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.
In Wuhan, the epicentre of China’s outbreak, all traffic lights in urban areas were turned red at 10:00, ceasing traffic for three minutes.
China’s government said the event was a chance to pay respects to “martyrs”, a reference to the 14 medical workers who died battling the virus.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption China came to a standstill during the three-minute silence at 10:00 local time
They include Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who died of Covid-19 after being reprimanded by the authorities for attempting to warn others about the disease.
“I feel a lot of sorrow about our colleagues and patients who died,” a Chinese nurse who treated coronavirus patients told AFP news agency. “I hope they can rest well in heaven.”
Wearing white flowers pinned to their chest, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other government officials paid silent tribute in Beijing.
Saturday’s commemorations coincide with the annual Qingming festival, when millions of Chinese families pay respects to their ancestors.
China first informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about cases of pneumonia with unknown causes on 31 December last year.
By 18 January, the confirmed number of cases had risen to around 60 – but experts estimated the real figure was closer to 1,700.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption China’s government said the commemoration was held to pay respects to “martyrs”
Just two days later, as millions of people prepared to travel for the lunar new year, the number of cases more than tripled to more than 200 and the virus was detected in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
From that point, the virus began to spread rapidly in Asia and then Europe, eventually reaching every corner of the globe.
Media caption The BBC met people in Beijing heading out after the lockdown
In the past few weeks, China has started to ease travel and social-distancing restrictions, believing it has brought the health emergency under control.
Last weekend, Wuhan partially re-opened after more than two months of isolation.
On Saturday, China reported 19 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, down from 31 a day earlier. China’s health commission said 18 of those cases involved travellers arriving from abroad.
As it battles to control cases coming from abroad, China temporarily banned all foreign visitors, even if they have visas or residence permits.
What is the latest worldwide?
As the coronavirus crisis in China abates, the rest of the world remains firmly in the grip of the disease.
The deaths increased by 1,480 in 24 hours, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began, AFP news agency reported, citing Johns Hopkins University’s case tracker.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the pandemic has bought the global economy to a standstill, causing a recession “way worse than the global financial crisis” of 2008
The United Nations appealed to governments around the world not to use the pandemic as an excuse to stifle dissent
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.
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EU asks Britain to extend Brexit talks
The European Union expects Britain to seek an extension of its post-Brexit transition period beyond the end of the year, diplomats and officials said on Monday, as negotiations on trade have ground to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Europe has gone into a deep lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of the disease, with more than 330,000 infections reported on the continent and nearly 21,000 deaths.
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his health minister have both tested positive for the virus and the prime minister’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings – one of the masterminds behind Britain’s departure from the EU earlier this year – was self-isolating with symptoms.
London and the EU have been seeking to agree a new trade pact by the end of the year to kick in from 2021, even though the bloc has long said that such a time frame was extremely short to agree rules on everything from trade to security to fisheries.
The pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the Giza pyramid complex. Photo: Reuters
Great Pyramid in Egypt lights up in solidarity
Egypt’s famed Great Pyramid was emblazoned Monday evening with messages of unity and solidarity with those battling the novel coronavirus the world over.
“Stay safe”, “Stay at home” and “Thank you to those keeping us safe,” flashed in blue and green lights across the towering structure at the Giza plateau, southwest of the capital Cairo.
Egypt has so far registered 656 Covid-19 cases, including 41 deaths. Of the total infected, 150 reportedly recovered.
Egypt has carried out sweeping disinfection operations at archaeological sites, museums and other sites across the country.
In tandem, strict social distancing measures were imposed to reduce the risk of contagion among the country’s 100 million inhabitants.
Tourist and religious sites are shuttered, schools are closed and air traffic halted.
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.
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The case has come to widespread attention partly because the workers were wearing a mix of standard surgical masks and the N95 mask, which doctors see as the gold standard as it filters out 95 per cent of airborne particles.
The conclusion, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine this month, was this: “That none of the health care workers in this situation acquired infection suggests that surgical masks, hand hygiene, and other standard procedures protected them from being infected.”
Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande mentioned the case in an article for The New Yorker on how health care workers could continue seeing patients without becoming patients. He said there were things to learn from Asia and that some of the lessons came out of the “standard public health playbook”. In other words, there is much to be said for social distancing, basic hand hygiene and cleaning regimens.
A health worker in protective gear walks into a quarantine room at a hospital in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Photo: AFP
COMING TOGETHER
With critical supplies running short in many countries, experts say it is increasingly vital that countries share both knowledge and resources.
To this end, China has been donating personal protective equipment to places including the Philippines, Pakistan and Europe. China’s richest man Jack Ma is donating 1.8 million masks, 210,000 Covid-19 test kits and 36,000 pieces of protective clothing to 10 countries in Asia.
At the same time, doctors are encouraging the Western world to learn from Asia.
Infectious diseases expert Leong Hoe Nam said that being “bitten by Sars” (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003 had prepared Asia for Covid-19, while Western countries were not similarly prepared and hence lacked sufficient protective equipment.
He pointed to how about 2,000 health care workers had fallen sick in China early in the outbreak because workers did not initially have protective gear. The trend reversed as equipment became available.
“Once the defences were up, there were very few health care workers who fell sick at work. Rather, they fell sick from contact with sick individuals outside the workplace,” he said.
Malaysia is a case in point. While it has reported 80 health care workers falling ill, most are thought to be community infections.
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.
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The Jack Ma Foundation has also launched an online platform for doctors and nurses around the world to share knowledge on fighting the virus. “One world, one fight,” it said in a tweet.
Associate Professor Jeremy Lim from the global health programme at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health said it was crucial for countries to work together.
“Viruses don’t respect borders. Countries have to share information and help each other as we are only as strong as the weakest link. Any country can become a reservoir of disease and the world may then be forced to endure a ping-pong of outbreaks over and over again.”
And the advice of Lee, at Singapore’s Ministry of Health? “Practise good hygiene and wash hands regularly.”
Indonesian medical staff administer mass testing for Covid-19 in Bekasi, West Java. Photo: AFP
SINGAPORE, A CASE STUDY
Amid this sharing of advice, it is often Singapore that is held up as an example to replicate. Despite the country grappling with a rising load of Covid-19 patients, most of whom have recently returned to the city state from abroad, its health care system has continued to run smoothly. Doctors say this is because it has been preparing for a pandemic ever since Sars caught it by surprise. During the Sars outbreak, health care workers accounted for 41 per cent of Singapore’s 238 infections.
Consequently its hospitals swung into contingency planning mode early on in the coronavirus outbreak, telling staff to defer leave and travel plans after its first cases emerged.
Meanwhile, its hospitals swiftly split their workforces into teams to ensure there were enough workers if the outbreak worsened, and to ensure workers got enough rest.
Singapore has 13,766 doctors, or 2.4 doctors for every 1,000 people. That compares to 2.59 in the US, 1.78 in China and 4.2 in Germany. Places like Myanmar and Thailand have fewer than one doctor for every 1,000 people.
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“The objective is that you can run essential services with the greatest amount of security. Make sure functional units have redundancy built in, and are separate from each other. It depends on what you feel is sufficient to carry on services if one team is affected, factoring in rest periods and some system of rotation,” said Chia Shi-Lu, an orthopaedic surgeon.
The key is to ensure a good doctor-to-patient ratio and ensure there are enough specialists for the critical work, such as doctors and nurses who can provide intensive care, and know how to operate mechanical ventilators or machines to pump and oxygenate a patient’s blood outside the body.
At the emergency department where paediatrics emergency specialist Jade Kua treats Covid-19 cases in addition to regular emergencies, doctors are split into four teams of 21. Each team takes alternate 12-hour shifts and does not interact with other teams.
“We are in modular teams so the teams move together. So you and I would both do morning, off, night, off, morning off. Together. And then the other teams would do the same and we don’t intermingle,” said Kua.
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.
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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.” ■
BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) — As the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) makes social distancing and working from home the new normal, leaders of the Group of 20, home to almost two-thirds of the world’s population and about 86 percent of the gross world product, convened Thursday for a virtual summit that sent a clear message: We are in the same boat.
The G20 Extraordinary Virtual Leaders’ Summit on COVID-19 was the first of its kind in the history of G20, and also the first major multilateral event attended by President Xi Jinping since the outbreak of the COVID-19.
Speaking to his colleagues via video link from Beijing, Xi put forward four proposals to cope with a situation that is “disturbing and unsettling,” calling for an all-out global war against the COVID-19 outbreak and enhancing international macro-economic policy coordination to prevent a recession.
“At such a moment, it is imperative for the international community to strengthen confidence, act with unity and work together in a collective response,” Xi said. “We must comprehensively step up international cooperation and foster greater synergy so that humanity as one could win the battle against such a major infectious disease.”
In a demonstration of the need for greater global coordination and solidarity, the G20 members were joined by leaders from invited countries including hard-hit Spain as well as multiple international organizations including the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While previous G20 summits often discussed high-stake topics like economic recession and boosting development policy, Thursday’s emergency meeting came at a time when the world is grappling with a dicey pandemic and concerns are mounting over the “black swan” event that could derail the global economy.
As China’s epidemic prevention and control are continuously improving, and the trend of an accelerated restoration of normal production and life is being consolidated and expanded, his remarks at the G20 summit are timely and of critical importance for countries now fighting at the front lines of a battle to stem the pandemic and forestalling a recession.
UNITED WE STAND
The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide topped 462,684, with 20,834 deaths as of 10 a.m. Central European Time, Thursday, according to the data kept by the WHO. The economic toll is also climbing as more businesses and trade come to a grinding halt amid massive lockdowns.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is endangering countries rich and poor, large and small, strong and weak alike,” said Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and former vice minister of Commerce. “We are now at a critical juncture of fighting the pandemic and stabilizing the global economy, and the international community expects the G20 to play a leading role.”
The significance and urgency of Thursday’s meeting hark back to scenarios in the depth of the global financial crisis in 2008 when meetings of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors were raised to the level of heads of state and government for better crisis coordination. What’s different is that grave challenges facing the world today have led to warnings of a downturn even worse than in 2008.
“This pandemic will inevitably have an enormous impact on the economy,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said in a video clip posted on the website of the organization. “Recent projections predict an economic downturn and job losses that are worse than the global financial crisis a dozen years ago.”
To prevent the world economy from falling into recession, Xi said countries need to leverage and coordinate their macro policies to counteract the negative impact as the outbreak has disrupted production and demand across the globe.
“We need to implement strong and effective fiscal and monetary policies to keep our exchange rates basically stable. We need to better coordinate financial regulation to keep global financial markets stable. We need to jointly keep the global industrial and supply chains stable,” he told the summit in a speech titled “Working Together to Defeat the COVID-19 Outbreak.”
Xi’s remarks on fighting as one echoed. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said: “We project a contraction of global output in 2020, and recovery in 2021. How deep the contraction and how fast the recovery depends on the speed of containment of the pandemic and on how strong and coordinated our monetary and fiscal policy actions are.”
“We will get through this crisis together. Together we will lay the ground for a faster and stronger recovery,” she said in a statement released after the conference call.
The important lesson in international solidarity is often forgotten when things are going fine, William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
“The experience with the COVID-19 will hopefully lead to more collaborative efforts between countries and strengthen the notion of a community with a shared destiny,” he said.
As China is a key driver of global economic growth, its economic performance bears great significance on the outlook of global recovery. In a strong morale and practical boost, Xi reaffirmed China would actively contribute to the global war against COVID-19 and a stable world economy.
“Guided by the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, China will be more than ready to share its good practices, conduct joint research and development of drugs and vaccines, and provide assistance where it can to countries hit by the growing outbreak,” Xi said.
Xi said China will contribute to a stable world economy by continuing to advance reform and opening-up, widen market access, improve the business environment and expand imports and outbound investment, and called on all G20 members to take collective actions — cutting tariffs, removing barriers, and facilitating the unfettered flow of trade.
The country is beefing up wider opening-up to foreign investment. Revision of the negative list on foreign investment is underway as part of the plan to improve business environment and expand the catalog of industries where foreign investment is encouraged.
New editions of the list will probably be released in May, expanding market access of the tertiary sector, such as health care, aged service, finance, transportation, logistics, tourism, education and training and value-added services of telecommunications, said Zhang Fei with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Noting that a global solution is needed to address the global challenge brought about by the pandemic, Azevedo said cross-border trade and investment flows have a role to play in efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and will be vital for fostering a stronger recovery once the medical emergency subsides.
“No country is self-sufficient, no matter how powerful or advanced it may be. Trade is what allows for the efficient production and supply of basic goods and services, medical supplies and equipment, food and energy that we all need,” he said.
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
‘Aggressive and targeted’ tactics needed to curb spread of Covid-19 as more than 100,000 new infections recorded in just four days
Global political commitment and coordination needed to halt trajectory, agency chief says
A customs officer speaks to passengers on board an inbound flight at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photo: Xinhua
The World Health Organisation has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating, calling for “aggressive and targeted tactics” to curb its spread after more than 100,000 new infections were recorded in just four days.
The warning, by the UN agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, came as the number of deaths from the disease, caused by the new coronavirus, continued to rise, and as mainland China reported a doubling in new cases.
The outbreak, which was first reported in December in China, is rapidly spreading across the globe. Tedros said it had taken 67 days from the first reported case to the first 100,000 infections, and just 11 days for the number to soar to the second 100,000.
“[It was] just four days for the third 100,000 cases. You can see how the virus is accelerating,” he said on Tuesday.
“But we’re not prisoners to statistics. We’re not helpless bystanders. We can change the trajectory of this pandemic.”
China’s National Health Commission reported 74 imported coronavirus infections on Monday – the highest since March 4, when it began including data on such cases and noted two infections that had originated abroad.
They bring the total number of imported cases on the mainland to 427, as of Monday. The total number of infections there now stands at 81,171, and the death toll has risen to 3,277, with seven new fatalities.
Tedros said political commitment and coordination at the global level were needed to stop the spread, but warned against using untested medicines, saying they could raise false hope.
“To win, we need to attack the virus with aggressive and targeted tactics – testing every suspected case, isolating and caring for every confirmed case, and tracing and quarantining every close contact,” he said.
Italy’s number of new Covid-19 cases dropped to a five-day low on Monday, easing the strain on overstretched hospitals, but the situation in Spain continued to worsen.
Italian health authorities announced 4,789 new cases on Monday, a drop from 5,560 on Sunday and 6,557 on Saturday. Spanish authorities announced 462 deaths on Monday, the country’s worst day since the start of the epidemic.
Italy has a glimpse of hope as new coronavirus cases drop to a 5-day low
24 Mar 2020
The British government said on Monday that another 54 people had died in the previous 24 hours after testing positive for the coronavirus, raising the country’s deaths from the pandemic to 335. The number of confirmed cases in Britain rose to 6,650 on Monday, from 5,683 on Sunday.
Mainland China officials have said the risk facing the nation was to contain imported infections. Among the new imported infections, 31 were recorded in Beijing, 14 in Guangdong and nine in Shanghai.
Beijing has stepped up measures to contain imported infections, diverting all arriving international flights from Monday to other cities, including Shanghai and as far west as Xian, where passengers will undergo virus screening.
Guangzhou also requires all travellers to the city, except for those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, to undergo the coronavirus test. Beijing has required the test for incoming travellers with symptoms and epidemic history.
The coastal province of Zhejiang, near Shanghai, will also put all arrivals from overseas in centralised quarantine facilities for 14 days, according to media reports.
Chinese president tells heads of state that Beijing is ready to do all it can to help Europe fight Covid-19, as death toll on the continent passes 5,000
‘Public health crises are the common challenges facing humankind, and unity and cooperation are its most powerful weapons,’ Xi tells German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Chinese President Xi Jinping reached out a helping hand to four European leaders on Saturday. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping made an unusually intense diplomatic gesture towards Europe on Saturday by calling the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and Serbia to offer support in their fight against Covid-19.
The calls came as many European nations are facing shortages of the essential medical supplies and equipment they need to combat the pandemic that has already killed more than 5,000 people across the continent.
Italy has been the worst hit, with more than 4,000 people killed and over 47,000 infected. In Spain, the death toll jumped by more than 300 on Saturday to 1,326, while the number of confirmed cases neared 25,000.
In contrast, China has reported no new local transmissions for three days. As a result, the industrial powerhouse has been able to send millions of face masks it might otherwise have needed to Europe.
“If Germany is in need, China is willing to provide help within our capabilities,” he was quoted as saying by Xinhua, which reported on all of the calls.
“Public health crises are the common challenges facing humankind, and unity and cooperation are its most powerful weapons,” he said, adding that China was willing to share its “information and experience”.
Beijing was also ready to work with Berlin in other areas, such as vaccine development, Xi said.
Germany, which has reported more than 20,000 cases and 44 deaths, is the only country out of the four Xi called that has not yet requested medical supplies from China.
Xi Jinping promised to send Chinese medical support teams to Serbia, like this one that was deployed to Italy. Photo: AP
Of the four countries Xi called, only Serbia is not a member of the European Union. Its president, Aleksandar Vucic, earlier dismissed the EU’s vow of solidarity as a “fantasy” and turned to China for help.
“China and Serbia are comprehensive strategic partners,” Xi told Vucic on Saturday. “The hard-as-iron friendship of the two countries, and of the two peoples, shall last forever.”
Xi pledged to provide Serbia with protective gear and medical equipment, as well as helping it to source materials from China.
Vucic also managed to secure a guarantee from the Chinese president that he would send medical teams to Serbia, like those already deployed in Italy and Spain, the Xinhua report said.
Despite Vucic’s criticism of the EU, the bloc said on Friday it would provide Serbia with €7.5 million (US$8 million) worth of aid.
“Next week, big cargo airplanes will bring critical medical equipment. EU [is] always with Serbia in times of need,” EU ambassador to Belgrade Sem Fabrizi said on Twitter, adding: “Action not words.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has reportedly called for more power to be given to the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, as member states, current and future, could lose trust in the institution as the health crisis unfolds.
In his phone call with Macron, Xi also appealed for support from the World Health Organisation.
“China is willing to work with France to jointly promote international cooperation on preventing and controlling the disease, and on supporting the UN [United Nations] and WHO in playing a core role in perfecting global public health management,” he said.
The call was the second in three days between the two leaders.
In a poll published on Friday, Macron’s popularity rating rose past 50 per cent for the first time since 2018, France24 reported. The result suggests the French public approves of the way in which he is handling the health crisis.
Xi’s telephone call to Spain was unusual in that he spoke to King Felipe, the ceremonial head of state who generally stays out of politics.
Nonetheless, Xi again pledged his support and willingness to share China’s experiences in handling the disease and treating patients, Xinhua said.
After three days of no new domestic infections in mainland China, some residents of
, the Chinese city hardest hit by the disease, celebrated with fireworks as local authorities began removing checkpoints. Restrictions were also eased in other cities.
Beijing’s containment efforts are now focused on preventing imported cases. National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said on Saturday that the number of such infections had surged by 216 per cent to 269 on Friday, from just 85 on March 11. In the same period, the total number of infections worldwide had risen by 98 per cent.
“We have to strictly stop imported cases, step up epidemic control and avoid any rebound,” he said.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
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