chat groups
Urgent demand has forced individuals and hospitals alike to get to work to meet the shortfall
A worker in northern China makes a face mask as companies strive to match demand – but some people are buying similar materials to assemble at home. Photo: Xinhua
Living in the scenic Puer city in southwestern China’s Yunnan province, 30-year-old Zhang Jianing had thought the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei was far away and irrelevant, until cases were confirmed in her province and then her city at the end of January.
Heeding the warnings to protect herself, Zhang rushed out to buy masks, only to find them all snapped up. When she plucked up the courage to go out to buy groceries, she realised she needed to have a mask on to be allowed to enter shops.
After doing some research online, Zhang made a mask herself: two layers of cotton on the outside, with a sheet of plastic food wrap inside.
“The mask fit my face well and protected me from droplets,” Zhang said. “There was just one thing: it was too difficult to breathe through.”
Experts devise do-it-yourself face masks to help people battle coronavirus
When a nation of 1.4 billion people was suddenly alerted and in many cases ordered to wear masks not only in public indoor places but also in the open air, the huge demand quickly exhausted supply.
Mask production capacity in China was 22 million a day – insufficient for the country’s population. There were hopes that the supply of masks would pick up after a Lunar New Year holiday that was extended to help prevent further spread of infection, but things did not look promising after factories reopened. By Monday, despite mask manufacturers making 10 per cent more than in early February, masks remained a rare commodity.
Making DIY masks became the top trending topic on Chinese online shopping site Taobao for several days. Materials became much sought-after, from nose bars to the non-woven fabric used in disposable surgical masks to filter out viral droplets. An online shop based in Fujian, southeast China, said it had sold more than 5,500 packages of DIY mask materials that can make 50 to 200 surgical masks apiece.
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Zhang spent 200 yuan (US$29) on materials online, from which she made 60 surgical masks when they arrived last week. She is a qipao designer and has a sewing machine at home. The outer layer was a blue waterproof non-woven fabric, over a layer of melt-blown fabric that can filter out most germs and droplets. The inner layer was made with a face flannel.
Hongkongers make reusable fabric masks as Covid-19 epidemic leads to shortages and sky-high prices
“I sent some to my parents and relatives,” Zhang said. “I am not sure how protective they are, but the good thing is our city hasn’t had any new cases for a long time.”
DIY mask production is being taken very seriously, spawning online chat groups to discuss reliability of materials and disinfection methods as people try to make theirs as safe and professional as possible.
Alex Zhang, an office worker in Shanghai, donated her N95 masks to Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, when hospitals in the city appealed to the public for protective gear amid an acute shortage – but soon found herself short of masks herself.
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The Shanghai government allowed households to buy a certain number of surgical masks, but it was not enough for her family. Taking apart an N95 mask to see what it was made of, she felt assembling the layers of fabric required no special technique, and decided to do it herself.
Zhang spent 45 yuan on two square metres of melt-blown fabric to stop viruses, and sandwiched it with two layers of nonwoven fabric and an air pad. She sewed the layers together and put them in an electric oven at 70 degrees Celsius (158 Fahrenheit) for a minute, for disinfection. The finished mask is attached using a plastic band.
“Each mask cost about 3 yuan [43 US cents] and was almost like an N95 filter,” Zhang said. “I didn’t find it difficult. I am quite satisfied with my masks and feel very safe to wear them in crowded places.”
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She later bought nursing pads, which are already disinfected, to replace the layer closest to the face.
DIY masks have also been used where large amounts of protective gear are needed. Garment manufacturer Shenzhou International, in the coastal Zhejiang province, assigned 100 staff to make masks with melt-blown non-woven fabric to meet the needs of its factory workforce of nearly 15,000, who needed two masks each per day, according to a report by Ningbo Daily.
Hospitals short of masks have mobilised nurses to make their own using a non-woven fabric used to wrap disinfected medical products. At least three hospitals, in Xian in central China and in Jinhua, Zhejiang, have tried making masks for medical staff not serving on the front line, according to media reports.
DIY handmade face masks in Hong Kong
The World Health Organisation has said that wearing masks alone is not sufficient protection against the coronavirus, and should be combined with precautions including hand-washing with soap or an alcohol-based hand rub.
However, facing a shortage that will not end any time soon, health authorities have changed from saying people should discard masks every four hours to advising recycling them when possible.
A guideline issued by the National Health Commission said healthy people could wear masks repeatedly and for a longer time.
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“Masks for repeat use can be hung in clean, dry and airy places or put in a clean paper bag,” its guidelines said. “The masks must be placed separately to avoid contact with other masks.”
Making masks with layers of cotton bandage is acceptable, because they can stay dry when breathed on, but plastic wrap is not recommended, because it blocks the ability to breathe entirely, according to Cai Haodong, an infectious diseases specialist at Beijing’s Ditan Hospital.
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Cai said her hospital did not have surgical masks, nor N95s, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003, and hospital staff made masks for use by front-line medics, disinfecting them with boiling water and drying them in the sun.
“The key is to keep the mask dry,” Cai said. “Self-made masks offer some degree of protection and it is better to wear them than nothing.”
Around 200 Shincheonji Church of Jesus members continued to meet in the Chinese city amid rumours of virus, but ‘no one took [claims] seriously’ at first
Around half the Covid-19 cases in South Korea have been linked to members of the religious group
The Shincheonji church in Daegu has been linked to a cluster of infections. Photo: Yonhap via AP
Members of the Christian sect linked to a cluster of coronavirus cases in South Korea held meetings in Wuhan until December, only stopping when they realised that their community had been hit by Covid-19, the previously unknown disease caused by the virus.
The South China Morning Post has learned that the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the epidemic, has around 200 members, most of whom are currently under quarantine outside the city.
“Rumours about a virus began to circulate in November but no one took them seriously,” said one member, a 28-year-old kindergarten teacher.
“I was in Wuhan in December when our church suspended all gatherings as soon as we learned about [the coronavirus],” said the woman, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
She said the group was continuing to share sermons and teachings online, but most members had returned home at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday in late January.
The 250,000-member Shincheonji Church of Jesus is regarded by mainstream Christian groups as a secretive and unorthodox sect. Its founder, Lee Man-hee, has claimed that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Around half the Covid-19 infections in South Korea have been linked to a branch of the church in Daegu.
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According to the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 977 confirmed cases as of Tuesday – the second highest number outside China – and 11 deaths.
Of the 84 new cases reported on Tuesday, over half were recorded in Daegu city.
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A member of the church from Daegu reportedly visited China in January, and health officials in South Korea are investigating whether a cluster of infections in Cheongdo city is linked to a three-day funeral ceremony held at a local hospital.
Chinese sources said that the Shincheonji church has about 20,000 members in China – most of whom live in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Changchun and Shenyang.
One Christian pastor in Hubei province, who declined to be named, said that Shincheonji church members were hard-working and some continued to proselytise even during the outbreak.
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The Wuhan kindergarten teacher said she was confident that the recent mass outbreaks in South Korea were not linked to Shincheonji church members from the city.
“I don’t think the virus came from us because none of our brothers and sisters in Wuhan have been infected. I don’t know about members in other places but at least we are clean. None of us have reported sick,” she said.
“There are so many Chinese travelling to South Korea, it’s quite unfair to pin [the disease] on us.”
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She sidestepped questions on whether church members had travelled from Wuhan to South Korea after the outbreak.
The teacher said that in 2018 the Wuhan group’s “holy temple” in Hankou district had been raided by police “who branded us a cult”, but members continued to worship in small groups.
“We are aware of all the negative reporting out there after the outbreak in South Korea, but we do not want to defend ourselves in public because that will create trouble with the government,” she said. “We just want to get through the crisis first.”
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Bill Zhang, a 33-year-old Shanghai resident and a former missionary with Shincheonji, said the group’s secretive nature made it hard for the authorities to effectively crackdown on its activities.
He said the Shanghai branch held its main meetings on Wednesdays and Saturdays, attracting 300 to 400 people at a time.
“The Shincheonji church in Shanghai has been raided many times and police spoke to church leaders regularly.
“But the church members simply continued their meetings in smaller groups of eight-to-10 people and regrouped when the surveillance was relaxed.”
Zhang continued: “Shincheonji holds that it is the only real church that upholds the biblical truth and all other churches – mainstream or cults – are evil.”
Around two thirds of the total number of flights scheduled every day in February were cancelled, placing huge financial pressure on airlines and airports
China’s aviation industry has also been affected by a series of restrictions by other countries and airlines, with British Airways extending its suspension until mid-April
The cancellation of around 10,000 flights a day, or around two thirds of the total number of flights scheduled every day in February, has placed huge financial pressure on airlines and airports. Photo: Kyodo
A one-way air ticket from the coastal economic hub of Shanghai to the inland municipality of Chongqing, a journey of over 1,400km (870 miles), now costs less than a cup of coffee, with Chinese airlines slashing prices in a bid to boost weak domestic demand amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The cancellation of around 10,000 flights a day, or around two thirds of the total number of flights scheduled every day in February, has placed huge financial pressure on airlines and airports.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a notice on Tuesday that flights should resume gradually as part of the country’s efforts to return economic and social life back to normal, but passengers are still reluctant to fly with the deadly outbreak still not fully under control.
The one-way flight from Shanghai to Chongqing is being offered for just 29 yuan (US$4.10) by China’s biggest low-cost carrier, Spring Airlines, as a special offer for its frequent flyer club members, while a tall caffe latte at Starbucks in China costs 32 yuan (US$4.5).
Many Chinese carriers do receive subsidies for operating key domestic routes, so this also skews the economics as well Luya You
A one-way ticket from Shanghai to Harbin, the capital of the northern Heilongjiang province, a distance of over 1,600km (994 miles), costs just 69 yuan (US$9.80).
Shenzhen Airlines, a division of state-owned carrier Air China, is also running special offers to Chongqing, with a one-way ticket for the 1000km (621 miles) journey from Shenzhen costing just 100 yuan (US$14), around 5 per cent of the standard price of 1,940 yuan (US$276).
Chengdu Airlines, a unit of Sichuan Airlines, which counts China Southern Airlines as a shareholder, is also offering cheap one-way flights from Shenzhen to Chengdu, a distance of over 1,300km (808 miles), for just 100 yuan.
“Considering lower average costs of operating in mainland China, carriers could potentially offer deeper discounts while making slim profits or just breaking even,” said Luya You, an aviation analyst with Bank of Communication International. “As outbreak numbers stabilise or even decline, carriers will likely adjust their fares as well, so these low fares will not last if the situation quickly turns for the better.
“Many Chinese carriers do receive subsidies for operating key domestic routes, so this also skews the economics as well. If it is a key route, for example, the carrier may choose to continue operating regardless of fares or loads as the route constitutes a major link in the domestic network infrastructure.”
China’s aviation authority confirmed earlier this month that between January 25 and February 14, which included the Lunar New Year holiday, the average daily passenger traffic in China was just 470,000, representing a 75 per cent drop from the same period last year.
China’s aviation industry has also been affected by a series of restrictions by other countries and airlines, with British Airways last week extending its suspension of flights to China until after the Easter holiday in mid-April following travel advice from the British government.
The novel coronavirus, which causes the disease officially named Covid-19, has infected more than 78,000 people and killed 2,700 in China. In recent days, South Korea, Italy and Iran have all reported a surge in new cases, raising fears over the spread of the coronavirus.
“The flight suspensions will track the outbreaks, but not likely lead them. If there are more outbreaks, expect more flight suspensions,” said Andrew Charlton, managing director of Aviation Advocacy.
SHANGHAI/SEOUL (Reuters) – Asia reported hundreds of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, including a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea, as the United States warned of an inevitable pandemic and outbreaks in Italy and Iran spread to other countries.
World stocks tumbled for the fifth day on fears of prolonged disruption to global supply chains, while safe-haven gold rose back toward seven-year highs and U.S. bond yields held near record lows.
Stock markets globally have wiped out $3.3 trillion of value in the past four trading sessions, as measured by the MSCI all-country index.
The disease is believed to have originated in a market selling wildlife in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and has infected about 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700, the vast majority in China.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to prepare, saying that while the immediate risk there was low the global situation suggested a pandemic was likely.
“It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when and how many people will be infected,” the CDC’s principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, said on Tuesday.
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, advised against referring to a pandemic.
“We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic without a careful and clear-minded analysis of the facts,” Tedros said in remarks to Geneva-based diplomats.
“Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems. It may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true.”
‘DON’T WAIT’
The United States has reported 57 cases of the virus. U.S. President Donald Trump, back in Washington after a visit to India, said on Twitter that he would meet U.S. officials for a briefing on the coronavirus on Wednesday.
Dr Bruce Aylward, head of a joint WHO-Chinese mission on the outbreak, told reporters on his return to Geneva that countries’ preparations should not wait.
“Think the virus is going to show up tomorrow. If you don’t think that way, you’re not going to be ready,” he said. “This a rapidly escalating epidemic in different places that we have got to tackle super-fast to prevent a pandemic.”
Aylward said China’s “extraordinary mobilization” showed how an aggressive public health policy could curb its spread.
The WHO says the outbreak peaked in China around Feb. 2, after authorities isolated Hubei province and imposed other containment measures.
China’s National Health Commission reported another 406 new infections on Wednesday, down from 508 a day earlier and bringing the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China to 78,064. Its death toll rose by 52 to 2,715.
The WHO said only 10 new cases were reported in China on Tuesday outside Hubei.
South Korea, which with 1,261 cases has the most outside China, reported 284 new ones including a U.S. soldier, as authorities readied an ambitious plan to test more than 200,000 members of a church at the center of the outbreak.
Of the new cases, 134 were from Daegu city, where the virus is believed to have been passed among members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The U.S. military said a 23-year-old soldier based in Camp Carroll, about 20 km (12 miles) from Daegu, had been infected and was in self-quarantine at home.
OLYMPIC WORRIES
In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for sports and cultural events to be scrapped or curtailed for two weeks to stem the virus as concern mounted for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan’s professional baseball teams would play matches without spectators until March 15 due to virus concerns, Kyodo news agency reported.
Japan has nearly 170 virus cases, besides the 691 linked to a cruise ship that was quarantined of its coast this month. Six people have died in Japan, including four from the ship.
There have been nearly 50 deaths outside China, including 11 in Italy and 19 in Iran, the most outside China, according to a Reuters tally.
Iran’s deputy health minister – seen mopping his brow at a televised news conference – was among its 139 coronavirus infections. Cases linked to Iran have been reported across the region.
Kuwait said six new coronavirus cases, all linked to travel to Iran, took its tally to 18, while Bahrain said its infections had risen to 26 after three new ones on a flight from Iran.
The United Arab Emirates, which has reported 13 coronavirus cases, is prepared for “worst case scenarios” as it spreads in the Middle East, a government official said.
In Europe, Italy has become a front line in the global outbreak with 322 cases. Italians or people who had recently visited the country, have tested positive in Algeria, Austria, Croatia, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.
Two hotels, one in Austria and one in Spain’s Canary Islands, were also locked down after cases emerged linked to Italy. Spain also reported its first three cases on the mainland.
State-owned carrier’s chief says it wouldn’t be ‘morally acceptable’ to stop flying to the country, and it will stand with its ‘Chinese brothers and sisters’
Dozens of airlines have cancelled or reduced services to the nation amid the virus outbreak, including two East African rivals
Ethiopian Airlines says it will continue flying to China. The routes are among its most profitable. Photo: Shutterstock
Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest and most profitable carrier, will continue flying to China despite growing pressure for it to suspend services to the country as
Dozens of airlines around the globe have cancelled or reduced their services to cities in the world’s second-largest economy amid fears over the outbreak. Its East African rivals Kenya Airways and RwandAir have both suspended flights to China until the outbreak is contained.
But Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam said the carrier would not abandon the routes, which are among its most profitable.
Tewolde told media over the weekend that the airline had been flying to China since 1973 and it would not be ethical to suspend flights to the country.
“It will not be morally acceptable to stop flying to China today because they have a temporary problem,” he said, adding that the airline would stand with its “Chinese brothers and sisters”.
His remarks came days after Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta put pressure on the Ethiopian government – which wholly owns Ethiopian Airlines – to halt flights to China, citing the need to curb the spread of the virus into the East African region.
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The airline has bucked a trend that has seen major airlines – from the United States to Europe and Asia – staying away from Chinese airspace as governments around the world move to keep the deadly virus from their borders. The pneumonia-like illness has so far
in mainland China since the outbreak began in Wuhan in December, with cases reported in more than 20 other countries worldwide.
Speaking during a visit to Washington last week, Kenyatta – who is keen to court both China and the US – insisted that Kenya’s decision to suspend flights from Guangzhou to Nairobi was not political.
He said most African countries had weak health systems that would make it harder to handle the outbreak, so preventing its spread – even if through extreme measures such as grounding flights – was the only option.
“Our worry as a country is not that China cannot manage the disease. Our biggest worry is diseases coming into areas with weaker health systems like ours,” Kenyatta said while addressing members of US think tank the Atlantic Council.
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But Ethiopian Airlines said it would continue flying to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong and was taking measures to protect staff and passengers. Ethiopia receives about 1,500 visitors from mainland China every day.
According to Tewolde, if the airline halted its Chinese services, China and Africa would be completely disconnected.
“No one in Ethiopian Airlines would like to see this,” he said. “We have to take maximum precautions, but stopping flights is not one of them.”
He added: “Even if we stop flying, people will continue to come to Ethiopia through Singapore, Malaysia, Europe. The transmission of the disease will be dangerously hidden … British Airways stopped flying to China for its economic reasons. But Chinese carriers are flying to the UK.”
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In a separate statement, the carrier said China was “one of the strongest and one of the oldest markets for Ethiopian Airlines”.
“We have been connecting the great Chinese nation with the entire continent of African for almost half a century and it is our growth strategy,” the airline said, adding that it would continue operating in the five cities in compliance with international aviation and health guidelines.
Aside from seeking to shore up revenues, analysts noted that the airline was under tight state control, and Ethiopia would be reluctant to do anything that might harm its strong bilateral ties with China.
Ethiopia is among the nations on the continent with the highest number of Chinese immigrants. Most of them are workers involved in the construction of infrastructure projects including ports, railways, dams, bridges and malls. Those projects have been financed with billions of dollars in loans from China – Ethiopia is reportedly among the biggest recipients of Chinese lending in Africa.
Last year, China was forced to restructure Ethiopia’s debt after the latter edged closer to defaulting on a loan from Beijing for its standard gauge railway.
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Ethiopia, Algeria, Angola, Nigeria and Zambia together accounted for nearly 60 per cent of all Chinese workers on the continent at the end of 2017, according to a study by Johns Hopkins University.
Ethiopia is also a major recipient of direct foreign investment from China.
BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – Italy, South Korea and Iran reported sharp rises in coronavirus infections on Monday, triggering concern from the World Health Organization (WHO), but China relaxed some curbs on movement, including in Beijing, as the rate of new infections there eased.
The virus has put Chinese cities into lockdown, disrupted air traffic to the workshop of the world and blocked global supply chains for everything from cars and car parts to smartphones.
The surge of cases outside mainland China triggered steep falls in global share markets and Wall Street stock futures as investors fled to safe havens. Gold soared to a seven-year high, oil tumbled nearly 4% and the Korean won KRW= fell to its lowest level since August.[MKTS/GLOB]
But U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the impact on the global economy or supply chains, saying it was simply too soon to know.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said it no longer had a process for declaring a pandemic, but that the coronavirus outbreak remained an international emergency.
“We are specially concerned about the rapid increase in cases in … Iran, Italy and the Republic of Korea,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Sweden via video link from Geneva.
South Korea reported 231 new cases, taking its total to 833. Many are in its fourth-largest city, Daegu, which became more isolated with Asiana Airlines (020560.KS) and Korean Air (003490.KS) suspending flights there until next month.
Iran, which announced its first two cases last Wednesday, said it had confirmed 43 cases and eight deaths. Most of the infections were in the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Bahrain and Iraq reported their first cases and Kuwait reported three cases involving people who had been in Iran.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan imposed restrictions on travel and immigration from Iran. Afghanistan also reported its first case, officials said.
The WHO has been saying for weeks that it dreads the disease reaching countries with weak health systems.
Europe’s biggest outbreak is in Italy, with some 150 infections – compared with just three before Friday – and a fifth death.
‘SEVERE AND COMPLEX’
Scientists around the world are scrambling to analyze the virus, but a vaccine is probably more than a year away.
“Worryingly, it seems that the virus can pass from person to person without symptoms, making it extremely difficult to track, regardless of what health authorities do,” said Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading in Britain.
China postponed the annual meeting of its parliament in Beijing.
But there was a measure of relief for the world’s second-largest economy as more than 20 province-level jurisdictions, including Beijing and Shanghai, reported zero new infections, the best showing since the outbreak began.
President Xi Jinping urged businesses to get back to work, though he said the epidemic was still “severe and complex, and prevention and control work is in the most difficult and critical stage”.
Excluding the central Hubei province, center of the outbreak, mainland China reported 11 new cases, the lowest since the national health authority started publishing nationwide daily figures on Jan. 20.
The coronavirus has infected nearly 77,000 people and killed more than 2,500 in China, most in Hubei.
Overall, China reported 409 new cases on the mainland, down from 648 a day earlier, taking the total number of infections to 77,150 cases as of Feb. 23. The death toll rose by 150 to 2,592.
Outside mainland China, the outbreak has spread to about 29 countries and territories, with a death toll of about two dozen, according to a Reuters tally.
Xi said on Sunday the outbreak would have a relatively big, but short-term, impact on the economy and the government would step up policy adjustments to help cushion the blow.
Mnuchin, speaking to Reuters in the Saudi city of Riyadh, said he did not expect the coronavirus to have a material impact on the Phase 1 U.S.-China trade deal.
“Obviously that could change as the situation develops,” he added.
In northern Italy, authorities sealed off the worst-affected towns and banned public gatherings across a wide area, halting the carnival in Venice, where there were two cases.
Austria briefly suspended train services over the Alps from Italy after two travelers coming from Italy showed symptoms of fever.
Both tested negative for the new coronavirus but Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said a task force would meet on Monday to discuss whether to introduce border controls.
Japan had 773 cases as of late Sunday, mostly on a cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo. A third passenger, a Japanese man in his 80s, died on Sunday.
In South Korea, authorities reported a seventh death and dozens more cases on Monday. Of the new cases, 115 were linked to a church in the city of Daegu.
Drone footage showed what appeared to be hundreds of people queuing in a neat line outside a Daegu supermarket under the winter sunshine to buy face masks. ( tmsnrt.rs/37WP6lA )
SEOUL/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – South Korea raised its disease alert to the highest level on Sunday after a surge in coronavirus infections and two more deaths, while China state media warned the outbreak there had yet to reach a turning point despite some signs of easing.
South Korea’s president said he was putting the country on “red alert” due to the rapid rise in new cases, which are largely being traced back to church services. Health officials reported 169 new infections, bringing the total to 602, having doubled from Friday to Saturday.
The escalation in the alert level allows the government to send extra resources to Daegu city and Cheongdo county, which were designated “special care zones” on Friday.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said it also enables the government to forcibly prevent public activities and order the temporary closure of schools, though the government gave no immediate details on what steps could be taken.
In China, the health commission confirmed 648 new infections – higher than a day earlier – but only 18 were outside of Hubei province, the lowest number outside of the epicenter since authorities started publishing data a month ago and locked down large parts of the country.
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But the number of cases continued to climb elsewhere.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed government agencies on Sunday to urgently prepare medical provisions and draft a comprehensive plan to curb the spread of the virus, after it reported 27 more cases a day earlier.
The U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory level one notch for South Korea and Japan to Level 2 on a scale of 1 to 4.
Concern about the reach and rapid spread of coronavirus also grew in Europe and the Middle East.
Cases in Italy, Europe’s worst hit country, more than quadrupled to 79 on Saturday, with two deaths.
Iran reported a total of 43 infections, with eight deaths – all since Tuesday – forcing some of its neighbors to announce travel and immigration curbs.
The World Health Organization on Saturday stressed that the number of cases outside of China was still relatively few, but it was worried by the detection of infections without a clear link to China.
The disease has spread to some 26 countries and territories outside China, killing more than a dozen people, according to a Reuters tally. It has been fatal in 2% of reported cases, with the elderly and ill the most vulnerable, according to the WHO.
The potential economic impact of coronavirus was prominent at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Riyadh, at which the International Monetary Fund chief said China’s 2020 growth would likely be lower at 5.6%, down 0.4 percentage points from its January outlook, with 0.1 percentage points shaved from global growth.
The last time South Korea raised the alert to the highest was 11 years ago during the Influenza A or H1N1 outbreak.
Many of South Korea’s new cases were linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus congregation in Daegu after a 61-year-old woman known as “Patient 31” tested positive for the virus last week. The woman had no recent record of overseas travel.
Catholic churches in Daegu and Gwangju have suspended mass and other gatherings, while churches elsewhere saw declines in attendance on Sunday, especially among the elderly.
“If the situation gets worse, I think we’ll need to take more measures. Currently, we’re limiting personal gatherings within the church except for Mass,” said Song Gi-young, 53, wearing a face mask at church.
Heo Young-moo, 88, expressed frustration.
“Devotees shouldn’t go to any risky places … Hasn’t it become so widespread because those people didn’t get checked?”,” he said.
Outside of the church was a sign that said: “All Shincheonji followers are strictly prohibited from entering”.
The foreign ministry said South Koreans aboard a plane to Israel had been denied entry there on Saturday due to concerns about the virus spread.
China said the number of new deaths on Saturday from COVID-19, as the disease caused by the virus is known, was 97, all but one of which were in Hubei.
Eighty-two of those were in the provincial capital Wuhan, where Xinhua news agency said nucleic tests were being carried out on the backlog of cases to try to contain the spread.
In total, China has reported 76,936 cases, and 2,442 deaths. The WHO says the virus is severe or critical in only a fifth of infected patients, and mild in the rest.
Graphic: Reuters graphics on the new coronavirus here
NOT OVER YET
Beijing, Zhejiang, Sichuan had no new infections on Feb. 22 for the first time since the outbreak was detected. There were signs of street life in Shanghai, with some cafes serving take-out food and families wearing masks walking their dogs.
State run television on Sunday urged people to avoid complacency, drawing attention to people gathering in public areas and tourist spots without wearing masks.
Analysts have been closely watching out for any signs of a secondary wave of infections as transport restrictions are eased and many migrant workers return to factories and offices. Business activity in the world’s second-biggest economy is only gradually returning to normal after widespread disruptions.
Japan’s health minister apologized on Saturday after a woman who was allowed to leave the coronavirus-struck Diamond Princess cruise ship tested positive despite having underwent quarantine.
At least 623 cases have been reported on the vessel, the biggest outbreak outside China, involving more than a dozen nationalities.
In Italy, schools and universities were closed and some soccer matches postponed in Lombardy and Veneto, the country’s industrial heartland.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq have travel and immigration curbs on Iran, while Oman on Sunday urged its citizens to steer clear of countries with high infection rates and said arrivals from those nations would be quarantined.
China Passenger Car Association said sales fell to just 4,909 units in the first 16 days of February, from 59,930 in the first quarter of 2019
The growth rate for China’s imports and exports is expected to decline sharply in the January-February period
Commuters make their way along an expressway during rush hour in Beijing. Photo: AP
A 92 per cent drop in car sales in China in the first half of February provided the first real indicator of the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic, with officials also warning of a sharp decline in Chinese exports and imports for the first two months of the year.
The China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) on Friday said that sales dropped to just 4,909 units in the first 16 days of the month, down from 59,930 vehicles in the same period a year earlier.
“Very few dealerships opened in the first weeks of February and they have had very little customer traffic,” said the CPCA.
China’s car market is likely to see sales slide more than 10 per cent in the first half of the year due to the outbreak, and around 5 per cent for the whole year, provided the virus is effectively contained before April, the country’s top industry body, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), said last week.
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The sector was already under pressure from the cooling economy, with car sales falling 3 per cent in 2018 in the first sales contraction since the 1990s, and 8.2 per cent in 2019, CAAM said.
“We must firmly believe that China’s auto market still has great development space and potential, and the automobile consumption demand is still strong,” Wang Bin, vice-director of the commerce market operation department at the commerce ministry, said on Thursday.
To stabilise the market, in which more than 25 million vehicles were sold last year, China’s commerce ministry said it will introduce more measures to boost consumption.
Li Xingqian, head of foreign trade at the Ministry of Commerce, said the growth rate for China’s exports and imports would decline sharply in the January-February period due to a collapse in logistics and the delayed start of work following the extended Lunar New Year holiday, which was aimed at controlling the coronavirus outbreak.
“The impact of the epidemic on the first quarter is here objectively, should not be underestimated, but [growth] is still within the tolerable range,” he said on Friday. “As the prevention and control [measures] achieve new staged results, foreign trade will inevitably resume its growth. China’s foreign trade development is expected to remain within a reasonable range throughout the year.”
China cancelled the release of its January trade data, with the General Customs Administration of China saying it will combine January and February’s data in an effort to remove seasonal volatility from the Lunar New Year period. Statistics will be released in early March.
Trade is traditionally volatile over the first two months of the year in China. Shipments are heavily affected by the Lunar New Year break, with this volatility to be exacerbated by the coronavirus outbreak, which causes the disease officially known as Covid-19.
Zong Changqing, head of the commerce ministry’s foreign investment department, also conceded the virus could hit inward investment over the entire first quarter of 2020. Zong claimed the impact would only be temporary, and that China remained an attractive environment for foreign investment.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China in 2019 rose 5.8 per cent from a year earlier to 941.5 billion yuan (US$134 billion), according to the commerce ministry. FDI in China also saw a steady year-on-year increase of 4 per cent last month, compared with a growth of 4.8 per cent registered in January 2019.
The impacts of the outbreak on foreign investment have begun to show, and are expected to become greater in February and March. Zong Changqing
“The impacts of the outbreak on foreign investment have begun to show, and are expected to become greater in February and March,” Zong said.
He confirmed that the ministry asked local authorities in Shandong province to push all 32 South Korean-owned car parts companies to restart production by the end of last week to keep the global supply chain stable.
He also said that over 80 per cent of key foreign-owned enterprises in Shanghai, Shandong and Hunan province had reopened, with most regions expected to restore production by the end of February, provided the spread of the virus is contained.
However, a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, released earlier this week, found that in the vast majority of cases, factories that have reopened are running at a fraction of their production capacity.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 