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04/04/2020

Coronavirus: China mourns Covid-19 victims with three-minute silence

Media caption A day of remembrance is held in China to honour those who have died in the coronavirus outbreak

China has mourned the victims of the coronavirus outbreak by observing a three-minute silence, bringing the nation to a halt.

A day of remembrance was declared in China on Saturday to honour the more than 3,300 people who died of Covid-19.

At 10:00 local time (03:00 GMT), people stood still nationwide for three minutes in tribute to the dead.

Cars, trains and ships then sounded their horns, air raid sirens rang as flags were flown at half-mast.

The first cases of coronavirus were detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province late last year.

Since then, the virus has swept the globe, infecting more than one million people and killing nearly 60,000 in 181 countries.

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.

People stop and pay their respects in Wuhan, 4 April 2020Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image 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.

Police officers and officials stop and pay their respects during a three minutes of silence to mourn those who died in the fight against the pandemicImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image 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.

In the US, now the global epicentre of the outbreak, the number of deaths from the disease jumped to 7,152 on Friday, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University.

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.

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As of Friday, there were 277,953 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the US, a rise of more than 32,000 in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, deaths continue to climb in Italy and Spain, the second and third worst-affected countries in the world.

Map showing number of cases in Europe
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In Italy, deaths increased by 766 on Friday, bringing the total to 14,681. In Spain, the death toll stood at 10,935, a rise of 932 in the past day.

However, there was a glimmer of hope for both countries, as the downward trend in the rate of new cases continued.

In other global developments:

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04/04/2020

China mourns thousands who died in country’s coronavirus epidemic

BEIJING/WUHAN, China (Reuters) – China on Saturday mourned the thousands of “martyrs” who have died in the new coronavirus outbreak, flying the national flag at half mast throughout the country and suspending all forms of entertainment.

The Chinese national flag flies at half-mast at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as China holds a national mourning for those who died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the Qingming tomb sweeping festival, April 4, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

The day of mourning coincided with the start of the annual Qingming tomb-sweeping festival, when millions of Chinese families pay respects to their ancestors.

At 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) Beijing time, the country observed three minutes of silence to mourn those who died, including frontline medical workers and doctors. Cars, trains and ships sounded their horns and air raid sirens wailed.

In Zhongnanhai, the seat of political power in Beijing, President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders paid silent tribute in front of the national flag, with white flowers pinned to their chest as a mark of mourning, state media reported.

More than 3,300 people in mainland China have died in the epidemic, which first surfaced in the central province of Hubei late last year, according to statistics published by the National Health Commission.

In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and the epicentre of the outbreak, all traffic lights in urban areas turned red at 10 a.m. and all road traffic ceased for three minutes.

Some 2,567 people have died in Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million people located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze river. The Wuhan deaths account for more than 75% of the country’s fatalities.

Among those who died was Li Wenliang, a young doctor who tried to raise the alarm about the disease. Li was honoured by the Hubei government earlier this week, after initially being reprimanded by police in Wuhan for “spreading rumours”.

Gui Yihong, 27, who was among thousands of Wuhan locals who volunteered to deliver food supplies to hospitals during the city’s months-long lockdown, recalled the fear, frustration and pain at Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li worked.

“If you weren’t at the frontlines you wouldn’t be able to experience this,” said Gui, as he laid some flowers next to Wuhan’s 1954 flood memorial by the Yangtze.

“I had to (come) and bear witness. For the last 80 days we had fought between life and death, and finally gained victory. It was not easy at all to come by.”

While the worst was behind Wuhan, the virus has spread to all corners of the globe since January, sickening more than a million people, killing more than 55,000 and paralysing the world economy.

Wuhan banned all tomb-sweeping activities in its cemeteries until at least April 30, curtailing one of the most important dates in the traditional Chinese lunar new year calendar which usually sees millions of families travel to tend to their ancestral graves, offer flowers and burn incense.

They have also told residents, most stuck at home due to lockdown restrictions, to use online streaming services to watch cemetery staff carry out those tasks live.

ASYMPTOMATIC CASES

Online, celebrities including “X-Men: Days of Future Past” star Fan Bingbing swapped their glamorous social media profile pictures for sombre photos in grey or black, garnering millions of “likes” from fans.

Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent (0700.HK) suspended all online games on Saturday.

As of Friday, the total number of confirmed cases across the country stood at 81,639, including 19 new infections, the National Health Commission said.

Eighteen of the new cases involved travellers arriving from abroad. The remaining one new infection was a local case in Wuhan, a patient who was previously asymptomatic.

Asymptomatic people exhibit few signs of infection such as fevers or coughs, and are not included in the tally of confirmed cases by Chinese authorities until they do.

However, they are still infectious, and the government has warned of possible local transmissions if such asymptomatic cases are not properly monitored.

China reported 64 new asymptomatic cases as of Friday, including 26 travellers arriving in the country from overseas. That takes the total number of asymptomatic people currently under medical observation to 1,030, including 729 in Hubei.

Source: Reuters

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30/03/2020

Coronavirus: India’s pandemic lockdown turns into a human tragedy

Stranded workersImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Millions are workers are defying a curfew and returning home

When I spoke to him on the phone, he had just returned home to his village in the northern state of Rajasthan from neighbouring Gujarat, where he worked as a mason.

In the rising heat, Goutam Lal Meena had walked on macadam in his sandals. He said he had survived on water and biscuits.

In Gujarat, Mr Meena earned up to 400 rupees ($5.34; £4.29) a day and sent most of his earnings home. Work and wages dried up after India declared a 21-day lockdown with four hours notice on the midnight of 24 March to prevent the spread of coronavirus. (India has reported more than 1,000 Covid-19 cases and 27 deaths so far.) The shutting down of all transport meant that he was forced to travel on foot.

“I walked through the day and I walked through the night. What option did I have? I had little money and almost no food,” Mr Meena told me, his voice raspy and strained.

He was not alone. All over India, millions of migrant workers are fleeing its shuttered cities and trekking home to their villages.

These informal workers are the backbone of the big city economy, constructing houses, cooking food, serving in eateries, delivering takeaways, cutting hair in salons, making automobiles, plumbing toilets and delivering newspapers, among other things. Escaping poverty in their villages, most of the estimated 100 million of them live in squalid housing in congested urban ghettos and aspire for upward mobility.

Migrant workers head home on Day 5 of the 21 day nationwide lockdown imposed by PM Narendra Modi to curb the spread of coronavirus, at NH9 road, near Vijay Nagar, on March 29, 2020 in Ghaziabad, IndiaImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Informal workers are the backbone of India’s big city economies

Last week’s lockdown turned them into refugees overnight. Their workplaces were shut, and most employees and contractors who paid them vanished.

Sprawled together, men, women and children began their journeys at all hours of the day last week. They carried their paltry belongings – usually food, water and clothes – in cheap rexine and cloth bags. The young men carried tatty backpacks. When the children were too tired to walk, their parents carried them on their shoulders.

They walked under the sun and they walked under the stars. Most said they had run out of money and were afraid they would starve. “India is walking home,” headlined The Indian Express newspaper.

The staggering exodus was reminiscent of the flight of refugees during the bloody partition in 1947. Millions of bedraggled refugees had then trekked to east and west Pakistan, in a migration that displaced 15 million people.

migrant worker with children headed back home pauses for break, on day 5 of the nationwide lockdown imposed by PM Narendra Modi to check the spread of coronavirus, at Yamuna expressway zero point, on March 29, 2020 in Noida, India. (Photo by Sunil Ghosh /Hindustan Times via Getty Images)Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Migrant labourers feel they have more social security in their villages

This time, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are desperately trying to return home in their own country. Battling hunger and fatigue, they are bound by a collective will to somehow get back to where they belong. Home in the village ensures food and the comfort of the family, they say.

Clearly, a lockdown to stave off a pandemic is turning into a humanitarian crisis.

Among the teeming refugees of the lockdown was a 90-year-old woman, whose family sold cheap toys at traffic lights in a suburb outside Delhi.

Kajodi was walking with her family to their native Rajasthan, some 100km (62 miles) away. They were eating biscuits and smoking beedis, – traditional hand-rolled cigarettes – to kill hunger. Leaning on a stick, she had been walking for three hours when journalist Salik Ahmed met her. The humiliating flight from the city had not robbed her off her pride. “She said she would have bought a ticket to go home if transport was available,” Mr Ahmed told me.

Others on the road included a five-year-old boy who was on a 700km (434 miles) journey by foot with his father, a construction worker, from Delhi to their home in Madhya Pradesh state in central India. “When the sun sets we will stop and sleep,” the father told journalist Barkha Dutt. Another woman walked with her husband and two-and-a-half year old daughter, her bag stuffed with food, clothes and water. “We had a place to stay but no money to buy food,” she said.

Then there was Rajneesh, a 26-year-old automobile worker who walking 250km (155 miles) to his village in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. It would take him four days, he reckoned. “We will die walking before coronavirus hits us,” the man told Ms Dutt.

He was not exaggerating. Last week, a 39-year-old man on a 300km (186 miles) trek from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh complained of chest pain and exhaustion and died; and a 62-year-old man, returning from a hospital by foot in Gujarat, collapsed outside his house and died. Four other migrants, turned away at the borders on their way to Rajasthan from Gujarat, were mowed down by a truck on a dark highway.

As the crisis worsened, state governments scrambled to arrange transport, shelter and food.

Kajodi DeviImage copyright SALIK AHMED/OUTLOOK
Image caption Ninety-year-old Kajodi Devi is walking from Delhi to her village

But trying to transport them to their villages quickly turned into another nightmare. Hundreds of thousands of workers were pressed against each other at a major bus terminal in Delhi as buses rolled in to pick them up.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal implored the workers not to leave the capital. He asked them to “stay wherever you are, because in large gatherings, you are also at risk of being infected with the coronavirus.” He said his government would pay their rent, and announced the opening of 568 food distribution centres in the capital. Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologised for the lockdown “which has caused difficulties in your lives, especially the poor people”, adding these “tough measures were needed to win this battle.”

Whatever the reason, Mr Modi and state governments appeared to have bungled in not anticipating this exodus.

Mr Modi has been extremely responsive to the plight of Indian migrant workers stranded abroad: hundreds of them have been brought back home in special flights. But the plight of workers at home struck a jarring note.

“Wanting to go home in a crisis is natural. If Indian students, tourists, pilgrims stranded overseas want to return, so do labourers in big cities. They want to go home to their villages. We can’t be sending planes to bring home one lot, but leave the other to walk back home,” tweeted Shekhar Gupta, founder and editor of The Print.

Migrant woman with a baby wearing a face mask as a preventive measure, at Anand vihar bus terminal during the nationwide lock downImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption There is a precedent for this kind of exodus during crisis

The city, says Chinmay Tumbe, author of India Moving: A History of Migration, offers economic security to the poor migrant, but their social security lies in their villages, where they have assured food and accommodation. “With work coming to a halt and jobs gone, they are now looking for social security and trying to return home,” he told me.

Also there’s plenty of precedent for the flight of migrant workers during a crisis – the 2005 floods in Mumbai witnessed many workers fleeing the city. Half of the city’s population, mostly migrants, had also fled the city – then Bombay – in the wake of the 1918 Spanish flu.

When plague broke out in western India in 1994 there was an “almost biblical exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from the industrial city of Surat [in Gujarat]”, recounts historian Frank Snowden in his book Epidemics and Society.

Half of Bombay’s population deserted the city, during a previous plague epidemic in 1896. The draconian anti-plague measures imposed by the British rulers, writes Dr Snowden, turned out to be a “blunt sledgehammer rather than a surgical instrument of precision”. They had helped Bombay to survive the epidemic, but “the fleeing residents carried the disease with them, thereby spreading it.”

More than a century later, that same fear haunts India today. Hundreds of thousands of the migrants will eventually reach home, either by foot, or in packed buses. There they will move into their joint family homes, often with ageing parents. Some 56 districts in nine Indian states account for half of inter-state migration of male workers, according to a government report. These could turn out to be potential hotspots as thousands of migrants return home.

Migrant workers headed back to their towns and villages hitch a ride, on day 5 of the nationwide lockdown imposed by PM Narendra Modi to check the spread of coronavirus, at Yamuna expressway zero point, on March 29, 2020 in Noida, IndiaImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption The fleeing migrants could spread the disease all over the country

Partha Mukhopadhyay, a senior fellow at Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research, suggests that 35,000 village councils in these 56 potentially sensitive districts should be involved to test returning workers for the virus, and isolate infected people in local facilities.

In the end, India is facing daunting and predictable challenges in enforcing the lockdown and also making sure the poor and homeless are not fatally hurt. Much of it, Dr Snowden told me, will depend on whether the economic and living consequences of the lockdown strategy are carefully managed, and the consent of the people is won. “If not, there is a potential for very serious hardship, social tension and resistance.” India has already announced a $22bn relief package for those affected by the lockdown.

The next few days will determine whether the states are able to transport the workers home or keep them in the cities and provide them with food and money. “People are forgetting the big stakes amid the drama of the consequences of the lockdown: the risk of millions of people dying,” says Nitin Pai of Takshashila Institution, a prominent think tank.

“There too, likely the worst affected will be the poor.”

Source: The BBC

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