Archive for ‘state news agency’

  |  
27/04/2020

Coronavirus: Chinese school gives pupils a hat tip to teach them how to keep their distance

  • Pupils given headwear modelled on a style worn by officials a thousand years ago to reinforce the message that they must stay a metre away from each other
  • One legend says the hats were given long extensions to stop courtiers whispering among themselves when meeting the emperor
Hats with long extensions were worn by officials during the Song dynasty. Photo: Handout
Hats with long extensions were worn by officials during the Song dynasty. Photo: Handout
An ancient Chinese hat has joined face masks and hand sanitisers as one of the weapons in the fight against Covid-19.
A primary school in Hangzhou in the east of the country took inspiration from the headgear worn by officials in the Song dynasty, which ruled China between 960 and 1279, to reinforce lessons on social distancing.
Pupils at the school wore their own handmade versions of the hats, which have long extensions, or wings, to keep them at least a metre (3ft) apart when they returned to school on Monday, state news agency Xinhua reported.
One legend says that the first Song emperor ordered his ministers to wear hats with two long wings on the sides so that they could not chitchat in court assemblies without being overheard, according to Tsui Lik-hang, a historian at City University of Hong Kong.
Pupils at a school in Hangzhou made their own versions of the hats. Photo: Weibo
Pupils at a school in Hangzhou made their own versions of the hats. Photo: Weibo
However, he warned that this story came from a much later source, adding: “The Song emperors, in fact, were also depicted to have worn this kind of headwear with wing-like flaps.”
The World Health Organisation recommends that people stay at least a metre apart to curb the spread of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Coronavirus droplets may travel further than personal distancing guidelines, study finds
16 Apr 2020

“If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the Covid-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease,” the global health body advises.

An early childhood education specialist said the hats were a good way to explain the concept of social distancing to young children, who find it difficult to understand abstract concepts.

The pupil’s head gear is designed to drive home the social distancing message. Photo: Weibo
The pupil’s head gear is designed to drive home the social distancing message. Photo: Weibo
“As children can see and feel these hats, and when the ‘wings’ hit one another, they may be more able to understand the expectations and remember to keep their physical distance,” said Ian Lam Chun-bun, associate head of the department of early childhood

Using pictures of footprints to indicate the right distance to keep when queuing, standing, and even talking to schoolmates was also helpful, said Lam, who recommended visual aids and aids that stimulate other senses, such as hearing and touch.

“We can use sharp colours or special textures, like tactile paving,” he added.

Source: SCMP

Posted in 1279, 3ft, 960, abstract concepts, according, among, ancient, apart, assemblies, at least, away from, between, breathe, causes, Chinese hat, Chinese school, chitchat, City University of Hong Kong, coronavirus, coughing, Country, court, courtiers, COVID-19, curb, depicted, Disease, distance, droplets, each other, East, emperor, EXPECTATIONS, extensions, face masks, fight, further, given, gives, guidelines, hand sanitisers, handmade versions, Hangzhou, hat tip, hats, headgear, headwear, historian, how to, inspiration, keep, legend, Lessons, long, long wings, meeting, message, metre, modelled, Monday, must stay, officials, overheard, People, person, personal distancing, primary school, pupils, recommends, reinforce, remember, reported, returned, ruled, school, sides, Social distancing, Song Dynasty, Song emperors, spread, state news agency, stay, stop, style, their, themselves, thousand, to teach, travel, two, Uncategorized, weapons, when, whispering, wing-like flaps, wings, without, World Health Organisation, worn by, Xinhua, years ago | Leave a Comment »

15/04/2020

Coronavirus: China launches study into asymptomatic cases and shared immunity

  • Residents of nine regions, including Wuhan, Beijing and Shanghai, to be sampled using both nucleic acid and antibody tests, state media reports
  • Research ‘very important as it will help us to direct our countermeasures in the future’, molecular virologist says
China is using dual testing to determine how many people have been infected with Covid-19 but recovered without showing symptoms. Photo: AP
China is using dual testing to determine how many people have been infected with Covid-19 but recovered without showing symptoms. Photo: AP
China has begun a major survey to determine how many people might have been infected with the coronavirus and then recovered without ever showing symptoms, while also assessing immunity levels within different communities, state media reported.

The research will be conducted in six provinces, including Hubei which was the focus of the initial outbreak, as well as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing.

Wuhan

, the capital of Hubei and home to about 60 per cent of all infections reported in mainland China, is taking the lead in the study, which involves giving both nucleic acid and antibody tests to 11,000 of its 11 million residents, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Health workers collected throat swabs and blood samples from about 900 people randomly selected from eight subdistricts of the city on Tuesday, Ding Gangqiang, head of the Wuhan epidemiological survey team, was quoted as saying.

“The purpose is to learn about the immunity level in communities and provide scientific support on how we should adjust our disease control strategies,” he said.

Professor Lu Hongzhou, a specialist in infectious diseases who heads the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre where Covid-19 patients are being treated, said he supported the research though the collection of samples had yet to start in the city.

“We haven’t received notification from the top [to start],” he said. “The number of infections [in Shanghai] is not very big, but I think we’d better do this so as to have an idea of the scale of asymptomatic carriers.”

Professor Jin Dong-yan, a molecular virologist at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said that the use of both nucleic acid and antibody tests would enable scientists to determine those people who had been infected but recovered without medical aid and without showing symptoms.

The study into asymptomatic infections got under way in Wuhan in Tuesday. Photo: Simon Song
The study into asymptomatic infections got under way in Wuhan in Tuesday. Photo: Simon Song
If a person tested positive in a nucleic acid test, it meant they were carrying the virus, and if positive in an antibodies test, it meant that they had contracted the virus and had recovered, he told the South China Morning Post.

“This is very important as it will help us to direct our countermeasures in the future,” Jin said.

“If we find, say 60 per cent, of the population has acquired immunity, then lockdowns will no longer be meaningful. If it turns out that there are many people with a high viral load but without symptoms, then we should be on high alert and take stricter measures.

“For people in Hubei, the tests can also save them from discrimination when they get back to work – those who prove to have developed immunity are very unlikely to get infected [again] for at least a year,” he said.

Wuhan hotel owners say they’re on the brink of going bust

15 Apr 2020
Beijing began adding asymptomatic cases

to the nation’s daily infections tally at the start of April amid concerns that such people could trigger a second outbreak once the widespread lockdowns in cities like Wuhan and elsewhere were lifted.

China reported 103 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, of which 39 were imported. Of the total, 57 people had no symptoms, including three of the imported cases.

Since the outbreak began, China has reported 82,295 cases, of which 95 per cent have recovered and been discharged from hospital.

Source: SCMP

Posted in antibody tests, ASYMPTOMATIC CASES, asymptomatic infections, Beijing, blood samples, China, collected, coronavirus, countermeasures, COVID-19, health workers, Hubei, immunity, infected, infectious diseases, launches, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, lockdowns, Mainland China, meaningful, molecular virologist, nine, nucleic acid, patients, People, Population, recovered, regions, research, residents, sampled, Shanghai, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre, shared, showing, south china morning post, state news agency, study, symptoms, throat swabs, Tuesday, Uncategorized, University of Hong Kong, without, Wuhan, Wuhan epidemiological survey team, Xinhua | Leave a Comment »

12/02/2020

Coronavirus cases fall, experts disagree whether peak is near

BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China reported on Wednesday its smallest number of coronavirus cases since January, lending weight to a prediction by its top medical adviser for the outbreak to end by April, but a global infectious diseases expert warned of the spread elsewhere.

Financial markets took heart from the outlook of the Chinese official, epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan, who said on Tuesday the number of new cases was falling in some provinces, and forecast the epidemic would peak this month, even as the death toll in China rose to more than 1,100 people.

World stocks, which had seen rounds of sell-offs over the virus, surged to record highs on hopes of a peak in cases. The Dow industrials, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all hit new highs, and Asian shares nudged higher on Wednesday.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the epidemic poses a global threat akin to terrorism and one expert coordinating its response said while the outbreak may be peaking at its epicentre in China, it was likely to spread elsewhere in the world, where it had just begun.

RELATED COVERAGE

  • Chess, squabbles aboard cruise ship cast away by coronavirus fears
  • Singapore’s DBS evacuates 300 staff after employee contracts coronavirus
See more stories

“It has spread to other places where it’s the beginning of the outbreak,” the official, Dale Fisher, head of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the WHO, said in an interview in Singapore.

“In Singapore, we are at the beginning of the outbreak.”

Singapore has reported 47 cases and worry about the spread is growing. Its biggest bank, DBS (DBSM.SI), evacuated 300 staff from its head office on Wednesday after a confirmed coronavirus case in the building.

Hundreds of cases have been reported in dozens of other countries and territories around the world, but only two people have died outside mainland China – one in Hong Kong and another in the Philippines.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday the world had to “wake up and consider this enemy virus as public enemy number one” and the first vaccine was 18 months away.

In China, total infections have hit 44,653, health officials said, including 2,015 new confirmed cases on Tuesday. That was the lowest daily rise in new cases since Jan. 30.

The number of deaths on the mainland rose by 97 to 1,113 by the end of Tuesday.

But doubts have been aired on social media about how reliable the figures are, after the government last week amended guidelines on the classification of cases.

‘STAY HOPEFUL’

The biggest cluster of cases outside China is aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined off Japan’s port of Yokohama, with about 3,700 people on board. Japanese officials on Wednesday said 39 more people had tested positive for the virus, taking the total to 175.

One of the new cases was a quarantine officer.

Thailand said it was barring passengers from another cruise ship, MS Westerdam, from disembarking, the latest country to turn it away amid fears of the coronavirus, despite no confirmed infections on board.

“We try to stay hopeful,” American passenger Angela Jones told Reuters in a video recording. “But each day, that becomes a little bit more difficult, when country after country rejects us.”

Echoing the comparison with the fight against terrorism, China’s state news agency Xinhua said late on Tuesday the epidemic was a “battle that has no gunpowder smoke but must be won”.

The epidemic was a big test of China’s governance and capabilities and some officials were still “dropping the ball” in places where it was most severe, it said, adding: “This is a wake-up call.”

The government of Hubei, the central province at the outbreak’s epicentre, dismissed the provincial health commission’s Communist Party boss, state media said on Tuesday, amid mounting public anger over the crisis.

China’s censors had allowed criticism of local officials but have begun cracking down on reporting of the outbreak, issuing reprimands to tech firms that gave free rein to online speech, Chinese journalists said.

The pathogen has been named COVID-19 – CO for corona, VI for virus, D for disease and 19 for the year it emerged. It is suspected to have come from a market that illegally traded wildlife in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan in December.

The city of 11 million people remains under virtual lockdown as part of China’s unprecedented measures to seal infected regions and limit transmission routes.

Travel restrictions that have paralysed the world’s second-biggest economy have left Wuhan and other Chinese cities resembling ghost towns.

Even if the epidemic ends soon, it has taken a toll of China’s economy, with companies laying off workers and needing loans running into billions of dollars to stay afloat. Supply chains for makers of items from cars to smartphones have broken down.

ANZ Bank said China’s first-quarter growth would probably slow to 3.2% to 4.0%, down from a projection of 5.0%.

The likely slowdown in China could shave 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points off both euro zone and British growth this year, credit rating agency S&P Global estimated.

Source: Reuters

Posted in &P 500, American, ANZ Bank, April, “dropping the ball”, barring, Beijing, British growth, broken down, capabilities, cars, cases, central province, China, China’s, China’s economy, Chinese, CO for corona, VI for virus, D for disease and 19, Communist Party boss, companies, comparison, coronavirus, coronavirus cases, COVID-19, Credit rating agency, Cruise Ship, December, Diamond Princess, disagree, disembarking, dismissed, Dow industrials, Echoing, elsewhere, end, epidemic, epidemiologist, estimated, Euro Zone, expert, experts, fall, fight, ghost towns, global, Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, Governance, Government, gunpowder smoke, Hong Kong, hubei province, illegally traded wildlife, infected regions, infectious diseases, items, January, Japanese, laying off, lending, limit, Mainland China, Makers, market, MS Westerdam, NASDAQ, near, needing loans, number, Official, officials, outbreak, outbreak’s epicentre, paralysed, passenger, passengers, pathogen, peak, Philippines, Port, prediction, provinces, provincial health commission’s, quarantine officer, quarantined, reported, Reuters, S&P 500, S&P Global, seal, Singapore, smallest, smartphones, spread, state news agency, supply chains, surged, terrorism, Thailand, toll, top medical adviser, transmission routes, travel restrictions, Uncategorized, video recording, virtual lockdown, wake-up call, Wednesday, weight, whether, won, workers, World Health Organization (WHO), World stocks, world’s second-biggest economy, Wuhan, Xinhua, Yokohama | Leave a Comment »

  |  
CCChang

Law of Unintended Consequences

continuously updated blog about China & India

ChiaHou's Book Reviews

continuously updated blog about China & India

What's wrong with the world; and its economy

continuously updated blog about China & India