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Coronavirus: Ethiopians slam govt for not stopping China flights — Quartz Africa | With the death toll of Coronavirus now having passed 300, and more than 14,000 infections confirmed, WHO has declared the virus a global health emergency.
With countries including Australia, Japan and the US imposing travel restrictions on those who have recently traveled to the country and over 10,000 flights having been canceled since the outbreak, Ethiopia’ s decision to keep operating its flights to and from China, is one that is not sitting well with its citizens.
The Ethiopian government’ s assertion that they are prepared to tackle coronavirus as they continue to receive around 1,500 passengers a day into the country from China, is seen as risky as other countries with more robust healthcare infrastructure issue travel restrictions.
In a statement Ethiopian Airlines said it would continue to fly out of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong and protect its crew and passengers.
Ethiopians have turned to social media to express their discontent over the issue, with the announcement of continued flights by Ethiopian Airlines, the national carrier, eliciting sentiments that the country is putting business interests ahead of the welfare of its citizens. “ You are putting the lives at 100 million people at risk! ”, was a typical response to the airline’ s statement.
Air traffic between China and Africa has jumped 630% in the last decade with Ethiopian Airlines now operating almost half of the 2,616 annual flights. Chinese customers comprise the airlines’ largest group of customers. As the new gateway to Africa, having overtaken Dubai last year as the leading transfer hub for long-haul travel to sub-Saharan Africa, Addis’ s airport has tripled in size and now accommodates up to 22 million passengers annually.
The expansion at the Bole International Airport, was funded and built by China for $ 363 million lending credence to the opinions that the Ethiopian governments’ decision to keep flying to and from China, might be a case of diplomatic pandering to China.
But Ethiopian Airlines has also had a tough year after the Mar. 10 Boeing 737 Max crash which claimed the lives of 157 people and is likely to have impacted its financial outlook.
When contacted by phone, a representative at the Addis 24 hour help desk of Ethiopian Airlines said “ We have not cancelled any China flights. ” Quartz reached out to Ethiopian Airlines corporate communications team for an official update but has not had any response at press time.
And as other national carriers in the region including Kenya Airways, Air Tanzania and Rwandair cancel their China flights, the fact the continent’ s second most populated country is adopting what appears to be a lax attitude to the coronavirus, will make some worry it might not take long for the continent to get its first confirmed Coronavirus case.
Sign up to the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief here for news and analysis on African business, tech and innovation in your inbox | tech |
Markets in mainland China plunge after layoff, but not as much as feared | Markets in mainland China plunged early Monday, on their first day of trading since an extended Lunar New Year holiday that coincided with the rapid spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
Global markets have fallen in recent weeks and China had braced itself for steep losses, with the People’ s Bank of China announcing Sunday
it would inject about $ 173 billion into the economy
to cushion the expected blow, along with other measures to stabilize the economy.
The Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP,
+1.44%
initially plummeted nearly 9%, as did the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite
399106,
+1.76%
, though both recovered slightly as trading went on. Mainland Chinese equity markets had been closed since Jan. 24.
Around Asia, early losses were tempered after China’ s losses, while steep, were not as bad as some had feared — there had been speculation Chinese stocks would fall closer to 10%. Japan’ s Nikkei
NIK,
-0.84%
and South Korea’ s Kospi
180721,
+0.15%
fell, along with benchmark indexes in Taiwan
Y9999,
+1.81%
, Singapore
STI,
+2.02%
and Australia
XJO,
+0.69%
. Hong Kong’ s Hang Seng Index
HSI,
+2.38%
opened lower but turned positive, as investors apparently approved of the PBoC’ s measures.
“ It has been an orderly start to trading in China’ s market thanks to the calming liquidity injections offered up by the PBoC, which are tempering the market’ s most immediate concerns, the fear of a crash at the open, ” Stephen Innes, chief market strategist at AxiCorp, wrote in a note Sunday. “ Indeed, money speaks louder than words when it comes to China’ s armies of retail stock traders. ”
Still, “ It’ s not the earthquake at the open but rather the aftershocks that will drive risk sentiment on Monday, ” Innes wrote. “ Honestly, I have no idea where the market is going to end up this week, but I think market conditions will get worse before improving. ”
Jeffrey Halley, senior Asia-Pacific market analyst for Oanda, wrote in a note: “ The slight recovery [ after the opening bell ] looks like more of the oft-mentioned dead-cat bounce prevalent last week across the world, however, with the daily 10.0% limit-down for both indices potentially achievable today. ”
The Philippines reported Sunday
the first coronavirus death outside China
, as China raised its death toll to 361. More than 17,200 cases have been diagnosed worldwide, all but about 150 in China.
Investors worry the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak could negate the economic rebound that had been expected in China this year, and spur another global selloff.
“ The near-term economic impact appears substantial. In addition to disruptions to production, avoidance of face-to-face contact may have resulted in a sharp fall in service activity, ” Standard Chartered economists
wrote in a Friday note
.
U.S. stock futures inched up late Sunday. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
-0.34%
, S & P 500 futures
ES00,
-0.25%
and Nasdaq futures
NQ00,
-0.18%
were up about 0.6% each, indicating gains when trading starts Monday morning.
Wall Street tumbled Friday
, with the Dow and S & P 500 index recording their biggest one-day falls since August amid fears that Chinese epidemic would slow economic growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+2.04%
shed 603.41 points, or 2.1%, to settle at 28,256.03. The S & P 500
SPX,
+1.89%
lost 58.14 points, or 1.8%, ending at 3,225.52. The Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+1.74%
retreated 148 points, or 1.6%, closing at 9,150.94.
On Sunday, benchmark crude oil
US: CLH20
slipped to $ 51.35 a barrel. Brent crude oil
UK: BRNH20
, the international standard, was about flat at $ 58.19.
Gold for April delivery
US: GCJ20
on Comex edged down to $ 1,586.70 an ounce.
The dollar
USDJPY,
-0.06%
rose to 108.49 Japanese yen. | business |
Coronavirus Pummels Wuhan, a City Short of Supplies and Overwhelmed | WUHAN, China — Weak with fever, An Jianhua waited in line for seven hours outside the hospital in the cold, hoping to get tested for the new coronavirus, which doctors suspected she had contracted.
Ms. An, 67, needed an official diagnosis from a hospital to qualify for treatment, but the one she and her son raced to last week had no space, even to test her. The next hospital they were referred to here in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak, was full, too, they said. They finally got an intravenous drip for Ms. An’ s fever, but that was all.
Since then, Ms. An has quarantined herself at home. She and her son eat separately, wear masks at home and are constantly disinfecting their apartment. Ms. An’ s health is declining rapidly, and even keeping water down is a struggle.
“ I can’ t let my mom die at home, ” said her son, He Jun. “ Every day I want to cry, but when I cry there are no tears. There is no hope. ”
As countries race to deal with an outbreak that has begun spreading around the world, inciting panic and disrupting the global economy, the residents of Wuhan are waging a daily battle to survive an illness that has sickened more than 4,100 people and killed 224 in their city alone.
Last month, the government put Wuhan in a virtual lockdown, sealing off the city and banning most public transportation and private cars from its streets in a desperate effort to contain the outbreak. Now, many residents say it is nearly impossible to get the health care they need to treat — or even diagnose — the coronavirus.
Expressing exasperation, doctors say there is a shortage of testing kits and other medical supplies, and it is not clear why more are not available. The ban on transportation means some residents have to walk for hours to get to hospitals — if they are well enough to make the journey. Layers of bureaucracy stand between residents and help. And the long lines outside hospitals for testing and treatment suggest that the outbreak is spreading far beyond the official count of cases.
Ambulances, too, are hard to come by, residents say. In recent days, some say they have called 120, China’ s equivalent of the emergency number 911, only to be told that there were already hundreds of people in the queue.
Those who do make it to the hospital say they are squeezed together for hours in waiting rooms, where infections are easily spread. But the shortages have meant that many are ultimately turned away and sent home to self-quarantine, potentially compounding the outbreak by exposing their families.
Many doctors and residents are putting their hopes on the two new coronavirus hospitals that China has been racing to build in Wuhan in just a matter of days. One of them spans about eight acres, has 1,000 beds and is scheduled to open on Monday. The government says 1,400 military medical workers will be deployed to work there, potentially helping with the shortage of health professionals on hand to combat the outbreak.
On Sunday, city officials announced plans to set up quarantine stations around Wuhan for people with symptoms of pneumonia and close contacts among coronavirus patients. But just over a week into the lockdown, many residents believe the virus has already spread much further than the official numbers suggest.
“ The situation that we’ ve seen is much worse than what has been officially reported, ” Long Jian, 32, said outside a hospital where his elderly father was being treated. Mr. Long said his father had to go to six hospitals and wait seven days before he could even be tested for the coronavirus.
Just steps from where Mr. Long spoke, beds could be seen lining both sides of a narrow corridor in the emergency room. One man was getting an intravenous drip outside in his car.
“ Those who can get diagnosed and treated are the lucky ones, ” Mr. Long said. “ In our neighborhood, many who weren’ t able to get diagnosed ended up dying at home. ”
Getting treatment for the coronavirus in a hospital requires jumping through a number of hoops.
According to official guidelines, patients are encouraged to go to their local hospitals first for initial assessments and sometimes prescriptions. Then patients are to deliver the results to their local neighborhood committees, which are responsible for communicating with the hospitals and coordinating resources for the households in their areas. There are about 1,000 neighborhood committees in Wuhan, for a population of 11 million.
Patients with mild symptoms are typically told to go home and self-quarantine, according to a Jan. 24 notice by city officials. Those who have more severe symptoms are flagged by the neighborhood committees, which arrange for transportation by ambulance to one of the two dozen or so hospitals designated for treating the coronavirus.
But in practice, patients and their relatives say that the process takes far too long, and that the bar for what constitutes “ severe symptoms ” has been set too high — so they give up and try waiting in long lines at hospitals instead.
Amy Hu said her 64-year-old mother went to the doctor after experiencing a fever, cough, shortness of breath and diarrhea about 10 days ago. Based on the initial assessment, the doctor told Ms. Hu’ s mother that she had contracted the coronavirus. But the test needed to confirm the diagnosis was not available, the doctor said.
Without the test, her mother couldn’ t be admitted to a hospital. Since then, Ms. Hu said, they have been waiting at home to hear back from the hospital about when her mother can be tested. In recent days Ms. Hu, who has been visiting her parents for the Lunar New Year holiday, took precautions herself: She checked into a hostel with her two children.
“ I’ m very dissatisfied with the government, ” Ms. Hu said. “ It’ s like only when the patients are close to death can they be admitted to a hospital. ”
Tong Yixuan, 31, said Sunday that he panicked last week when he learned that in just a few days, his father’ s cold had escalated into a full-blown illness that doctors said was almost certainly the coronavirus.
But neither his father, who had a 104-degree fever and was slipping in and out of consciousness, nor his mother, who was starting to show similar symptoms, could get tested. Hospitals said that there was no space, and that their symptoms were not severe enough, Mr. Tong said. His parents were sent home to quarantine themselves.
Updated May 20, 2020
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
Over 38 million people have filed for unemployment since March. One in five who were working in February reported losing a job or being furloughed in March or the beginning of April, data from a Federal Reserve survey released on May 14 showed, and that pain was highly concentrated among low earners. Fully 39 percent of former workers living in a household earning $ 40,000 or less lost work, compared with 13 percent in those making more than $ 100,000, a Fed official said.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
There is an uptick in people reporting symptoms of chilblains, which are painful red or purple lesions that typically appear in the winter on fingers or toes. The lesions are emerging as yet another symptom of infection with the new coronavirus. Chilblains are caused by inflammation in small blood vessels in reaction to cold or damp conditions, but they are usually common in the coldest winter months. Federal health officials do not include toe lesions in the list of coronavirus symptoms, but some dermatologists are pushing for a change, saying so-called Covid toe should be sufficient grounds for testing.
Yes, but make sure you keep six feet of distance between you and people who don’ t live in your home. Even if you just hang out in a park, rather than go for a jog or a walk, getting some fresh air, and hopefully sunshine, is a good idea.
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
Charity Navigator, which evaluates charities using a numbers-based system, has a running list of nonprofits working in communities affected by the outbreak. You can give blood through the American Red Cross, and World Central Kitchen has stepped in to distribute meals in major cities.
There was no way for Mr. Tong to help. He was more than 60 miles away in Huangshi, which days ago had been locked down by the government along with many other cities in Hubei Province. The roads out of Huangshi and into Wuhan had all been sealed off. For days, Mr. Tong was stuck. Only Saturday, after hours of negotiation with local officials, was he able to make it to his parents’ bedside, he said. They have since been tested for the coronavirus, and his father has been admitted to a hospital. The process took 10 days.
“ All I want to do is take care of my parents, ” Mr. Tong said. “ I don’ t even care if I get infected. ”
For some people, like Gan Hanjiang, the new hospitals can not be built fast enough.
Last month, his father came down with a severe fever and cough. He was tested for the coronavirus, but the results were negative. Ten days after the onset of symptoms, however, his father died, Mr. Gan said.
The hospital classified the cause as “ severe pneumonia, ” Mr. Gan said, but he believes it was the coronavirus. Several experts have recently conceded that several rounds of testing may be needed for an accurate diagnosis of the virus.
On the day his father died, Mr. Gan began to show the same symptoms, he said. But without a car, he has not been able to go to one of the designated hospitals to get tested for the coronavirus.
“ Getting treatment is so difficult, ” he whispered slowly by telephone from a small hospital near his home where he was being treated for viral pneumonia. “ We can’ t get admitted to the hospitals. And there’ s not enough medicine. ”
Elsie Chen contributed reporting. | business |
New Zealand to bar entry to foreigners traveling from mainland China | New Zealand announced on Sunday it would bar entry into the country from all foreign nationals arriving from mainland China due too the increasing threat from the coronavirus epidemic.
The ban is in effect from Monday and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also raised its travel advice to New Zealanders for all of mainland China to “ Do not travel ”, the highest level.
“ We have been advised by health officials that while there are still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, we should take a precautionary approach, ” New Zealand’ s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement.
New Zealand citizens and permanent residents can still enter the country, as can their immediate family members, but will be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival back in the country.
The ban will be in effect for up to 14 days, reviewed every 48 hours and includes all foreign travelers who left or transited through mainland China after February 2.
There have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus in New Zealand.
New Zealand’ s announcement followed a similar decision announced on Saturday by neighboring Australia, where 12 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed.
China is facing mounting isolation amid increasing international travel curbs and flight suspension
Qantas Airways and Air New Zealand both said they were suspending direct flights to mainland China.
Australia announced during the week that it would evacuate locals from the Chinese city of Wuhan as part of a joint operation with New Zealand.
Some health officials have criticized Australia’ s decision to move its evacuees to Christmas Island - about 1,500km ( 900 miles) from Australia, which had been used to hold thousands of refugees between 2002 and 2018.
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday he expected Australians to be airlifted from Wuhan soon and that a medical assessment team and mobile hospital was ready to greet them.
“ Personnel are in place to receive the passengers from Wuhan and we expect that the flight will be collecting within the next 24 hours, ” Hunt said.
Reporting by Will Ziebell in Melbourne; Editing by Lincoln Feast. | business |
UPDATE 1-New Zealand to bar entry to foreigners travelling from mainland China | ( Adds details of no cases of coronavirus in New Zealand and of Australia’ s prior announcement and evacuation plans.)
By Will Ziebell
Feb 2 ( Reuters) - New Zealand announced on Sunday it would bar entry into the country from all foreign nationals arriving from mainland China due too the increasing threat from the coronavirus epidemic.
The ban is in effect from Monday and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also raised its travel advice to New Zealanders for all of mainland China to “ Do not travel ”, the highest level.
“ We have been advised by health officials that while there are still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, we should take a precautionary approach, ” New Zealand’ s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement.
New Zealand citizens and permanent residents can still enter the country, as can their immediate family members, but will be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival back in the country.
The ban will be in effect for up to 14 days, reviewed every 48 hours and includes all foreign travellers who left or transited through mainland China after February 2.
There have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus in New Zealand.
New Zealand’ s announcement followed a similar decision announced on Saturday by neighbouring Australia, where 12 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed. China is facing mounting isolation amid increasing international travel curbs and flight suspension Qantas Airways and Air New Zealand both said they were suspending direct flights to mainland China.
Australia announced during the week that it would evacuate locals from the Chinese city of Wuhan as part of a joint operation with New Zealand.
Some health officials have criticized Australia’ s decision to move its evacuees to Christmas Island - about 1,500km ( 900 miles) from Australia, which had been used to hold thousands of refugees between 2002 and 2018.
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday he expected Australians to be airlifted from Wuhan soon and that a medical assessment team and mobile hospital was ready to greet them.
“ Personnel are in place to receive the passengers from Wuhan and we expect that the flight will be collecting within the next 24 hours, ” Hunt said. ( Reporting by Will Ziebell in Melbourne; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) | business |
'Wash your hands ': Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike calls for coronavirus precautions ahead of Olympics | Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike called on residents on Sunday to wash their hands and wear surgical masks to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus which has infected thousands around the world as the city prepares to host the 2020 Olympics.
“ This is one of the things I’ m very worried about, ” Koike said on the sidelines of an opening ceremony for a 15,000-seat gymnasium in eastern Tokyo that will host volleyball and wheelchair basketball competitions this summer.
Japan on Saturday stepped up its response to the epidemic, classifying the coronavirus as a designated infectious disease, allowing compulsory hospitalization and the use of public funds for treatment, among other measures.
Koike said she was now working with local and national authorities on how to monitor the virus and to implement measures against its spread to protect the city’ s residents.
“ I would like you to wash your hands and fingers properly, and wear masks to protect yourselves. There are many ways to do it, but I’ d like you to start yourselves with such small steps to control it, ” said Koike.
The outbreak originating in the Chinese city of Wuhan prompted organizers to cancel 2020 qualifying events slated to take place in China such as boxing and badminton.
“ Countermeasures against infectious diseases constitute an important part of our plans to host a safe and secure games, ” Tokyo 2020 said in a statement responding to recent enquiries about the issue, pledging collaboration with authorities.
Casting a shadow over the opening was an announcement by the International Paralympic Committee ( IPC), which on Friday said it could remove wheelchair basketball from the games if its global body does not improve its athlete classification process.
The IPC said the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation defined “ eligible impairments ” differently to the mandatory list agreed on by the IPC’ s general assembly.
“ It’ s a very popular discipline, ” said Koike, calling on the parties involved to make an effort to resolve the impasse through discussions.
The Ariake Arena opening ceremony featured a presentation by Japan’ s volleyball and wheelchair basketball teams. It boasts rich wooden panelling and a concave roof to reduce indoor space to save on air conditioning and lightning.
It is also designed to be accessible to the elderly, people with impairments, parents with young children and those with guide dogs, the Tokyo Organising Committee said. | tech |
New Zealand to bar entry to foreigners travelling from mainland China | New Zealand announced on Sunday it would bar entry into the country from all foreign nationals arriving from mainland China due too the increasing threat from the coronavirus epidemic.
The ban is in effect from Monday and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also raised its travel advice to New Zealanders for all of mainland China to “ Do not travel ”, the highest level.
“ We have been advised by health officials that while there are still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, we should take a precautionary approach, ” New Zealand’ s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement.
New Zealand citizens and permanent residents returning to New Zealand can still enter the country, as can their immediate family members, but will be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival back in the country.
The ban will be in effect for up to 14 days, reviewed every 48 hours and includes all foreign travellers who leave or transit through mainland China after February 2. ( Reporting by Will Ziebell in Melbourne; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) | business |
Apple closes stores, offices in China over virus | Apple Inc. said Saturday it will close its stores and corporate offices in China until Feb. 9, a significant escalation in its response to the coronavirus outbreak gripping China and roiling global markets.
`` Out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts, we're closing all our corporate offices, stores and contact centers in mainland China through Feb. 9, '' an Apple spokesman said. `` We will continue to closely monitor the situation and we look forward to reopening our stores as soon as possible. ''
An Apple spokesman declined to comment further on how the outbreak was affecting the company's business. It relies on factories across China to assemble the vast majority of the products it sells around the world. The Chinese government is requiring many factories to remain closed until Feb. 10, eliminating more than a week of planned production after Lunar New Year.
Apple also relies on China for about a fifth of total sales. It operates more than 40 stores in China and reported this week that it returned to revenue growth in the market behind increased iPhone sales.
Apple's move to close stores and offices came less than a week after Chief Executive Tim Cook said during a call with investors that the company was closing just one store and reducing hours at others. On Tuesday, he said the outbreak had affected customer traffic to its retail stores, which Apple has been deep cleaning out of caution.
Mr. Cook said Apple took the potential effects of coronavirus on sales into account in its revenue guidance for the current quarter, providing a wider-than-usual range of between $ 63 billion and $ 67 billion. `` The situation is emerging and we're still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely, '' he said.
About 10,000 people in China are employed directly by Apple, the company said. Indirectly, Apple says it accounts for three million jobs there through its supply chain, which includes contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Co. | business |
Top 4 Workplace Challenges in the Post COVID-19 Era | The fast-spreading COVID-19 virus has forced millions of workers to work from home, with no immediate end in sight. While some companies have announced work from home options till the end of the year, others have gone to the extent of allowing workers to work from home permanently. As most co-workers wait for their lives to resume to normalcy, experts believe this may not include going back to an office. For the corporates, it brings its own set of challenges including:
One of the fundamental pillars of business is collaboration.
Collaboration between employees, partners, customers and other key stakeholders is a must to drive the business forward. Most companies have invested in collaboration, directly or indirectly, by building large offices and bringing people together to work. But post-pandemic, this natural order of centralization has been upended.
Almost all interactions with stakeholders across the organization are happening via online platforms with no physical contact. No wonder, employees highlight collaboration as one of the biggest challenges in remote working. Workplaces need to evolve as people can no longer be centralized.
Remote teams need to feel connected and cohesive, no matter where they’ re working from, and collaborate with ease, regardless of the distance.
Research from Citrix has shown that better employee experience leads to improved productivity and eventually better business results. On the flip side, disengaged employees could cost companies dearly –only 21% of workers report they are engaged. With 86% of organizations conducting virtual interviews to hire new candidates, employee experience matters right from the moment you interview an employee for the role.
In fact, hiring and retaining talent revolves around workspace environments and the employee experience that enterprises offer. For example, when we consume services from Netflix or Amazon, is it easy for us to get ourselves on-boarded and consume them on demand? This is what employees are expecting when they actually consume enterprise applications.
However, the transition to remote work culture is not as seamless as it seems.
As all enterprises are now rushing to build workplace strategies, they realize that the strategies have to be designed in real-time. This requires shifting the focus onto employee productivity combined with immediate response and diagnosis. This can be done by providing employees with appropriate remote working tools and gathering real-time updates from them regularly to untangle the complexities and offer support.
Another obvious challenge that remote employees are facing is frequent interruptions. From kids being around at home to carrying out household chores and answering the door, there can be several interruptions during the day. And the problem is compounded by the number of interruptions from mobile apps, email, IMs and other collaboration tools.
Research shows the average employee connects to as many as36 cloud services to get work done. A future digital workplace therefore, must not only aggregate work from these cloud services and minimize interruptions, but also develop higher intelligence capabilities to drive improved outcomes. This will help employees focus on their overall well-being whilst juggling between work and home.
Corporate culture is the secret ingredient that builds loyalty and aligns teams together to achieve the ultimate company goal or mission. Not too long ago, culture was built within the four walls of the office. However, post-pandemic, this could very well be a watershed moment in history for corporate culture as cultivating it won’ t be easy, especially when employees work remotely and lack the ability to meet face-to-face or gather in a conference room. One HR association survey highlighted that almost one-third of all employers face difficulties with sustaining culture. At a micro level, existing management practices and workplaces have to be re-engineered to foster a digitally-enabled corporate culture.
With a majority of employees working from home, the physical perimeter has completely disappeared altering the threat landscape. Staff members accessing enterprise applications such as Office 365, Workday, and Salesforce from personal devices don’ t have the same security protections as that of corporate devices.
Nearly half of all security professionals are concerned about the need to scale-up cybersecurity. Future enterprises need to be secure by design and focus on a multidimensional security model that takes into account identity, UI, network and behavioral analytics.
With this sudden and uncontrollable change in working style, CEOs, COOs and CIOs are coming together to redefine business processes and find new ways to engage with employees. It’ s not hard to imagine that the pandemic might just be a tipping point in re-imagining the workplace.
Work may no longer be a place, but a curated set of tasks and activities that can be securely carried out via any device and that is aided through AI and automation for a personalized and relevant employee experience. In addition, digital workplaces may soon become the backbone of modern business and analysts estimate the market to grow to a staggering $ 40 billion by 2025.
Companies like Citrix along with its vast global partner network ( including my own company) are encouraging businesses to take a holistic approach to digital workplace strategies by taking into account various ways in which people work, skills they need to develop, and tools they need use to have a certain impact on the company culture. No doubt, delivering a modern empathetic workspace is at the table stakes and whoever can manage to deliver a seamless employee experience will find success. | tech |
Everyone loves the coronapocalypse | The 2019-nCoV coronavirus is a global public health emergency of significant concern. It is also, simultaneously, a fount of misinformation, wild conspiracy theories and both over and under-reactions. Whose fault is this? So glad you asked. I happen to have a little list. Purveyors of misinformation. As archly observed by “ The Atlantic, ” that misleadingly-self-described Harvard epidemiologist who tweeted “ HOLY MOTHER OF GOD ” followed by math errors was … well … wrong. He claims to be a Harvard epidemiologist, and on paper that's true. He's a visiting scientist, not a regular Harvard faculty member. He's a nutritionist, not an infectious disease epidemiologist. He's fanned the flames of numerous # 2019nCOV conspiracies.https: //t.co/JRSoeqehhP — Carl T. Bergstrom ( @ CT Bergstrom) February 2, 2020 However, he pales in comparison to the bioweapon theorists at Zero Hedge ( who were banned from Twitter as a result, apparently for doxxing a Chinese scientist), and let’ s not forget to shake a finger of blame at the people who posted / linked to the much-debunked, non-peer-reviewed “ signs of HIV insertions in the coronavirus ” paper online. Science itself. Why would people link to that paper? Well, because non-peer-reviewed preprints are often mistaken by the general public for peer-reviewed science. Why are preprints so increasingly important? In part because awful, predatory scientific publishers massively overcharge for access to scientific papers, often even when they’ re funded by public money. ( ht Scott Aaronson) pic.twitter.com/Ul7ql77ipY — michael nielsen ( @ michael nielsen) February 2, 2020 Social media. Not to belabor my dead horse here, but what you see on your social media is determined by algorithms optimized for engagement, which frequently means outrage. That viral HOLY MOTHER OF GOD tweet would have been more of a minor blip if Twitter still kept to strict chronological timelines. Note that this would also make “ good ” tweets far less viral. That would be the price we pay for abandoning the engagement algorithms, but it seems at least plausible that it would overall lead to a better world. General innumeracy. I mentioned that people were underreacting, too. I have seen so many self-identified galaxy-brain thinkers notifying others that it’ s silly to be so concerned about the coronavirus when the flu is far more dangerous. I’ ve even seen a handy Myths and Facts infographic wandering all over Facebook, “ informing ” us all that “ the common flu kills 60 times more people annually than Corona. ” People, the flu and nCoV-2019 are not comparable. It’ s apples to zebras. We know what to expect from the flu: We don’ t yet know what to expect from this new virus. That’ s why it’ s of concern. You especially can not compare annual death tolls, since we don’ t know what this new virus’ s is, since it’ s only existed in humans for two months. Sheesh. Human nature. This is arguably the big one. On some level, everyone loves an apocalypse, in that it’ s a narrative they completely understand, one they can envision and have envisioned for themselves. So anything in the real world associated with an apocalypse gets clicks, commentary and reshares. I should know: When not writing for TechCrunch I happen to be the director of the GitHub Archive Program, which includes a whole bunch of present-day archiving, as well as very-long-term 1,000-year storage, which is primarily intended for historical or recovering-abandoned-technologies usage … and yet everyone’ s mind, whenever I talk about it, immediately jumps to “ Canticle for Leibowitz ” -style post-apocalyptic scenarios, and stays there. Which is fine! I mean, I appreciate that everyone’ s interested in the project and has ideas about it, just as I appreciate that the coronavirus is a global public health emergency, and people should be paying close attention to it. But our collective fondness for apocalyptic narratives, combined with the other contributors above, may, if we’ re not careful, transmute that attention into belief in wacky conspiracy theories and blatant misinformation. Please stop to think before you believe, and before you share. | business |
Meet the Chinese crowdsourcers fighting coronavirus censorship | When Linda logged in to the Chinese social network Weibo on Monday, she saw a curious post from the state-controlled publication People’ s Daily: Hubei province was adding 100,000 beds in hopes of handling the new coronavirus that has caused panic across the country. The number was jarring given official reports that only a few thousand people were infected, and people immediately began to respond with concern. The People’ s Daily account quickly deleted the post and associated hashtag.
Linda took a screenshot and saved it. ( She asked that we use a pseudonym because she fears retaliation from the Chinese authorities. We verified her identity by asking her to send information from the accounts she uses to post her work.) Today Linda lives in northern China, but she’ s a native of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei and the epicenter of the outbreak. She’ d been in the city for the Lunar New Year holiday, but left to return home on January 22. Earlier in January she’ d started collecting information about the virus to share with her family; back then they were “ very relaxed ” about the situation.
But after concern grew worldwide, she decided to spend time collecting, translating, and archiving information as a form of public service. The Chinese government is famously willing to censor its citizens; already, it has deleted many posts criticizing the government for its handling of the outbreak, as well as stories of people affected by the virus. “ I feared that [ these accounts ] would disappear, ” Linda says, “ and that people’ s experiences won’ t be reported. I just want to keep an emotional archive of some sort for people asking for help and affected by it, mostly patients and medical workers. ” Not everything in the archive will be accurate, and she is aware of that risk, but not everything posted from government channels has been accurate either.
Linda spends a few hours a day systematically collecting both official releases and personal accounts about the virus from social media like Weibo, WeChat, and Douban. She then translates or subtitles them into English and posts on Imgur, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. Though Linda says she’ s “ quite an unqualified social-media specialist, ” some of her translations have received over 100,000 views.
Since the first cases were reported in Wuhan at the end of December, the virus has infected nearly 12,000 people, killing over 200, and has spread to at least 20 countries. In an unprecedented move, people living in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, and surrounding cities have been quarantined. The quarantine affects more than 50 million people in all.
Verifying information in a rapidly changing situation is always a struggle, but it’ s especially concerning in a country where there is no free press and citizens are suspicious about whether officials will tell the truth. “ There is a clear reason why people don’ t trust the government, ” says Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. Plenty of people remember the lack of transparency during the 2003 SARS outbreak. During the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, people trying to expose the truth were imprisoned, Wang adds, and “ at the beginning of [ this ] January, people trying to tell the story [ of the virus ] were summoned by the police for rumor-mongering. ”
Recently, Chinese state media spread a false picture of the hospital supposedly being built in Wuhan. There are plenty of hoaxes going around that the government is trying to quash, but also credible fears that the situation is worse than the authorities are reporting. In this situation, the line between paranoia and justified distrust can be razor thin. As frightening rumors and images spread across the world, citizens in mainland China and Hong Kong are taking the initiative.
Tiny news networks on social appsWhile Linda is concerned with creating a chronicle of testimonies that might be deleted, others are operating mini-newsrooms using closed chat groups. Andy Tang, a 17-year-old in Hong Kong, runs a WhatsApp group called GloNews Room ( as in “ global news room ”). Closed messaging apps like WeChat, WhatsApp, and Telegram have become increasingly popular ways of keeping up with the news given distrust of official sources. The curated nature, and the fact that it seems like a private communication app for friends, makes people feel that it’ s a more trustworthy medium, Tang says. He likes WhatsApp because the members can receive instant notifications of his news updates.
Friends began adding other friends, especially during the Hong Kong protests earlier this year, and GloNews Room’ s membership has now grown to about 80 people. Tang, who has been covering the virus since late December, spends a couple of hours a day scouring the headlines. He will either write digests or directly share links, sometimes adding graphs of his own. Some of the work involves debunking rumors by checking them against other sources, such as a video of people eating bats that was actually made a few years ago and not connected to the current outbreak, he says.
Two members of GloNews Room, Hong Kong teens Ken Chung and Ronald Lam, decided to create a more public version of the updates: a live map of the virus, along with headlines from major news sources. Most similar maps were created by Chinese media, says Chung, and there weren’ t many that were in English or in the traditional Chinese used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. So he, Lam, and another friend produce their map in both languages, and try to update about every 15 minutes. In less than a week, the site has gathered one million unique visitors and 10 million views, with people visiting from Asia ( especially Southeast Asia), North America, and Europe.
Real or not real? Everyone trying to understand information about the coronavirus must grapple with the lack of transparency. Linda says that she needs to balance her mistrust of government reports with skepticism about the posts she sees. The moderators of one subreddit initially took down some of her postings because they were not confirmed by an “ internationally acknowledged ” news source. But that kind of verification can be impossible for the personal accounts she is saving, which can pass through closed groups.
Linda will verify when she can—for instance, she found some posts from an alumni group, and checked all the names to make sure the people actually exist. She’ s also suspicious of the many videos of people collapsing on the ground. “ I tell people to take these with a grain of salt, ” she says, and she tries to be clear that many posts are unconfirmed, asking others to tell her if anything seems questionable. Still, the threat of spreading misinformation is real. So is the threat of the government taking down legitimate posts.
Tang, meanwhile, doesn’ t trust official Chinese media but does trust sources like CNN, BBC, AP, and AFP. Not everybody feels the same way. The volunteer group A2N relies heavily on official news as it collects official reports and scientific information to post to Weibo. Its list of credible sources include hospital reports, People’ s Daily, and the business publication Caixin. A2N’ s guidelines say that they will only post true information—which they say doesn’ t necessarily mean absolutely correct, just credible and traceable. ( A2N did not respond to requests for comment.)
There’ s clearly little consensus on what is considered trustworthy news right now, aside from independent foreign media. It’ s ironic, then, that while many Westerners are worried about out-of-context messages from Asia, people in mainland China and Hong Kong are trying to fight misinformation by looking to mainstream Western sources.
For her part, Yaqiu Wang, the Human Rights Watch researcher, says the most helpful thing the Chinese government could do to inspire trust is let independent journalists do their job. That is unlikely to happen, but “ when there is no independent media that can independently report, what can you do? ” Wang says. “ You screenshot things, you do the best you can. You have to get the information. ”
How a veteran virologist found fresh evidence to back up the theory that covid jumped from animals to humans in a notorious Chinese market—rather than emerged from a lab leak.
The US government’ s China Initiative sought to protect national security. In the most comprehensive analysis of cases to date, MIT Technology Review reveals how far it has strayed from its goals.
New restrictions are coming into place across Europe as covid cases rise again. But there are several reasons why a new wave is happening.
We can all learn from how today’ s young people evaluate truth online.
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Coronavirus is negatively impacting international call quality | As the coronavirus, COVID-19, continues its spread around the globe, millions of people are either being told to stay home or are working from home. This is having a measurable, negative impact on the audio quality of international calls and could be a harbinger of things to come.
SEE: Coronavirus having major effect on tech industry beyond supply chain delays ( free PDF) ( TechRepublic)
According to research conducted by Spearline, an Irish company that monitors call quality for contact center operators and other clients with high international inbound and outbound call volume, China experienced a 7.2% drop in audio quality in late January. In South Korea, Spearline noted an increase in connection issues and a 12% decrease in audio quality in late February. Spearline does not monitor in-country domestic calls.
`` What we're observing, '' said Michael Palmer, Spearline's chief marketing officer, `` is now that persons effectively have been asked to self-isolate in many communities, the demands on the national and local networks have changed quite significantly. And that does affect the way that the international communications interconnect. '' With more people spending more time at home—watching Netflix, gaming, making calls, checking the internet—they place more demand on network gateways that were not designed to handle the load. If schools are closed and the kids are home, that only adds to the load.
Typically, when a carrier's network becomes overwhelmed it has sharing agreements with other providers to pick up the load. But, if those providers also are experiencing high-demand, they will be unable to handle the extra traffic.
SEE: Amazon halts all employee travel, Nike closes Oregon campus ( TechRepublic)
`` So there's a kind of a waterfall effect, '' Palmer said. `` If there are capacity crunches on the network, the next path is chosen, and then the next path, until a free gateway is found. Because of this change, capacity strains are found in different areas, and international calls are finding different ways out of the country using different appliances. It's a struggle for the network to adjust to any significant change in demand pattern. ''
Another issue is maintenance. With localized quarantines in effect, equipment failures in those regions may not be fixed quickly. Unlike China, which has a lot of telecom engineers at the ready to address network quality and downtime issues, other areas of the world like countries in Africa may not be so well staffed, Palmer said. This could lead to these areas being slower to recover should quarantines go into effect.
As of this weekend, Palmer said call quality in both China and South Korea have improved but Spearline chalks this up to reduced demand.
`` China has stabilized quite well, '' Palmer said. `` Though still at a lesser performance than pre-event. South Korea's performance is somewhat more volatile with a more saw-tooth curve. ''
5G networks and devices, mobile security, remote support, and the latest about phones, tablets, and apps are some of the topics we 'll cover. Delivered Tuesdays and Fridays
| tech |
Chinese Stocks Tanked After Markets Reopen. Why U.S. Stocks Are Rising. | Photograph by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
The
Super Bowl is over
, which means we can turn our attention to the stock market. Chinese stocks, which were closed last week for the Lunar New Year,
tumbled
, but
U.S. stock futures are not
.
There’ s a good reason for that. Because China’ s stock markets were closed last week, they’ re now playing catch-up, doing in one day what would have taken a week of gyrations to accomplish. So yes, the
Shanghai Composite
tumbled 7.7% to 2746.61, but that’ s a week’ s worth of losses. Losses in Chinese stocks are also not as bad as they could have been thanks to an
injection of $ 173 billion from the People’ s Bank of China
.
U.S. stocks most definitely traded last week, and the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
dropped 2.5%, its largest decline since August. The benchmark ended the week with a 600-plus point drop, as investors
finally took the coronavirus seriously
.
Yet, with a weekend to digest the spread of the virus, plus the steps China is taking to boost its economy, investors seem to be once again looking past it. The Dow has gained 341.65 points, or 0.6%, to 28,597.68, while the
S & P 500
has risen 0.8% to 3249.69, and the
Nasdaq Composite
has climbed 1.4% to 9282.26.
But a Monday rally isn’ t the same as an all-clear. In fact, it might just be the lure to attract investors before the next decline. “ It seems many investors just want to ‘ buy the dip,’ ” writes Oanda’ s Edward Moya. “ If we continue to see the virus have over 20% daily increases in both the death toll and number of cases, this will just become another dead-cat-bounce. ”
It might not be time to run into stocks just yet, but there’ s a good chance that a buying opportunity will present itself. The reason: The global economy probably won’ t enter recession, writes Morgan Stanley economist Chetan Ahya. “ From a global perspective, the impact to growth will come through China’ s GDP and its contribution to global growth, as well as spillover effects on the rest of the world—principally via the trade and tourism sectors, ” he explains. “ While the coronavirus development does imply some downside to near-term growth, it should not derail the global recovery. ”
Write to
Ben Levisohn at
Ben.Levisohn @ barrons.com | business |
India reports second case of coronavirus in Kerala | A second case of the new coronavirus has been detected in Kerala, the government said in a news release on Sunday, days after the first case was reported in the state last week.
“ Second positive case of Novel Coronavirus patient has been reported in Kerala. The patient has a travel history from China, ” the government statement said.
The patient has tested positive for the virus and has been kept in isolation in a hospital. The person is stable and is being closely monitored, the statement said.
Last week India reported that a student who had returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, had tested positive and was being treated in isolation.
The new strain of coronavirus, which originated in Hubei province in central China late last year, has so far killed more than 300 people amid more than 14,000 total reported cases. Globally, around 130 cases have been reported.
Several countries have put travel bans with airlines cancelling flights to and from China and mass evacuations of citizens amid fears of a major pandemic, which could threaten exports and growth in the world’ s second-biggest economy.
India evacuated 324 people from Wuhan on Saturday and have kept them under observation in the outskirts of New Delhi, a government statement said on Saturday.
India’ s national carrier, Air India, has cancelled its Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai flight until Feb. 14.
“ Earlier positive case found in Kerala is being monitored and is stable, ” the government said on Saturday.
Reporting by Promit Mukherjee. Editing by Gerry Doyle | business |
A Simple Prediction Model for the Development Trend of 2019-nCov Epidemics Based on Medical Observations | In order to predict the development trend of the 2019 coronavirus ( 2019-nCov), we established an prediction model to predict the number of diagnoses case in China except Hubei Province. From January 25 to January 29, 2020, we optimized 6 prediction models, 5 of them based on the number of medical observations to predicts the peak time of confirmed diagnosis will appear on the period of morning of January 29 from 24:00 to February 2 before 5 o'clock 24:00. Then we tracked the data from 24 o'clock on January 29 to 24 o'clock on January 31, and found that the predicted value of the data on the 3rd has a small deviation from the actual value, and the actual value has always remained within the range predicted by the comprehensive prediction model 6. Therefore we discloses this finding and will continue to track whether this pattern can be maintained for longer. We believe that the changes medical observation case number may help to judge the trend of the epidemic situation in advance. | science |
'Please take my daughter ': Mother of girl with cancer pleads at virus blockade | Hours ticked by on Saturday as 50-year-old Lu Yuejin struggled to get past the police checkpoint on the bridge over the Yangtze river and out of Hubei province, which is on virtual lockdown as China scrambles to control a coronavirus outbreak.
Lu, a farmer from a village on the Hubei province side of the bridge, was trying to gain passage for her daughter, 26-year-old Hu Ping, who has leukemia. She has been unable to receive a second round of chemotherapy treatment in the overwhelmed hospitals of provincial capital Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak.
“ My daughter needs to go to hospital in Jiujiang, ” she said at the checkpoint. “ She needs to have her treatment. But they won’ t let us through. ”
Her daughter sat on the ground wrapped in a blanket while Lu tearfully pleaded with police.
“ Please, take my daughter. I don’ t need to go past... please, just let my daughter go past, ” she asked.
Her pleas were almost drowned out by a loudspeaker playing a pre-recorded message that residents would not be allowed into Jiujiang, the Jiangxi province city on the southern side of the Yangtze.
The bridge has been largely closed off in an attempt to halt the spread of the new disease, which has infected 14,380 people, the vast majority of them in China, and killed more than 300.
Dozens of people have attempted to cross the police checkpoint in recent days. Some had succeeded by holding the right train or plane ticket departing from Jiujiang and bought before January 24, but many had failed.
For much of Saturday morning, that was the case for Lu as she pleaded her daughter’ s case with authorities.
“ All I want to do is save her life, ” she said.
About an hour after she spoke to Reuters at the checkpoint, police began to move. Phone calls were made, an ambulance was called and Lu and Hu were both eventually allowed through.
Hu appeared to be limping as she walked through temperature checks at the checkpoint and towards the waiting ambulance.
Reporting by Martin Pollard; Editing by Tony Munroe and Lincoln Feast. | business |
Indonesia bars entry to visitors from China amid evacuation protest | Indonesia on Sunday barred entry to visitors who have been in China for 14 days over concern about coronavirus, as citizens evacuated from Hubei province faced protests by some residents on their return home.
There have not been any confirmed cases of coronavirus in Indonesia, but neighbouring Philippines on Sunday reported the first death from the virus outside China.
Indonesia will also temporarily stop flights to and from mainland China starting Wednesday. It will immediately bar visitors who have been in China for 14 days from entering or transiting, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told a televised news conference.
Indonesia’ s Lion Air Group has already stopped its flights to China.
Marsudi also asked Indonesians not to travel to China during the coronavirus epidemic.
In China, the virus has killed 304 people and infected more than 14,000. More than 20 other countries and regions outside mainland China have also reported cases.
Earlier on Sunday, the government flew 243 Indonesians from China’ s Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus, and placed them under quarantine at a military base on the sparsely populated Natuna Besar island northwest of Borneo.
Marsudi said a total of 285 people, including flight crew and the team involved in the evacuation, will have to stay there for 14 days under observation.
Although she said all were reportedly healthy, their presence on the island alarmed some residents.
Around 200 people set tyres ablaze during a protest rally on Sunday, regional police spokesman Harry Goldenhard said by telephone.
“ What the government is doing has been weighed and planned carefully. The location of the observatory is far from their homes, some 6 km ( 3.7 miles) away, ” he said.
“ The virus won’ t spread, ” Goldenhard said.
Editing by Ed Davies, Christopher Cushing and Frances Kerry | business |
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say | The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’ s leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“ It’ s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic, ” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“ But will it be catastrophic? I don’ t know. ”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases has soared from about 50 in China to more than 17,000 in at least 23 countries; there have been more than 360 deaths.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged.
When SARS was vanquished in July 2003 after spreading for nine months, only 8,098 cases had been confirmed. MERS has been circulating since 2012, but there have been only about 2,500 known cases.
The biggest uncertainty now, experts said, is how many people around the world will die. SARS killed about 10 percent of those who got it, and MERS now kills about one of three.
The 1918 “ Spanish flu ” killed only about 2.5 percent of its victims — but because it infected so many people and medical care was much cruder then, an estimated 50 million died, perhaps even more.
By contrast, the highly transmissible H1N1 “ swine flu ” pandemic of 2009 killed about 285,000, fewer than seasonal flu normally does, and had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at.02 percent.
The mortality rate for known cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has been running about 2 percent, although that is likely to drop as more tests are done and more mild cases are found.
It is “ increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained, ” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit devoted to fighting epidemics.
“ It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’ t know how far, wide or deadly it will be. ”
In the early days of the 2009 flu pandemic, “ they were talking about Armageddon in Mexico, ” Dr. Fauci said. ( That virus first emerged in pig-farming areas in Mexico’ s Veracruz State.) “ But it turned out to not be that severe. ”
An accurate estimate of the virus’ s lethality will not be possible until certain kinds of studies can be done: blood tests to see how many people have antibodies, household studies to learn how often it infects family members, and genetic sequencing to determine whether some strains are more dangerous than others.
Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, experts said, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.
Other important unknowns include who is most at risk, whether coughing or contaminated surfaces are more likely to transmit the virus, how fast the virus can mutate and whether it will fade out when the weather warms.
The virus has infected more than 5,206,900 people in at least 177 countries.
The effects of a pandemic would probably be harsher in some countries than in others. While the United States and other wealthy countries may be able to detect and quarantine the first carriers, countries with fragile health care systems will not. The virus has already reached Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and rural Russia.
“ This looks far more like H1N1’ s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed, ” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “ Even 1 percent mortality would mean 10,000 deaths in each million people. ”
Other experts were more cautious.
Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergency responses for the World Health Organization, said in an interview with STAT News on Saturday that there was “ evidence to suggest this virus can still be contained ” and that the world needed to “ keep trying. ”
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virus-hunter at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who is in China advising its Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the virus is clearly being transmitted through casual contact, labs are still behind in processing samples.
But life in China has radically changed in the last two weeks. Streets are deserted, public events are canceled, and citizens are wearing masks and washing their hands, Dr. Lipkin said. All of that may have slowed down what lab testing indicated was exponential growth in the infection.
It’ s unclear exactly how accurate tests done in overwhelmed Chinese laboratories are. On the one hand, Chinese state media have reported test kit shortages and processing bottlenecks, which could produce an undercount.
But Dr. Lipkin said he knew of one lab running 5,000 samples a day, which might produce some false-positive results, inflating the count. “ You can’ t possibly do quality control at that rate, ” he said.
Anecdotal reports from China, and one published study from Germany, indicate that some people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can pass it on before they show symptoms. That may make border-screening much harder, scientists said.
Epidemiological modeling released Friday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 75 percent of infected people reaching Europe from China would still be in the incubation periods upon arrival, and therefore not detected by airport screening, which looks for fevers, coughs and breathing difficulties.
But if thermal cameras miss victims who are beyond incubation and actively infecting others, the real number of missed carriers may be higher than 75 percent.
Still, asymptomatic carriers “ are not normally major drivers of epidemics, ” Dr. Fauci said. Most people get ill from someone they know to be sick — a family member, a co-worker or a patient, for example.
Updated May 20, 2020
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
Over 38 million people have filed for unemployment since March. One in five who were working in February reported losing a job or being furloughed in March or the beginning of April, data from a Federal Reserve survey released on May 14 showed, and that pain was highly concentrated among low earners. Fully 39 percent of former workers living in a household earning $ 40,000 or less lost work, compared with 13 percent in those making more than $ 100,000, a Fed official said.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
There is an uptick in people reporting symptoms of chilblains, which are painful red or purple lesions that typically appear in the winter on fingers or toes. The lesions are emerging as yet another symptom of infection with the new coronavirus. Chilblains are caused by inflammation in small blood vessels in reaction to cold or damp conditions, but they are usually common in the coldest winter months. Federal health officials do not include toe lesions in the list of coronavirus symptoms, but some dermatologists are pushing for a change, saying so-called Covid toe should be sufficient grounds for testing.
Yes, but make sure you keep six feet of distance between you and people who don’ t live in your home. Even if you just hang out in a park, rather than go for a jog or a walk, getting some fresh air, and hopefully sunshine, is a good idea.
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
Charity Navigator, which evaluates charities using a numbers-based system, has a running list of nonprofits working in communities affected by the outbreak. You can give blood through the American Red Cross, and World Central Kitchen has stepped in to distribute meals in major cities.
The virus’ s most vulnerable target is Africa, many experts said. More than 1 million expatriate Chinese work there, mostly on mining, drilling or engineering projects. Also, many Africans work and study in China and other countries where the virus has been found.
If anyone on the continent has the virus now, “ I’ m not sure the diagnostic systems are in place to detect it, ” said Dr. Daniel Bausch, head of scientific programs for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, who is consulting with the W.H.O. on the outbreak.
South Africa and Senegal could probably diagnose it, he said. Nigeria and some other countries have asked the W.H.O. for the genetic materials and training they need to perform diagnostic tests, but that will take time.
At least four African countries have suspect cases quarantined, according to an article published Friday in The South China Morning Post. They have sent samples to France, Germany, India and South Africa for testing.
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At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“ Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind, ” he said. “ Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘ Have you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is yes, they’ ll be put in isolation right away. ”
Assuming the virus spreads globally, tourism to and trade with countries besides China may be affected — and the urgency to find ways to halt the virus and prevent deaths will grow.
It is possible that the Wuhan coronavirus will fade out as weather warms. Many viruses, like flu, measles and norovirus, thrive in cold, dry air. The SARS outbreak began in winter, and MERS transmission also peaks then, though that may be related to transmission in newborn camels.
Four mild coronaviruses cause about a quarter of the nation’ s common colds, which also peak in winter.
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including those that began in 1918 and 2009.
By that time, some remedies might be on hand, although they will need rigorous testing and perhaps political pressure to make them available and affordable.
In China, several antiviral drugs are being prescribed. A common combination is pills containing lopinavir and ritonavir with infusions of interferon, a signaling protein that wakes up the immune system.
In the United States, the combination is sold as Kaletra by AbbVie for H.I.V. therapy, and it is relatively expensive. In India, a dozen generic makers produce the drugs at rock-bottom prices for use against H.I.V. in Africa, and their products are W.H.O.-approved.
Another option may be an experimental drug, remdesivir, on which the patent is held by Gilead. The drug has not yet been approved for use against any disease. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that it works against coronaviruses, and Gilead has donated doses to China.
Several American companies are working on a vaccine, using various combinations of their own funds, taxpayer money and foundation grants.
Although modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.
That aspect of the process can not be sped up, because dangerous side effects may take time to appear and because human immune systems need time to produce the antibodies that show whether a vaccine is working.
Whether or not what is being tried in China will be acceptable elsewhere will depend on how rigorously Chinese doctors run their clinical trials.
“ In God we trust, ” Dr. Schaffner said. “ All others must provide data. ” | business |
Investors Brace for Ugly Start to Post-holiday Trade in China | News & Analysis
China's markets are expected to plunge in first trading activity since the Chinese New Year break on fears about the spread of a new virus.
SHANGHAI, China — Investors are bracing for a potential plunge in Chinese markets on Monday when onshore trade in stocks, bonds, yuan and commodities resumes following the Lunar New Year break and a steep global selldown on fears about the spread of a new virus.Looking to head off a panic, China's central bank plans to inject 1.2 trillion yuan ( $ 173.8 billion) of liquidity into the markets via reverse repo operations on Monday. Beijing also said it would help firms that produce vital goods resume work as soon as possible, state broadcaster CCTV reported.A total of 304 people have died in China from the coronavirus, the National Health Commission said on Sunday, with infections in China jumping to 14,380 as of Saturday.At least another 171 cases have been reported in more than two dozen other countries and regions.Chinese markets have been closed since the end of trade on January 23. World stocks, led by falls in Asia, have dropped 3 percent since then, mostly on worries about the effect of the coronavirus on China's economy.Singapore-traded Chinese stock futures have traded throughout the break and have shed 7 percent since Jan. 23, pointing to a fall of a similar magnitude when markets open at 0130 GMT.The rout caught up with Wall Street on Friday as major indexes slid more than 1.5 percent in their worst week in six months. Treasury yields fell sharply as investors priced in a greater risk of U.S. interest rate cuts.Monday's fixing at 0115 GMT of the midpoint of the yuan's onshore trading band will be closely watched as a guide to how the People's Bank of China intends to handle the financial fallout from the virus.China's yuan last traded at 6.9904 offshore, having weakened steadily last week to end Friday at 7.0028. `` There will be a burst of panic-selling, '' said Wu Kan, portfolio manager at Soochow Securities Co, who like several onshore brokers expects the fall to be short-term.Sources told Reuters that the China Securities Regulatory Commission ( CSRC) had issued a verbal directive to brokerages including Citic Securities Co and China International Capital Corp to bar their clients from selling borrowed stocks on February 3. It was not clear if the suspension would be extended beyond Monday, one of the sources said.Trade in commodities is likewise predicted to be bumpy.Brokers expect the Shanghai Futures Exchange's most active copper contract to test its daily down limit of 7 percent.The metal, which typically trades at a slight premium in China, closed in Shanghai at 48,160 yuan ( $ 6,975.67) a tonne on Jan. 23. It has dropped 6.5% in London since, and last traded at $ 5,567 a tonne, having hit a five-month trough.Billionaire entrepreneur Guo Guangchang's advice is for the brave. `` It's nothing but short-term, '' said Guo, whose business empire includes Foun Pharma, Juewei Food Co and Shanghai Yuyuan Tourist Mart, as well as Hong Kong-listed Fosun International. `` The panic we see in the capital markets will be gone before long, '' he said. `` For a long-term investor, now may be the opportunity, a very good opportunity, to step up investment in China's capital markets. `` By: Sam Shen, Mai Ngyuen, Tom Westbrook, Wayne Cole; Editor: Leslie Adler
Looking to head off a panic, China's central bank plans to inject 1.2 trillion yuan ( $ 173.8 billion) of liquidity into the markets via reverse repo operations on Monday. Beijing also said it would help firms that produce vital goods resume work as soon as possible, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
A total of 304 people have died in China from the coronavirus, the National Health Commission said on Sunday, with infections in China jumping to 14,380 as of Saturday.
At least another 171 cases have been reported in more than two dozen other countries and regions.
Chinese markets have been closed since the end of trade on January 23. World stocks, led by falls in Asia, have dropped 3 percent since then, mostly on worries about the effect of the coronavirus on China's economy.
Singapore-traded Chinese stock futures have traded throughout the break and have shed 7 percent since Jan. 23, pointing to a fall of a similar magnitude when markets open at 0130 GMT.
The rout caught up with Wall Street on Friday as major indexes slid more than 1.5 percent in their worst week in six months. Treasury yields fell sharply as investors priced in a greater risk of U.S. interest rate cuts.
Monday's fixing at 0115 GMT of the midpoint of the yuan's onshore trading band will be closely watched as a guide to how the People's Bank of China intends to handle the financial fallout from the virus.
China's yuan last traded at 6.9904 offshore, having weakened steadily last week to end Friday at 7.0028.
`` There will be a burst of panic-selling, '' said Wu Kan, portfolio manager at Soochow Securities Co, who like several onshore brokers expects the fall to be short-term.
Sources told Reuters that the China Securities Regulatory Commission ( CSRC) had issued a verbal directive to brokerages including Citic Securities Co and China International Capital Corp to bar their clients from selling borrowed stocks on February 3. It was not clear if the suspension would be extended beyond Monday, one of the sources said.
Trade in commodities is likewise predicted to be bumpy.
Brokers expect the Shanghai Futures Exchange's most active copper contract to test its daily down limit of 7 percent.
The metal, which typically trades at a slight premium in China, closed in Shanghai at 48,160 yuan ( $ 6,975.67) a tonne on Jan. 23. It has dropped 6.5% in London since, and last traded at $ 5,567 a tonne, having hit a five-month trough.
Billionaire entrepreneur Guo Guangchang's advice is for the brave.
`` It's nothing but short-term, '' said Guo, whose business empire includes Foun Pharma, Juewei Food Co and Shanghai Yuyuan Tourist Mart, as well as Hong Kong-listed Fosun International.
`` The panic we see in the capital markets will be gone before long, '' he said. `` For a long-term investor, now may be the opportunity, a very good opportunity, to step up investment in China's capital markets. ''
By: Sam Shen, Mai Ngyuen, Tom Westbrook, Wayne Cole; Editor: Leslie Adler
Why Price Inflation Is Coming to Fashion | business |
Pompeo urges Kazakhstan to press China over Uighurs | U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Kazakhstan on Sunday to join Washington in pressing Beijing over its treatment of Muslim minorities, a sensitive matter for the Central Asian nation which has close ties with its neighbor China.
Speaking on a visit to the capital Nur-Sultan, Pompeo said he has raised the matter in talks with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi.
“ We discussed trafficking in persons and the plight of more one million Uighur Muslims and ethnic Kazakhs that the Chinese Communist Party has detained in Xinjiang, just across the Kazakh border, ” Pompeo said.
“ The United States urges all countries to join us in pressing for an immediate end to this repression. We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum to those seeking to flee China. ”
The United Nations and human rights groups estimate between 1 million and 2 million people, mostly ethnic Uighur Muslims, have been detained in harsh conditions as part of what Beijing calls an anti-terrorism campaign.
China has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uighurs and says the camps provide vocational training. It describes the detainees as students.
Both the United States and China - which are caught up in a broad dispute over trade and other issues - are major investors in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic.
Pompeo said on Twitter he met families of ethnic Kazakhs detained in China’ s Xinjiang province, and praised Kazakhstan for not forcing asylum-seekers to return to China.
Pompeo said the United States was helping oil-rich Kazakhstan protect itself against the coronavirus outbreak originating from China.
Tleuberdi made no comment on the Uighur issue and focused instead on economic and security cooperation.
Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Andrew Heavens | business |
Coronavirus: first death outside China recorded as total fatalities pass 300 | The Philippines has reported the first death from the coronavirus outside China, adding to fears about the spread of the virus as more countries imposed travel restrictions.
The outbreak of the respiratory illness has killed 304 people in China since it was first detected in the central city of Wuhan late last year. Across China, there were 2,590 new confirmed infections on Saturday, bringing the total to 14,380, China’ s National Health Commission said on Sunday. A study published on Saturday by scientists from the University of Hong Kong found that the virus may have infected as many as 75,815 people in Wuhan.
The virus, which has been declared a global public health emergency, has caused at least 100 infections in more than 20 countries, with Britain, Russia and Sweden confirming their first infections over the weekend. Japan has recorded 20 cases, including those involving human-to-human transmission, while the US on Sunday reported its eighth case.
Japan on Saturday confirmed an additional three cases among evacuees from Wuhan, including one, a man in his 40s, who initially tested negative, the health ministry said.
The fatality in the Philippines is a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan who died in a hospital in Manila. He appears to have been infected before his arrival in the Philippines.
“ This is the first reported death outside China, ” Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organisation representative to the Philippines, said. “ However, we need to take into mind that this is not a locally acquired case. This patient came from the epicentre of this outbreak. ”
The Philippine department of health said the man was admitted to hospital on 25 January with a fever, cough and sore throat. He developed severe pneumonia, but in the past few days, “ the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement ”, it said. However, his condition then deteriorated and he died within 24 hours.
The man was with a Chinese woman who also tested positive for the virus, health secretary Francisco Duque said. She was the Philippines’ first case of the virus and is recovering in a hospital isolation ward.
The news of the man’ s death was released shortly after the Philippines announced it would immediately halt the arrivals of any foreign travellers from China, joining several other countries that have imposed similar bans in an attempt to contain the virus.
On Sunday, Indonesia also said it will temporarily stop flights to and from mainland China from Wednesday and bar visitors who have been in China for 14 days from entering or transiting.
Stricter border controls, along with the suspension of flights and business operations have sparked fears of a slowdown in China, the world’ s second-biggest economy.
The US, Australia, Singapore and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China over the previous 14 days, and advised their own citizens not to travel there. Mongolia, Russia, and Nepal closed their land borders, while Papua New Guinea has banned anyone arriving from ports or airports across Asia. Other countries have imposed restrictions on people who have visited Hubei province in the past 14 days.
We don’ t want to go on strike, but the government has been ignoring the demands of the frontline medical workers.
Vietnam declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus epidemic on Saturday and said it would halt all flights to and from China. The government said it would also stop issuing visas for foreign visitors who had been in China in the past two weeks.
On Sunday, New Zealand said it would bar entry to all foreign nationals arriving from mainland China. The ministry of foreign affairs and trade also raised its travel advice to New Zealanders for all of mainland China to “ Do not travel ”, the highest level.
Confirmation of the first death outside China comes after thousands of Hong Kong medical workers voted to go on strike, calling for the government to close the border with mainland China. The financial hub had 13 confirmed cases of the disease as of Saturday, with 112 patients isolated.
More than 3,000 public hospital staff, including doctors and nurses, agreed to a week of phased strike action starting on Monday if the government failed to meet their demands.
It is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. The World Health Organization ( WHO) has declared it a pandemic.
According to the WHO, the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are fever, tiredness and a dry cough. Some patients may also have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion and aches and pains or diarrhoea. Some people report losing their sense of taste and/or smell. About 80% of people who get Covid-19 experience a mild case – about as serious as a regular cold – and recover without needing any special treatment.
About one in six people, the WHO says, become seriously ill. The elderly and people with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, or chronic respiratory conditions, are at a greater risk of serious illness from Covid-19.
In the UK, the National health Service ( NHS) has identified the specific symptoms to look for as experiencing either:
As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work, and there is currently no vaccine. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system.
Medical advice varies around the world - with many countries imposing travel bans and lockdowns to try and prevent the spread of the virus. In many place people are being told to stay at home rather than visit a doctor of hospital in person. Check with your local authorities.
In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days. If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.
China’ s national health commission confirmed human-to-human transmission in January. As of 6 April, more than 1.25m people have been infected in more than 180 countries, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
There have been over 69,500 deaths globally. Just over 3,200 of those deaths have occurred in mainland China. Italy has been worst affected, with over 15,800 fatalities, and there have been over 12,600 deaths in Spain. The US now has more confirmed cases than any other country - more than 335,000. Many of those who have died had underlying health conditions, which the coronavirus complicated.
More than 264,000 people are recorded as having recovered from the coronavirus.
In China, cities began to implement more extreme restrictions on residents. In Huanggang – the second most affected city after Wuhan – authorities barred residents from leaving their homes. Families in the city, also in Hubei province, were to choose one person from their household to leave and buy food and other necessities. The city of Wenzhou in neighbouring Zhejiang province announced similar measures.
In Huanggang, six officials were fired over “ poor performance ” in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua news agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city’ s ability to treat patients remained inadequate and that there was a severe shortage of medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks.
The situation across Hubei province remains “ severe and complicated ” and medical resources at county level are relatively weak, vice governor Xiao Juhua told a news conference on Sunday.
China’ s military said it would send 1,400 medical personnel to Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak. The personnel will staff one of two new hospitals built in the past two weeks, scheduled to open on Monday.
China is facing increasing global isolation as dozens of airlines suspended flights. Some countries are still trying to evacuate hundreds of their citizens. On Sunday Australia backed down on plans to charge its evacuees $ 1,000 to be taken to quarantine on Christmas Island, while a plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals landed at a military airbase in Istres in southern France.
The Russian military will start evacuating Russian citizens on Monday, domestic media reports said.
In China itself, cities and villages are becoming ghost towns, with about 50 million people in Hubei province alone under lockdown and many more living under self-imposed quarantine.
In Hubei, roads have been sealed off and public transport shut down, and the province extended its Lunar New Year holiday break to 13 February. However, people are leaving Hubei on foot over a bridge spanning the Yangtze river.
Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report | general |
Coronavirus: scientists identify possible new mode of transmission in human faeces | Chinese scientists have found traces of the new coronavirus in the faeces of some infected patients, possibly indicating an additional mode of transmitting the deadly disease. | business |
As coronavirus looms, Australia encourages domestic tourism — Quartz | The 2020s are off to an inauspicious start for the land once known as the Lucky Country. In the first month of the year, Australia saw significant drought and the worst wildfires in its history, which decimated native wildlife and produced about 900 million metric tons of carbon emissions. In what would ordinarily be high tourism season, visitor numbers have slumped due to the fires.
Now, the threat of coronavirus is taking yet another swing at the country’ s economy. For travelers coming from Europe and Asia alike, mainland China is an obvious and convenient stopping point. But due to the crisis, only Australian citizens are currently allowed to board flights to Australia out of China, sending daily visitor numbers into Melbourne down to about 700 from the usual 5,000. Under normal circumstances, more than 100,000 Chinese tourists visit Australia each month.
International education is Australia’ s third largest international export, worth AU $ 32.4 billion ( $ 21.7 billion) to the economy. February would typically mark the start of the academic year and the arrival of tens of thousands of Chinese students attending Australian universities. But the flight ban is likely to prevent at least half of these students from traveling to Australia to resume their studies.
Speaking today ( Feb. 2) to domestic broadcaster Sky News, Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton urged Australians to think carefully about international travel. “ We need Australians, frankly, if they are considering a holiday at the moment, to reconsider whether an outbound overseas trip is what they want to do, ” he said. “ If they’ ve thought about seeing parts of Australia, now might be a good time to book that holiday. ”
Coronavirus is already on Australian shores, with 12 confirmed cases as of yesterday. | tech |
The coronavirus will hit the tourism and travel sector hard | The spread of infectious diseases is invariably linked to travel. Today, tourism is a huge global business that accounts for 10.4 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product ( GDP) and 10 per cent of global employment.
Nothing seems to slow its growth as year-over-year increases outpace the economy. The United Nations World Tourism Organization is predicting further growth of three per cent to four per cent in international tourist arrivals for 2020, with international departures worldwide particularly strong in the first quarter of this year.
But that was before a new coronavirus ( formally known as 2019-nCoV) hit China and then very rapidly started spreading to the rest of the world with 20 countries and counting isolating cases.
Officials in China and those in the rest of world have been much quicker to take more drastic action after learning bitter lessons from the SARS outbreak in 2003, which also started in China.
The impact on travel to and from China of this new coronavirus, however, has been devastating. Airlines, including Air Canada, have cancelled all flights or significantly reduced the number of flights in and out of China. Russia closed its land border to passenger travel with China and Hong Kong shut down its borders, cross-border ferries and railways.
The World Health Organization confirmed 8,096 cases and 774 deaths in 26 countries as a result of the SARS coronavirus. First detected in late February 2003, it had run its course five months later.
The coronavirus first appeared in December 2019 but has already surpassed the total number of SARS cases in just two months, albeit with a much lower death rate. Infectious disease experts expect it to last for several months yet with tens of thousands afflicted before it runs its course.
SARS accounted for a drop in international tourist arrivals of almost 9.4 million and a loss of between US $ 30 billion and $ 50 billion. But in 2002, China’ s role as both a travel destination and a source country was relatively minor, receiving fewer than 38 million tourists and sending about 17 million tourists abroad.
Compare that to 2019 when it is estimated China received 142 million inbound tourists and the Chinese made 134 million trips abroad and 5.5 billion trips domestically.
The severe travel restrictions imposed by the Chinese government on its citizens and the stern warnings from Foreign Affairs offices, including Canada’ s, to avoid all non-essential travel to China and all travel to Hubei province ( Wuhan is its capital and largest city) means that the economic impact of this coronvirus will be felt in every corner of the world and almost every sector of the economy.
The market response has been swift, with share prices of major airlines, cruise lines and tourism companies dropping several percentage points.
With the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus a public health emergency of global concern, Gloria Guevara, president and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council ( WTTC) fears that this escalation could have a damaging and lasting economic impact on the sector. She’ s expressed serious concerns that airport closures, flight cancellations and shuttered borders often have a greater economic impact than the outbreak itself.
These concerns are well justified when one considers that between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year, which does not lead to any of these warnings or drastic measures.
Canada saw 251 SARS cases and 43 deaths, but it cost the Canadian economy an estimated $ 5.25 billion and 28,000 jobs. At the time, China was a Canadian tourism market of less than 100,000 visitors annually; that dropped by 25 per cent due to SARS.
Today, China is Canada’ s second-largest overseas market, accounting for close to 800,000 arrivals, and its highest spending market with more than $ 2,800 per trip.
Depending on how long the restrictions and warnings are in place, losses could easily double of those in 2003. The pain will be felt in every industry as tourism’ s supply chain involves everything from agriculture and fishing to banking and insurance. The hardest hit will be its core industries of accommodation, food and beverage services, recreation and entertainment, transportation and travel services.
While Air Canada will refund fares for cancelled flights to and from China, other airlines may only extend change fee waivers or provide credit towards future flights.
But this may not be the case for connecting flights from Beijing or Shanghai, the cities most commonly served by North American airlines.
A growing number of hotels are also waiving changes and cancellation fees for bookings in China scheduled for the next few weeks. But many travellers to or passing through China may not be able to recover all their money, even if they bought insurance. That’ s because most basic travel insurance plans do not cover epidemics as a reason for cancellation. | business |
Philippines races to trace those linked to first coronavirus death outside China | Officials in the Philippines are racing to identify people who had contact with a 44-year-old man who has become the first person to die from the new coronavirus outside China.
The man, who was from Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak in China, had visited three provinces after arriving in the Philippines from Hong Kong.
He had been travelling with a 38-year-old woman, who was the first person in the Philippines confirmed last week to have the virus. She remains in isolation in hospital in Manila, but is no longer experiencing symptoms.
Health authorities are now contacting employees of hotels in which the pair stayed, as well as passengers who were on the same flight, in a race to stop infection. The travellers had visited Cebu, Negros Oriental, as well as Manila.
On Sunday, president Rodrigo Duterte announced a temporary ban on all non-Filipino travellers arriving from China and its autonomous regions, following growing public anger over the government’ s response to the outbreak and calls for tougher action. The Philippines has offered voluntary repatriation of its citizens in China, with a flight expected next week.
Similar restrictions have also been introduced by the US, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that suggested such measures were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel. Some argue that wide-ranging bans are a blunt tool, and that governments should instead focus on targeted precautions.
In Manila, officials emphasised that there had been no cases of human-to-human transmission in the country. Many of the capital’ s shops have sold out of masks and hand sanitiser, and the Catholic church has said communion should be given into people’ s hands rather than directly into their mouths, and that holy water should be changed regularly.
There should also be no holding of hands during prayers, it stated. Protective cloth is also being installed on the grills of confessionals in a country where 80% of the population is Catholic.
Tests for the virus in the Philippines were initially being carried out in Australia, but the country now has its own testing kits, officials said. There is concern that other countries in the region – including Myanmar and Indonesia – still lack capacity to identify the virus. Last week, health officials in Myanmar said they had sent samples to Bangkok for analysis, but that results may take five days to come through.
On Friday, Thailand recorded its first human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus after a taxi driver was apparently infected by a traveller.
Symptoms can be either mild or severe and can include fever, a cough and shortness of breath. It is also possible to be infected without showing symptoms, though the WHO said the main driver of transmission, based on available data, was symptomatic cases.
The Philippines health secretary, Francisco Duque, said the male patient had been showing signs of improvement but deteriorated 24 hours before his death. He died from severe pneumonia.
“ We are currently working with the Chinese embassy to ensure the dignified management of the remains according to national and international standards to contain the disease, ” Duque said.
In total, two cases have been recorded in the Philippines, though test results in a further 10 cases are yet to be confirmed.
Dr Tony Leachon, a public health reform advocate, told the Guardian the Philippine government had been too slow to impose a travel ban, and accused the WHO of being subject to political influence. “ Countries should break protocols to save their people. In epidemics, viruses can’ t survive without a host. Thus we need to limit the travel of the people causing infection. That’ s mainland China. ” | general |
Quieter Response to Coronavirus in Countries Where China Holds Sway | BANGKOK — In Myanmar, loudspeakers broadcast advice from Buddhist monks: Seven ground peppercorns, exactly seven, placed on the tongue will ward off the coronavirus spreading across Asia and the world.
In Indonesia, Terawan Agus Putranto, the health minister, advised citizens to relax and eschew overtime work to avoid the disease, which has killed more than 360 people and infected more than 17,000 others, mostly in China.
“ To prevent it is very easy as long as your immunity is good, ” Mr. Terawan said.
And in Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen told a packed news conference on Thursday that he would kick out anyone who was wearing a surgical mask because such measures were creating an unwarranted climate of fear.
“ The prime minister doesn’ t wear a mask, ” he said, “ so why do you? ”
The World Health Organization has declared the epidemic, which appears to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, a global health emergency. But the message does not seem to be resonating in some parts of Southeast Asia, a magnet for Chinese tourists and workers.
The region now has the largest cluster of coronavirus patients outside China. Some governments there have either played down the threat of the epidemic or openly worried about offending a superpower whose economic heft can propel their economies.
Medical experts worry that a delayed response could hasten the spread of the disease.
“ Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, ” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’ s director general.
On Sunday, the first overseas death from the virus, of a 44-year-old Wuhan resident who had died a day earlier, was reported in the Philippines. The virus has spread to about two dozen countries.
Hours before the death was announced, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines ordered a temporary entry ban on most travelers who had recently been in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Earlier in the week, Mr. Duterte, who has brought the Philippines closer to China while distancing it from the United States, said there was no reason to bar visitors from mainland China, bringing a barrage of criticism from local medical experts.
“ We are not as prepared as first-world countries, ” said Anthony Leachon, a Philippine health advocate who had urged a temporary entry ban, even if it risked riling Beijing. “ Countries should break protocols to save their people. ”
With 19 confirmed cases, Thailand has the most cases in Southeast Asia, followed by Singapore, with 18. Japan, with 20 confirmed cases, has the second-largest number outside China.
Thailand announced on Friday that a Thai taxi driver had tested positive for coronavirus, most likely after coming into contact with a Chinese traveler. Yet even as the threat of human-to-human transmission grows, the country’ s health officials have counseled against undue concern.
One of the confirmed cases in Thailand involved a Chinese man in the northern city of Chiang Mai who initially tested negative for the virus after being admitted to a hospital and was therefore transferred out of an isolation unit to a general ward, said Rungrueng Kitphati, a spokesman for the country’ s health ministry.
“ The chances of him spreading the disease is very low, ” said Mr. Rungrueng, noting that the space between beds in the general ward was more than a yard. “ Our medical staff always wash their hands in and out. It will not be communicable to others. ”
Yet in Wuhan, the coronavirus has infected medical workers, including a doctor who had raised the alarm about the mysterious virus in December, only to have the local government berate him for “ illegal behavior. ”
As the virus has spread across the region, some governments have remained in denial.
At one hospital in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, a slide show during a presentation on preventing the spread of coronavirus said: “ Don’ t be so afraid of the coronavirus. It won’ t last long because ‘ made in China.’ ”
“ Health is not a joke, and the virus is not a joke either, ” said Aung Aung, a surgeon at Mandalay General Hospital. “ I don’ t think Myanmar has the modern techniques to know whether the virus is here. ”
On Friday, Myanmar announced its first suspected case, involving a Chinese man who had arrived by plane from Guangzhou. Myanmar does not have the capacity to test for this specific coronavirus, said U Zaw Htay, a government spokesman. Any samples will need to be sent to Thailand or Hong Kong, which could take up to a week.
Even high-level officials have been trading in folk remedies. After a Facebook user in Myanmar wrote a widely read tribute to onions as a way to prevent transmission of the coronavirus, the chief minister of Tanintharyi Division, U Myint Mg, shared the post on his Facebook page.
“ The Chinese government has announced that people should consume and have on hand as many onions as they can, ” the post read, with no basis in fact.
Cambodia has only one confirmed case of the deadly virus, involving a Chinese national in the boomtown of Sihanoukville, which has been remade by an influx of tens of thousands of Chinese workers. About 3,000 travelers from Wuhan have flown to Cambodia since the epidemic was announced last month, according to Cambodian civil aviation authorities.
In a country with limited media freedoms, some Cambodians worry that the full scope of the virus’ s potential impact is not being reported for political reasons. The country’ s health minister suggested that Cambodia’ s hot and humid climate could ward off the coronavirus.
Updated June 12, 2020
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
And China has been pressuring countries not to ban its travelers, with a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman calling an entry ban enacted by the United States “ not in keeping with the facts ” and not “ in keeping with friendship. ”
Mr. Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has tethered his country close to China, has said he will not ban flights from China. Nor will he organize an effort to evacuate Cambodians from Wuhan, as other nations have done, he said, because they “ have to continue staying there and joining with Chinese to fight this disease. ”
“ Is there any Cambodian or foreigner in Cambodia who has died of the disease? ” the prime minister asked. “ The real disease happening in Cambodia right now is the disease of fear. It is not the coronavirus that occurs in China’ s Wuhan city. ”
Indonesia, where direct flights from Wuhan brought tourists to the holiday island of Bali, has not confirmed any cases of coronavirus, leading to concerns about lax monitoring of incoming passengers. The virus has been found in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, three much less populous countries around Indonesia.
Laos, a secretive socialist nation on the border with China, has also not confirmed any cases, even though a large number of Chinese tourists and workers cycle through the country.
On Saturday, residents of the remote Natuna islands in Indonesia, on the southern shores of the South China Sea, gathered by the hundreds to protest a decision to quarantine about 240 Indonesians airlifted there from Wuhan.
“ People are upset, ” said Andes Putra, the head of Natuna’ s Parliament, noting that local officials had been given scant information about the virus.
Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia depends heavily on Chinese tourism. On Thursday alone, 10,000 Chinese tourists canceled their trips to Bali, according to one industry association. But on Sunday, Indonesia said it was temporarily barring visitors from mainland China who had been there for 14 days.
Mr. Terawan, the health minister, has suggested that the coronavirus will not affect people who exercise properly and sleep amply.
“ Don’ t fret, ” he said. “ Just enjoy and eat enough. ”
In Thailand, where normally bustling airports have been emptied of holidaymakers and tourism officials say that arrivals from China could drop by 80 percent in the first four months of this year, Anutin Charnvirakul, the public health minister, recommended temporarily revoking the country’ s visa-on-arrival program for mainland Chinese travelers.
But more than 180,000 Chinese tourists who had entered Thailand over the past two months remain in the country, according to immigration officials.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand called for Mr. Anutin to check in with tourism officials before submitting a formal proposal to the cabinet, a process that could take days.
Reporting was contributed by Muktita Suhartono from Jakarta, Indonesia, Jason Gutierrez from Manila, Sun Narin from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Saw Nang from Mandalay, Myanmar. | business |
Shares and oil to trade nervously this week on coronavirus fears | Global stock and oil markets are expected to trade nervously this week even as investors hope for signs for the containment of the deadly coronavirus.
Global stock and oil markets are expected to trade nervously this week even as investors hope for signs for the containment of the deadly coronavirus.
Fears about the global economic effects of the virus last week led to the price of oil tumbling to around $ 56.60 ( €51) a barrel. Reflecting the concerns, the Bank of China over the weekend said it pumped in more than €19bn of liquidity into the banking system, while the White House said it was studying the effects of the virus on the US economy.
Meanwhile, Wenzhou, located about 700km from the first outbreak in Wuhan, quarantined nine million residents and became the first city outside central Hubei province to impose quarantine measures.
The two cities are known for their business ties. Families will be allowed to send one person out of the house every two days to shop for necessities.
The White House National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers are conducting a preliminary assessment of the potential short-term and long-term effects of the outbreak, the Washington Post said. | general |
Coronavirus May Cripple Fuel Demand In All Of Asia | The coronavirus outbreak in China is already impacting demand for fuel as airlines are canceling thousands of flights to China and Chinese authorities are discouraging travel by air or road in and out of the most-affected regions and have imposed a lockdown on the 11-million-resident city where the virus was first detected. Demand for jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel is likely to be suppressed in the coming weeks, potentially prompting Chinese and other Asian refiners to cut refinery rates, analysts say. & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; The slowdown in China & rsquo; s fuel consumption is also aggravated by an extended period of public holidays for office workers and multinational corporations & mdash; including Google, Apple, McDonalds, and IKEA, to name a few & mdash; suspending operations or shutting down offices, stores, and restaurants. The weaker fuel demand in China is spilling over onto weakening refining margins for processing crude oil into jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel. Therefore, refiners in China & mdash; and elsewhere in Asia & mdash; are likely to slow down refinery run rates amid depressed demand and an oversupply of fuels, sources who trade, supply, or refine crude oil across Asia told Bloomberg. If refineries cut throughputs, a secondary victim of the virus outbreak could be crude oil demand in the world & rsquo; s key oil demand growth driver, Asia. & ldquo; Fears of weaker demand have weighed on refinery margins, and continued weakness could see some refineries cut run-rates in China. If we were to see this, it would likely be the independent refiners who are first to cut, given their focus on the domestic market, & rdquo; ING strategists said on Friday. Related Jim Cramer & lsquo; & rsquo; Fossil Fuels Are Done & rsquo; & rsquo; China has significantly boosted its fuel export quotas for 2020, but those quotas were handed only to large state-owned enterprises, not to small independent refiners. The first hit comes to demand for refined products in China and across Asia, but a protracted health crisis with more travel restrictions could have a sizeable impact on China & rsquo; s economic growth, which has already been weakening due to the U.S.-China trade war. & nbsp; Weaker growth could spill over to the crude oil demand growth of China & mdash; the world & rsquo; s largest crude oil importer and the main engine of oil demand growth in recent years. & nbsp; It may not be an exaggeration to say that when China & rsquo; s oil demand sneezes, the global oil market catches a cold. The World Health Organization WHO said on Thursday that the outbreak is now a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, but stopped short of advising travel or trade restrictions. & ldquo; The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available, & rdquo; the WHO Emergency Committee said on Thursday, prompting a mini relief rally in oil prices early on Friday. Yet, overall sentiment in the oil market was decisively bearish for a second consecutive week, despite a massive loss of crude oil supply from Libya. Analysts are still struggling to quantify the impact of the virus outbreak on the Chinese economy and on oil and fuel demand, and the unknowns are unlikely to clear up over the next few weeks. According to S & amp; P Global Platts Analytics, oil demand could drop by 200,000 bpd over the next two to three months. This demand erosion would represent around 15 percent of the expected oil demand growth this year. But if the coronavirus turns out to be as deadly as the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS was in 2003, then crude oil demand loss could be in the region of 700,000-800,000 bpd & mdash; more than 50 percent of the oil demand growth estimate for this year, S & amp; P Global Platts Analytics says. & nbsp; Related Is Egypt & rsquo; s Energy Hub Dream Falling Apart As per IHS Markit estimates, the potential maximum economic impact of the coronavirus on China & rsquo; s economy & mdash; based on a benchmark using the SARS economic impact in 2003 & mdash; could be a 1.1-percentage-point reduction in Chinese economic growth from the baseline IHS Markit forecast of 5.8 percent growth this year. & ldquo; Mainland China & rsquo; s impact on the world economy is also much larger now than during the SARS outbreak, meaning the slowdown in Chinese growth may be a significant drag on global growth, & rdquo; IHS Markit said this week. Until clearer indications of the virus impact on oil demand emerge, the market will continue to be weighed down by fears of sizeable demand destruction. & ldquo; This thing still in the process of rearing its ugly head and that & rsquo; s why oil is taking this so hard because this could really turn into an acute drop in demand at least for a time, & rdquo; John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC, told Reuters this week. & nbsp; By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com | business |
India reports second case of coronavirus in southern state of Kerala | A second case of the new coronavirus has been detected in the southern state of Kerala in India, the government said in a news release on Sunday, days after the first case was reported in the state last week.
“ Second positive case of Novel Coronavirus patient has been reported in Kerala. The patient has a travel history from China, ” the government statement said.
The patient has tested positive for the virus and has been kept in isolation in a hospital. The person is stable and is being closely monitored, the statement said.
Last week India reported that a student who had returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, had tested positive and was being treated in isolation.
The new strain of coronavirus, which originated in Hubei province in central China late last year, has so far killed more than 300 people amid more than 14,000 total reported cases. Globally, around 130 cases have been reported.
Several countries have put travel bans with airlines cancelling flights to and from China and mass evacuations of citizens amid fears of a major pandemic, which could threaten exports and growth in the world’ s second-biggest economy.
India evacuated 324 people from Wuhan on Saturday and have kept them under observation in the outskirts of New Delhi, a government statement said on Saturday.
India’ s national carrier, Air India, has canceled its Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai flight until Feb. 14.
“ Earlier positive case found in Kerala is being monitored and is stable, ” government said on Saturday.
Reporting by Promit Mukherjee. Editing by Gerry Doyle | business |
Hotels Navigate Hazy World of Legal Marijuana and 8 Other Top Hospitality Stories This Week | Get exclusive stories and unlimited access to Skift.com news
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Danielle Hyams, Skift
February 2nd, 2020 at 10:30 AM EST
In hospitality news this week, hotels are finding it confusing to straddle state and federal laws when it comes to marijuana. Is legal pot a liability or opportunity? Plus, fast-rising Oyo Hotels & Homes has slammed on the brakes in the U.S., laying off a third of its team and switching up its strategy.
Danielle Hyams
Throughout the week we post dozens of original stories, connecting the dots across the travel industry, and every weekend we sum it all up. This weekend roundup examines hotels.
For all of our weekend roundups, go here.
Hotels Are Confused by Rise of Legal Marijuana: Opportunity or Liability? The legalization of marijuana by states is getting murkier in the eyes of the federal government, which has still not legalized pot. Thirty-three states have, meaning that hotels have to deal with it whether they like it or not. Some hotels are embracing certain forms of cannabis. Others don’ t want the potential liability. How do they figure out what to do?
Oyo’ s Global Downsizing Hits U.S. as One-Third of Staff Is Fired in Biz Model Shift: If the cliché “ no pain, no gain ” applies to disruptor Oyo, then the chain is clearly in the pain part of that equation. The brand has definitely taken a huge reputation hit that will play out for months. There are certainly positives in Oyo’ s renewed value proposition to many properties if the chain doesn’ t trip over itself.
5 Takeaways From the Year’ s Largest Hotel Industry Conference: The hotel industry is expected to have a slowdown in profits this year, yet companies keep starting new brands and expanding existing ones. Where is this optimism coming from?
China Cancels Group Trips as Coronavirus Control Measures Expand: It’ s going to be a long, cold winter for China’ s travel industry and for businesses that rely on outbound Chinese tourists, as the novel coronavirus epidemic expands, and people stay put during China’ s biggest travel season.
Where the Travel Industry Will Intersect With Wellness in 2020: Wellness trends come and go, but travel companies in 2020 are increasingly looking toward ancient traditions to find practices that are built to last.
Sonder Adds Former Starwood Hotels CEO to Board: Adding someone as experienced as Frits van Paasschen to its board is a sure sign that Sonder is serious about making a big leap forward in 2020.
How the Cloud Is Shaking Up Hotel Property Management Tech: New Skift Research: Technological advancements have allowed for new entrants into the property management systems space to offer a viable alternative to incumbent legacy systems. Those systems might be scrambling for now, but they’ ll catch up. All this can only be a good thing for the PMS and hotel tech space in the long run.
Asian Destinations Reel From China’ s Outbound Travel Ban: For a string of Asian destinations, China is by far the number one market, so the outbound travel ban that became effective Monday there has shaken tourism businesses even though they know it is for the good.
‘ Wave Season’ 2020 Brings More Questions From Cruisers on Environment: This year’ s wave season isn’ t business as usual for travel advisors. Cruisers are showing a preference for remote destinations, and they are tracking cruise lines’ sustainability records like never before.
Skift Research products provide deep analysis, data, and expert research on the companies and trends that are shaping the future of travel. | general |
Chinese markets plummet on return from holiday amid virus outbreak | Stocks in mainland China plummeted more than 7% on Monday as they returned to trade following an extended holiday amid an ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
The Shanghai composite fell 7.72% to close at about 2,746.61 while the Shenzhen component dropped 8.45% to end its trading day about 9,779.67. The Shenzhen composite also declined 8.414% to close at around 1,609.00. The indexes all fell around 9% in early trade during the session.
The moves on the mainland came following an extended holiday amid an ongoing virus outbreak that has taken more than 300 lives in the country so far.
The People's Bank of China announced Sunday that it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan ( approx. $ 173 billion) worth of liquidity into the markets via open market reverse repo operations. The Chinese central bank said the overall liquidity in the system would be 900 billion yuan ( approx. $ 130 billion) more as compared to the same period last year.
`` While this will be the largest single-day addition since 2004, it implies a mere net injection of RMB150bn as commercial banks are scheduled to repay RMB1.05tn of funds on Monday, '' strategists at Singapore's DBS Group Research wrote in a note. `` The authority may need to inject more cash in the rest of the week via reverse repo and/or medium-term lending facility to soothe market nerves. ''
`` ( The Chinese government) may have another kind of rate cut … or RRR cut. But honestly speaking … it can only ( help) a little bit at this moment, '' Dickie Wong, executive director at Kingston Securities, told CNBC's `` Street Signs '' on Monday.
Comparing it to the situation two months ago when concerns largely centered around trade frictions between Beijing and Washington, Wong said Chinese officials and the government had `` more tools '' then to tackle problems.
At the moment, however, he said: `` The first priority amongst all priorities would definitely ( be) to solve this virus outbreak. ''
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.35%, as of its final hour of trading, with shares of Chinese tech juggernauts Tencent and Alibaba jumping 2.04% and 2.5%, respectively.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 1.01% to close at 22,971.94 while the Topix index also declined 0.7% to end its trading day at 1,672.66. South Korea's Kospi closed largely unchanged at 2,118.88.
Meanwhile, shares in Australia tumbled as well, with the S & P/ASX 200 closing 1.34% lower at 6,923.30 as shares of major miner BHP fell 2.92%.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was 0.81% lower.
A private survey of China's manufacturing activity also came in on Monday, showing it expanded in January, with the Markit/Caixin manufacturing Purchasing Managers ' Index ( PMI) for January at 51.1. That was below expectations of 51.3 by economists in a Reuters poll. The PMI figure for December was 51.5. PMI readings above 50 indicate expansion, while those below that level signal contraction.
On Friday, China's National Bureau of Statistics said the country's official manufacturing PMI came in at 50.0 for the month of January — an indication of stalled activity. The bureau said that the impact of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak was not fully reflected in the survey, which was conducted before Jan. 20.
Investors have been closely tracking the coronavirus outbreak in recent days. Stocks on Wall Street plunged on Friday amid concerns over the virus ' potential economic impact, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average's gains for January being wiped out as it plummeted about 600 points.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 97.486 after declining from levels above 97.8 last week.
The Japanese yen, often viewed as a safe-haven currency in times of economic uncertainty, traded at 108.53 per dollar after strengthening sharply from levels above 108.9 last week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $ 0.6699 after slipping from levels above $ 0.676 in the previous trading week.
The onshore Chinese yuan touched a low of 7.0223 against the greenback, last trading at 7.0141 while its offshore counterpart was at 7.0132 per dollar.
Oil prices slipped in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures declining 0.74% to $ 56.20 per barrel. U.S. crude futures were 0.23% lower at $ 51.44 per barrel.
— CNBC's Huileng Tan contributed to this report. | business |
Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Climb to 14,557 Globally – First Death Outside of China | Coronavirus Map: Distribution of 2019-nCoV case as of February 2, 2020. Credit: WHO
Note: There is now a newer Novel Coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV) Situation Report 14.
The 2019-nCoV outbreak and response has been accompanied by a massive ‘ infodemic’ – an over-abundance of information – some accurate and some not –that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.
Due to the high demand for timely and trustworthy information about 2019-nCoV, WHO technical risk communication and social media teams have been working closely to track and respond to myths and rumors. Through its headquarters in Geneva, its six regional offices and its partners, the Organization is working 24 hours a day to identify the most prevalent rumors that can potentially harm the public’ s health, such as false prevention measures or cures. These myths are then refuted with evidence-based information. WHO is making public health information and advice on the 2019-nCoV, including myth busters, available on its social media channels ( including Weibo, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest) and website.
Social media users have engaged with WHO content on the 2019-nCoV outbreak in record numbers, and WHO experts have been reaching users through different channels such as live events.
Country risk communication and community engagement ( RCCE) is a critical public health intervention in all countries. Countries should prepare to communicate rapidly, regularly and transparently with the population. All countries should prepare existing public health communication networks, media and community engagement staff to be ready for a possible case, and for the appropriate response if this happens. Countries should coordinate communications with other response organizations and include the community in response operations. WHO stands ready to coordinate with partners to support countries in their communication and community engagement response.
An expanding group of global response organizations such as the United Nations Children’ s Fund ( UNICEF) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies ( IFRC) are coordinating efforts with WHO to ensure that biomedical recommendations can be applied at the community level. These organizations are active at the global, regional and country level to ensure that affected populations have a voice and are part of the response. Ensuring that global recommendations and communication are tested, adapted and localized will help countries better control the 2019-nCoV outbreak.
During previous outbreaks due to other coronaviruses ( Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome ( MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS), human-to-human transmission occurred through droplets, contact, and fomites, suggesting that the transmission mode of the 2019-nCoV can be similar. The basic principles to reduce the general risk of transmission of acute respiratory infections include the following:
WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travelers. In case of symptoms suggestive of respiratory illness either during or after travel, travelers are encouraged to seek medical attention and share their travel history with their healthcare provider. | tech |
Rebel Wilson's Baftas speech praised for'single-handedly breathing life ' into awards | Australian comedian and actor Rebel Wilson has been praised for “ single-handedly breathing life into the Baftas ” after a gag-filled topical speech at the UK film awards ceremony which touched on recent controversies in the royal family, the coronavirus, the Baftas’ lack of diversity, and acknowledged the failure of her latest film, Cats.
Introducing the best director category, Wilson opened with a joke framed around the venue itself: the Royal Albert Hall.
“ It is really great to be here at the Royal Andrew – royal Harry, no, sorry – Royal Phil – ah, at this royal palace place, ” she said – skirting over the names of members of the royal family, before a savvy producer cut to the Bafta president, Prince William, looking very awkward in his seat.
Three cheers for the producer who cut to William and Kate after Rebel Wilson’ s Prince Andrew and Harry joke # BAFTAs
At one point Wilson held the Baftas trophy – a bronze mask – up to her face, calling it “ a great way to stop yourself from getting coronavirus ”.
She also joked about the Baftas decision to forgo luxurious gift bags for guests this year, replacing them instead with “ gifting wallets ” made from recycled plastics and filled with gift cards. “ Which is funny because [ gifting wallet ] is also the nickname of my vagina, ” Wilson said. “ So maybe it is me who will win best original score at the afterparty tonight. ”
Rebel Wilson does 3 minutes; good jokes about Cats, all male nominations lists, coronavirus and her vagina; rescues BAFTAs.
The gifting wallets were part of the Baftas push towards sustainability, at an event which also banned single-use plastic and encouraged more mindful red carpet attire. Wilson’ s own dress, she said, was made from recycled material. “ The red is from that one time I didn’ t win Miss Australia, and the black is from a funeral I just went to for the feature film Cats. ”
It wasn’ t the only gag she made at the expense of the beleaguered musical, which was critically panned before flopping at the box office. “ Cats. Strangely not nominated for any awards, ” said Wilson, who played Jennyanydots.
“ I’ m not sure if everyone here is across the controversy but this year there has been a distinct lack of nominations for felines. Yep, even in this best director ‘ cat’ -egory, no felines have been nominated. It’ s really shocking. ”
All Baftas to Rebel Wilson for the Cats jokes
The real controversy that dominated the lead-up to the awards, of course, was the lack of diversity among its nominations, with no actors of colour nominated in the main acting categories and – in a mirror to the Oscars, which are held on 10 February – no women up for best director.
Wilson listed the names shortlisted for the prize: Sam Mendes for 1917; Martin Scorsese for The Irishman; Todd Phillips for Joker; Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; and Bong Joon-ho for Parasite.
“ I look at the exceptional, daring talent nominated in this category and I don’ t think I could do what they do, ” Wilson quipped. “ Honestly, I just don’ t have the balls. ”
Rebel Wilson mentioning Prince Andrew and her vagina infront of Will and Kate # BAFTAs pic.twitter.com/dh8jr1TK5n
Everyone may as well go home, Rebel Wilson has won the # BAFTAs pic.twitter.com/S3xm0GB4Vp | general |
Coronavirus: Qantas flight leaves Sydney to evacuate Australians stuck in China | Australians stranded in the Chinese city of Wuhan were expected to fly out of the city on Monday morning as they make their way towards Christmas Island.
There are believed to be around 600 Australian citizens and permanent residents stuck in Wuhan.
The Australian government had been negotiating with the Chinese government to allow a plane to fly in and evacuate those stuck in Wuhan as the world works to try to contain the coronavirus outbreak that has now more than 14,000 confirmed cases and has killed 305 people.
A Qantas 747 aircraft left Sydney early Sunday afternoon with a team of 14 Qantas cabin crew and four pilots bound for Hong Kong, and then Wuhan.
It is understood the flight will be departing from Wuhan at 2am local time ( 5am AEDT) and will head straight to mainland Australia, where those on board will then be transported to Christmas Island for a 14-day quarantine period.
The flight could not go direct to Christmas Island because the runway on the island is not long enough for the 747.
Those Qantas staff assigned to the flight volunteered, and the number of staff who volunteered exceeded the number of available positions on the flight.
Passengers will be required to go through health checks before boarding, and there will be medical staff on board to assist.
All crew and passengers will wear surgical masks that will be changed hourly, and crew will be given hand sanitiser.
The entire upper deck of the 747 will be reserved for the Qantas crew, and there will be limited inflight food and drinks in order to limit the exposure of the crew to passengers.
Speaking on Triple M radio on Friday, the Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, said crew would lay out meals and drinks on seats before the flight departed to avoid direct contact with passengers.
In normal operations, the 747-400 has 364 seats.
The aircraft also uses HEPA filters in its air-conditioning, and the plane will be cleaned once it has returned to Australia.
The crew will not be required to be quarantined after the flight. Australia’ s chief medical officer, Prof Brendan Murphy, said on Sunday that the measures put in place to protect the crew should be sufficient to avoid the need for quarantine.
The federal government is covering the majority of the cost of the flight, and as announced on Sunday, passengers will not be expected to pay up to $ 1,000 for the evacuation, after the government backed down on its previous plan.
On Saturday, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced anyone bar Australian citizens and permanent residents, and New Zealand visa holders, would not be allowed to travel to Australia if they are coming from, or have travelled through, China.
Those who have arrived in Australia before the ban came into effect have been asked to isolate themselves for 14 days. | general |
Coronavirus: 11 more UK nationals to be flown back from China | Dominic Raab has confirmed that 11 evacuees will be flown to the UK from the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, on a French-chartered plane, after they missed a previous evacuation flight on Friday.
The foreign secretary said the government was doing everything in its power to help Britons who wished to leave but that the process posed serious challenges.
“ We’ ll do everything we can to make sure that those that still want to leave, give them the opportunity to do so, ” he said on the BBC’ s Andrew Marr show.
“ The challenge that we’ ve got, and the Chinese have got frankly, is to contain the virus but also then to lift out people that want to come back home and we’ re doing that as sensitively and as effectively as we can. ”
The second group of evacuees - made up of British nationals and family members - boarded a French flight and will also be brought to Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral where they will spend 14 days in quarantine, Raab said.
Mr Raab had said 11 British nationals would be returning but the Foreign Office later confirmed the group includes a mix of British nationals and some of their relatives.
He said the Government is doing all it can to help Britons in Wuhan leave if they want to.
Raab’ s comments came as the Philippines reported the first death from coronavirus outside China, where 304 have died since it was first detected, and the first people to be tested positive for the virus in the UK continue to be treated at a special unit at a hospital in Newcastle.
The Department of Health on Sunday confirmed 266 tests have been carried out in the UK for coronavirus and that 264 have been confirmed negative.
The UK government had been expecting that 200 people would be on Friday’ s chartered flight, but when it left Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, only 83 Britons were onboard.
Earlier, on Sky’ s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Raab said those flown back would join the other 83 evacuees in quarantine conditions in Arrowe Park, on the Wirral in north-west England.
He said: “ There is a French flight that is expected back in Europe today, and that will carry some UK nationals. I’ m grateful for the cooperation that we’ ve had [ from ] the French authorities. It’ s a good example of how even though we leave the EU will be cooperating with our friends and partners very effectively. ”
Asked why more people were not flown out on Friday, Raab listed some of the difficulties UK diplomats have faced negotiating with Chinese officials. He said: “ The challenge has been immense. You’ ll know that Hubei province is nine times the size of Wales.
“ We had a job to do to get permissions for the charter flight going in, then the permissions to get the roadblocks eased for the UK nationals to get to the muster points. We had four coaches put on, and we delayed the original flight by three hours on the tarmac to try and make sure as many people could get out that wanted to get out. ”
He added: “ As this flight with the French shows, we will continue to work for those that didn’ t make the first flight to give them the cooperation, the support and reassurance that we can help them as best we can. ”
Britons still stranded in Wuhan have said confusing messages from officials contributed to them missing Friday’ s evacuation flight home.
Chris Hill, 38, said he had refused to board the flight back to the UK because because the Foreign Office could not confirm whether his four-year-old daughter, a Chinese national, would be allowed to join him.
Hill, from Sunderland, said his wife of 11 years could not travel as she was needed to work in a hospital in Wuhan, and he could not consider leaving his family. He criticised the planning of the flight, saying he was given only seven minutes’ notice to arrive at the airport.
“ There’ s no cars, there’ s no taxis, anything, and the FCO say, ‘ Oh we’ ll pick you up from Wuhan Tianhe airport but you have to make your own way there.’ That gives me a very bad taste in my mouth. It’ s just bad planning. ”
One British man in the city said he had been offered a place on a French evacuation flight, but told of his fears of being left stranded in the city after deciding he could not leave his wife, who is a nurse, behind when she could not get the time off work
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “ The government is in touch with British nationals who remain in Wuhan, and are doing everything we can to bring them home as safely and quickly as possible. ”
Meanwhile, more than 240 calls have been made to a dedicated helpline in York after a student at the city’ s university was confirmed as having the coronavirus.
The University of York set up a call centre on Saturday after confirming one of the first two confirmed UK cases of the virus was a student.
In a statement on Sunday, University of York vice-chancellor Professor Charlie Jeffery and representatives from the Chinese Students and Scholars Association said the student did not attend a university Chinese New Year celebration or recent graduation ceremonies.
They said as soon as the student’ s relative showed symptoms, they contacted emergency services and were both taken to the specialist medical facility in Newcastle, where they were diagnosed with the virus.
A spokesman said the university remains open as usual and stressed that it will continue to monitor the situation.
He added: “ We reiterate Public Health England’ s assurance that the risk level to our staff and students remains low. ” | general |
Car industry could see price war on hybrid vehicles in 2020 | Carmakers are bracing for a hybrid electric car price war this year as they try to avoid steep EU fines for carbon dioxide emissions.
Some carmakers are struggling to hit tough new EU carbon emission rules introduced in January, which force them to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide their vehicles emit. This may force auto firms to slash prices on lower-emitting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles ( PHEVs) to encourage consumers to buy them, according to the investment bank UBS.
Average CO2 emissions of almost all cars sold in the EU during the next two years must fall below 95g a kilometre, with heavy fines for carmakers that miss individual targets designed to meet the goal. The rules include the UK until at least 1 January 2021.
Around €8.4bn ( £7.1bn) will be wiped from carmakers’ profits over the next two years as they try to comply with the regulations. That’ s €1bn more than previously expected, due to electric car delays and consumers’ desire for more polluting SUVs, according to calculations by UBS analysts led by Patrick Hummel. Sales of PHEVs, which can be charged from an external source without using the internal combustion engine, need to grow sevenfold between 2019 and 2021, they said.
“ As [ carmakers ] likely need to aggressively push PHEVs to their customers, we see risk of a price war in the course of 2020, ” wrote Hummel.
Germany’ s Daimler, the maker of Mercedes Benz cars, and France’ s Renault are particularly at risk of missing their targets and having to pay large fines. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is also at risk, despite a deal thought to be worth hundreds of millions of euros to “ pool ” its emissions with Tesla’ s zero-emissions cars. While legal, the deal has been heavily criticised by campaigners.
Jaguar Land Rover, owned by India’ s Tata Motors, is also exposed, with costs of £179m expected over the next two years. Britain’ s largest carmaker, which has just launched a second round of tough cost-cutting as it struggles with electric investments, needs to increase its hybrid sales rapidly, UBS said.
The green credentials of some hybrid cars are controversial because of their continued use of polluting internal combustion engines alongside battery motors.
Julia Poliscanova, clean vehicles director at Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based thinktank, said there is evidence that plug-in hybrids rarely achieve the emissions reductions predicted by lab tests because users fail to charge them.
“ In the real world, their emissions are often two or three times higher, ” she said, referencing findings from the Miles Consultancy which said many business users never used their charging cables.
If plug-in hybrids are not charged, they can even emit more carbon dioxide and air pollution than the equivalent car without a battery, because a smaller engine is pulling more weight and therefore running less efficiently.
Nevertheless, plug-in hybrids, which can be charged from external sources, are a key part of carmakers’ emission-reduction efforts, because they can use the same factories in which they have already sunk billions of euros in investment.
The emissions limits could hardly have come at a worse time for the car industry, with China’ s market suffering two years of recession even before the coronavirus outbreak and sales of their profitable diesel cars in freefall following the “ dieselgate ” emissions cheating scandal. At the same time, consumer confidence is weakening across some key European markets and Brexit uncertainty has dented sales in Britain.
“ The new car market is soft at the moment so dealers are having to work hard, ” said Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders SMMT, the UK car industry’ s lobby group. “ It’ s a buyer’ s market. ”
The costs of complying with the regulations are expected to vary across carmakers, which have radically different strategies. For instance, Volkswagen, the world’ s largest carmaker by volume, has launched an all-out electric assault, with plans to produce 1m battery electric cars by the end of 2023. Rival executives believe the company panicked after its reputation was sullied by the dieselgate scandal. Rival manufacturers such as BMW and Daimler have instead focused in the short term on hybrids, which are easier to produce using existing factories and avoid problems such as shortages of lithium ion batteries.
Car executives argue that hybrids are essential to reduce society’ s emissions. However, they are also particularly attractive from a regulatory perspective. All hybrids that emit less than 50g of CO2 per kilometre under test conditions qualify for “ supercredits ” for the next two years. This means they count double under the EU regulations, so carmakers are equally incentivised to sell hybrids and battery electric vehicles.
“ Plug-in hybrids are a short-term compliance strategy for vehicle manufacturers, ” said Poliscanova. “ They are unavoidably costly because you are locked into two engines and a motor. They should not be part of the future. ” | general |
Fury in China as footage appears to show officials taking doctors ' face masks | Footage of government officials in Wuhan appearing to take face masks intended for health workers battling the highly infectious coronavirus has fuelled a growing wave of anger over how Chinese authorities have handled the outbreak.
Images of medical staff making protective equipment out of rubbish bags, sleeping in hospitals, and crying in frustration and exhaustion have dominated Chinese social media over the last two weeks, inspiring an outpouring of sympathy and donations of supplies.
A video posted by Beijing News on Sunday appeared to show government workers taking some of those donated supplies. A statement from the Wuhan government said that personnel attending a meeting on emergency supplies on Saturday had “ received masks and other related protective supplies ” from China’ s Red Cross, which is overseeing donations.
“ We will further standardise the collection, storage, and distribution of protective gear for frontline workers … Thank you to the media for their attention and supervision, ” the statement said, according to images of it posted by Beijing News.
Other photos showed officials wearing specialised N95 respirator masks in a meeting with doctors who wore surgical masks.
Online commentators were quick to criticise the statement and footage, generating more than 2m views for comments with the hashtag “ Wuhan government responds to taking personnel face masks ”.
One user wrote: “ These supplies are for the doctors, not the government. ” Another said: “ They are still using this completely insincere bureaucratic way of talking to the people? Disappointed. ” Another: “ Shameless … Have some dignity. The whole country is watching. ”
Others pointed out the privileges of officials over the general public. Across China, people have struggled to buy masks and other protective equipment. A Weibo user posted under the video: “ If you can’ t buy masks, where do you think ordinary citizens go to buy them? ”
Local and central government officials are facing a growing wave of public anger over the handling of the new coronavirus, which has now killed more than 300 people and infected at least 14,380.
Local officials are bearing the brunt of that frustration. In Hubei, a health official has been shown fumbling basic questions about the number of infections or available hospital beds in her city of Huanggang. She was later sacked. On Sunday, state media reported that 337 party officials in Hubei had been “ punished ”, including six county-level officials who had been fired.
Citizens blame officials for claiming for weeks that the virus was manageable and ignoring as well as covering up obvious signs that the outbreak was serious.
A doctor in Wuhan, who tried to warn colleagues and friends about the virus in December before being silenced by police, said on Saturday that he had been infected.
Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan central hospital, was one of eight doctors that local police punished for “ rumour-mongering ” when they attempted to sound the alarm about the virus in December, weeks before officials admitted the seriousness of the outbreak.
“ Everything is settled now. It’ s finally confirmed, ” Li wrote on Weibo, delivering news that angered yet more Chinese. He wrote in another post: “ I have seen a lot of support and encouragement for me online, which has really helped my emotional state. Thank you everyone. ”
Additional reporting by Lillian Yang | general |
EU states look in poor health to withstand a global crisis | The focus was inevitably on Britain as the clock ticked down on Friday night towards the moment of departure from the European Union. How would the economy fare on the outside of the world’ s biggest market in the years to come? What sort of trade deal with the EU would be cooked up in the scant time available for negotiations? How easy would it be to do a deal with the arch-protectionist Donald Trump?
Those are all perfectly reasonable questions. But they are based on an assumption: that Britain is weak and doing badly, and the remaining 27 members of the EU are strong and doing well. That, most definitely, is not the case.
Official figures showed that growth in the eurozone eased back from 0.3% to 0.1% in the final three months of 2019. France and Italy – the second- and third-biggest monetary-union countries – both recorded falls in output. Data for Germany, Europe’ s powerhouse economy, has yet to be released, but the signs are that it grew by as little as 0.1%.
Strikes in France were partly responsible for the 0.1% drop in French GDP but industrial unrest was not to blame for the 0.3% contraction in Italy, a country where output has yet to regain pre-financial crisis levels.
Germany, meanwhile, has been struggling because its economy depends on the export of manufacturing goods. These have been adversely affected by a slowdown in global demand exacerbated by President Trump’ s aggressive approach to trade.
At the start of the year there was some hope that the global economy had bottomed out. Central banks had provided a fresh dose of monetary stimulus, and demand seemed to be picking up. Washington and Beijing called a truce in their trade war. The International Monetary Fund was starting to sound a bit more optimistic about the state of the global economy.
Europe has never really recovered from the last crisis
Then the coronavirus struck. It is too early to say whether the deaths in China represent a Black Swan event – something that comes as a shock and has a major impact – but the crisis certainly has the potential to be one. Already there have been indications of slower growth in China, curbs on air travel, and fears that global supply chains could be severed. None of which is good for Germany or the wider European economy.
If, as most economists expect, the Chinese government quickly gets to grips with the coronavirus, the hit to the global economy will be brief and modest. If it doesn’ t, the EU is in serious trouble.
Why? First there is not a great deal of scope to loosen policy, at least in the conventional sense. The European Central Bank is operating with negative interest rates and has restarted its quantitative easing – or money creation – programme. There is not a lot more the ECB can do.
Second, Europe has never really recovered from the last crisis. The ECB was slower than the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, slower to experiment with quantitative easing, and lacked the wherewithal to sort out the bad-debt problems of Europe’ s banks.
So while the credit channels in the US are again functioning, in the eurozone they are still blocked, making monetary policy less effective than it would otherwise be.
There is one final problem: monetary union will remain half-baked without a banking union and a unified eurozone budget. Neither – largely due to German opposition – is remotely in prospect.
The year ahead is going to be tough – just as tough, if not tougher, than it will be for the UK.
Aston Martin’ s much-hyped stock market float has ended with a humiliating bailout by a billionaire not even 18 months later.
The luxury carmaker’ s executives, international shareholders and bankers made fortunes from the initial public offering in late 2018. Aston Martin was “ worth ” £4.3bn at the time, a valuation that was rapidly revealed to be fanciful. A plan that relied on a new factory doubling total production meant that the company’ s chief executive, Andy Palmer, was always walking a tightrope. When sales dropped and costs kept rising, Aston Martin was left horribly exposed.
The serial fashion investor Lawrence Stroll, who led the rescue consortium and will now become executive chairman, at least appears to have his heart in it, with a pledge to use the Aston Martin brand on his Formula One racing team for the next decade.
Investors have welcomed Stroll. Following a cash injection to stave off bankruptcy, the shares rose 24% on Friday ( though they are still just a quarter of their £19 float price). With the prospect of a James Bond marketing blitz around the latest film in April – just as Aston Martin starts production of its new DBX SUV – and the stardust of Formula One, there might finally be a few reasons for cautious optimism at the company’ s HQ in Warwickshire.
Still, there are bumps ahead. The bet on an untested SUV is not a surefire winner. Nor are luxury products aimed at the rich immune from shocks. China is key for the SUV, so the coronavirus could not have come at a worse time.
Slashing investment in zero-emissions electric battery technology will surely store up problems for the future for shareholders ( not to mention the planet).
Palmer needs the DBX launch to go to plan if the bailout is not to become his swan song.
No one familiar with “ secondary ” ticketing will have been surprised to see the ticket resale site StubHub criticised by the Competition and Markets Authority ( CMA) for allegedly misleading consumers and potentially breaking consumer law.
After all, we’ ve been here before. The CMA has fought a long-running battle with StubHub’ s chief rival, Viagogo, which refused to change its ways until the CMA resorted to legal action.
StubHub styles itself as the more acceptable face of ticketing. Now it has been accused by the regulator of Viagogo-style transgressions, such as selling tickets without warning buyers that they might be refused entry to events when artists have imposed prohibitions on resale. The company also allegedly misleads consumers about the scarcity of available tickets – a pressure-selling tactic.
If both major resale sites behave like this, what hope is there of any improvement if Viagogo’ s proposed £3.1bn takeover of StubHub goes ahead, creating an unrivalled industry powerhouse?
The CMA is currently weighing up whether to intervene in the British part of this tie-up on monopoly grounds. It is hard to imagine why it would allow the two major players in the UK’ s ticket resale market to get together, even if they had spotless records.
While the watchdog has the power to intervene in the merger, its teeth are less sharp when it comes to consumer law. The CMA can go to court but it’ s a lengthy and costly process that requires a judge to make a ruling. That’ s why the CMA’ s chief executive, Andrea Coscelli, used the StubHub announcement to call for the regulator to be given greater powers to determine when consumer law has been broken and to issue fines.
Given the difficulty it has had in bringing StubHub and Viagogo to heel, it is hard to argue that the CMA should be denied more effective ways of exercising its authority. | general |
Coronavirus outbreak: New Zealand bans foreign travellers from China | New Zealand has closed its borders to any foreigners arriving from China – including those who have passed through in transit – and boosted its border screening in an attempt to prevent coronavirus arriving in the country.
New Zealand followed the United States, Australia, and eight other countries in completely barring foreign travellers from China, despite the World Health Organisation – and Chinese officials – decrying such restrictions.
“ We have been advised by health officials that while there are still a range of unknowns in the way the virus is being transmitted, we should take a precautionary approach and temporarily stop travel into New Zealand from mainland China, ” Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’ s prime minister, told reporters.
The travel ban will be in place for 14 days and will be reviewed every 48 hours.
On Monday, New Zealand’ s customs authorities announced that screening efforts against the virus would be bolstered further, by processing manually all travellers entering the country at airports. Electronic gates that allow passengers to travel through passport control without speaking to a border official will be turned off.
“ We kindly request travellers to be patient to enable a smooth and efficient transition for all, ” New Zealand’ s customs agency said on Twitter. The new manual screening rule applies to all passengers – including New Zealanders – arriving from any country.
There has not been a confirmed case of the virus in New Zealand.
Citizens and permanent residents, and their immediate families, who wish to return to New Zealand from China are required to isolate themselves for 14 days upon returning home, the government said.
Those who want to leave Wuhan province, the area at the centre of the outbreak, face a longer wait. Officials have yet to announce the timing of an evacuation flight planned for the coming days.
The 60-70 people who have registered their interest for the flight will, on their return to New Zealand, spend 14 days in isolation at a military base in Whangaparaoa on the country’ s North Island.
New Zealanders have also been urged not to travel to China, with the ministry of foreign affairs and trade lifting its warning about the country to “ do not travel, ” the highest level of caution.
Air New Zealand on Monday suspended its Auckland to Shanghai route until 29 March.
| general |
China's reaction to the coronavirus violates human rights | When the World Health Organization declared the 2019nCoV coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency, it effusively praised China’ s response to the outbreak. The WHO issued a statement welcoming the government’ s “ commitment to transparency ”, and the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tweeted: “ China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response. ”
The WHO is ignoring Chinese government suppression of human rights regarding the outbreak, including severe restrictions on freedom of expression. In turn, Chinese state media are citing the WHO to defend its policies and try to silence criticism of its response to the outbreak, which has included rights violations that could make the situation worse.
China’ s response to the outbreak included a month-long government cover-up in Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak, that led to the rapid spread of the coronavirus. Local authorities publicly announced that no new cases had been detected between 3-16 January in the lead up to a major Communist party meeting, likely to suppress “ bad news ”. Despite early evidence of human-to-human transmission when medical staff became infected, this information was not relayed to the public for weeks. Hardly a “ commitment to transparency ”.
Covid-19 is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. The World Health Organization ( WHO) has declared it a pandemic.
According to the WHO, the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are fever, tiredness and a dry cough. Some patients may also have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion and aches and pains or diarrhoea. Some people report losing their sense of taste and/or smell. About 80% of people who get Covid-19 experience a mild case – about as serious as a regular cold – and recover without needing any special treatment.
About one in six people, the WHO says, become seriously ill. The elderly and people with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, or chronic respiratory conditions, are at a greater risk of serious illness from Covid-19.
In the UK, the National health Service ( NHS) has identified the specific symptoms to look for as experiencing either:
As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work, and there is currently no vaccine. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system.
Medical advice varies around the world - with many countries imposing travel bans and lockdowns to try and prevent the spread of the virus. In many place people are being told to stay at home rather than visit a doctor of hospital in person. Check with your local authorities.
In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days. If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.
Chinese police punished frontline doctors for “ spreading rumours ” for trying to warn the public in late December. Police are still engaged in a campaign to detain Chinese netizens for spreading so-called “ rumours ”. Rumours included reports of potential cases, including people turned away from hospitals or dying without ever being tested and quickly cremated, criticism of the government, the distribution of masks, or the criticism of the discrimination of people from Wuhan or others who may be infected. Activists have been threatened with jail if they share foreign news articles or post on social media about the coronavirus outbreak.
That the Chinese government can lock millions of people into cities with almost no advance notice should not be considered anything other than terrifying. The residents of Wuhan had no time to buy food, medicine, or other essentials. Authorities hastily announced the lockdown in the middle of the night with an eight-hour gap before it went into effect, giving people time to flee and thus raising questions on the rationale for such extreme measures.
International law is clear that during a time of public health emergency, any restrictions on human rights should be based on legality, necessity, proportionality and grounded in evidence.
The international community should support all efforts to end this outbreak, but human rights should not be a casualty to the coronavirus crisis. The WHO declares that core principles of human rights and health includes accountability, equality and non-discrimination and participation. It even acknowledges that “ participation is important to accountability as it provides … checks and balances which do not allow unitary leadership to exercise power in an arbitrary manner ”. The WHO’ s admiration for the unitary actions of the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping exercising power in an arbitrary manner is a direct contradiction of its own human rights principles.
China is not a democracy and the people can not remove their leaders from power for governance failures related to the coronavirus outbreak. People expressing discontent online can go to prison. There is no free press and journalists trying to report on the frontline are obstructed, detained, and their stories deleted from the internet. Medical staff are gagged. Civil society organisations decimated by Xi’ s crackdowns on human rights can not work on the frontlines to support hospitals and communities. Frightened netizens are labelled “ rumour-mongers ”.
This should not be the new standard for outbreak response. The WHO should abide by its own human rights principles and demand the Chinese government end its censorship and police suppression surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.
Frances Eve is the deputy director of research at Chinese Human Rights Defenders | general |
Stocks Sink as Markets Open in China | [ This briefing has ended. Read about the latest developments in the coronavirus outbreak here. ]
Stocks in China plunged in early Monday trading as investors returned from a long holiday to the prospect of the world’ s No. 2 economy virtually shut down by the coronavirus epidemic.
Stocks in Shanghai opened 8.7 percent lower, while shares in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen fell 9 percent. The markets had been closed since Jan. 23 for the Lunar New Year holiday, and government officials extended that closure until Monday while the authorities dealt with the outbreak.
Other markets in the region, which have already digested much of the impact, opened lower as well. Shares in Tokyo and in Australia were down about 1.5 percent in early Monday trading. Stocks in Hong Kong opened about half a percent lower.
The damage could be confined to Asia. Futures markets that predict the performance of stocks in the next day forecast a positive opening for Wall Street and a mixed day for shares in Europe.
A 44-year-old man in the Philippines has died of the coronavirus, health officials said on Sunday, making him the first known death outside China. The man, a resident of Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the virus, died on Saturday after developing what officials called “ severe pneumonia. ”
“ This is the first known death of someone with 2019-nCoV outside of China, ” the World Health Organization’ s office in the Philippines said in a statement, using the technical shorthand for the coronavirus.
Philippine health officials said the man had arrived in the country on Jan. 21 with a 38-year-old woman who remains under observation.
Here’ s what early research says about how the pathogen behaves and the factors that will determine how far it will spread.
“ In his last few days, the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, ” said the health secretary, Francisco Duque III. “ However, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours, resulting in his demise. ”
Hours before the death was announced, the Philippines said it was temporarily barring non-Filipino travelers arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Mr. Duque said the Philippines was currently observing 23 people who had been isolated in hospitals with possible coronavirus symptoms.
Chinese officials on Sunday reported a surge in new cases.
◆ The death toll in China rose to at least 360.
◆ More than 2,000 new cases were also recorded in the country in the past 24 hours, raising the worldwide total to nearly 17,205, according to Chinese and World Health Organization data. The vast majority of the cases are inside China; about 150 cases have been confirmed in at least 23 other countries.
◆ All of China’ s provinces and territories have now been touched by the outbreak.
◆ Countries and territories that have confirmed cases: Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia, Macau, Russia, France, the United States, South Korea, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Britain, Vietnam, Italy, India, the Philippines, Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Finland, Sweden and Spain.
◆ Cases recorded in Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, Vietnam, Japan, France and the United States involved patients who had not been to China.
◆ China has asked the European Union for help in buying urgently needed medical supplies from its member countries, China’ s official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
The virus has infected more than 7 million people and has been detected in nearly every country.
Many of the world’ s leading infectious disease experts say the outbreak is likely to become a pandemic, defined as an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, but there is a growing consensus that it is readily transmitted. Scientists have found that it is spreading more like influenza than its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS.
“ It’ s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic, ” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“ But will it be catastrophic? I don’ t know, ” he added.
The effects of a pandemic would likely be harsher in some countries than in others. While wealthier countries can direct their resources toward early detection and treatment, countries with fragile health care systems will not necessarily be able to offer the same level of care.
[ Three American airlines have suspended flights between the United States and China. Are you affected, or do you know someone who is? Please contact us at coronavirus @ nytimes.com ]
China is now dealing with another disease outbreak — this one mostly affecting animals, but also potentially deadly among people.
The Ministry of Agriculture said late Saturday that a fresh outbreak of a lethal form of influenza had been found in poultry in the southern province of Hunan, and that officials had ordered the slaughter of 17,828 chickens.
China has previously dealt with several bird flu outbreaks. In the new case, the H5N1 bird flu virus was found at a farm in the city of Shaoyang. The farm had 7,850 chickens, and more than half have died from the bird flu, the ministry said. It called the strain “ highly pathogenic. ”
Although bird flu poses more of a danger to poultry than humans — it is not easily transmissible among people — the World Health Organization has called on countries to be on guard.
China is also grappling with an African swine fever epidemic that has infected tens of thousands of pigs and could stoke worries about the food supply.
The Chinese government has delivered on its promise to build a hospital for coronavirus patients at the epicenter of the outbreak within 10 days. About 1,400 military medics will begin working at the hospital in Wuhan on Monday, according to state news media.
Several state outlets streamed footage from the new hospital, which spans roughly 365,000 square feet and has been fitted with 1,000 beds. A second facility in Wuhan, with 1,500 beds, is expected to be completed this week.
An official in Hubei Province, of which Wuhan is the capital, said in a news briefing on Sunday that the time required to confirm new cases of the virus had halved to no more than two hours, and that the accuracy of the test kits had improved.
But the situation in Hubei remains “ severe and complicated, ” Vice Governor Xiao Juhua said.
Since the coronavirus emerged, hospitals in Wuhan have been met with a shortage of masks and basic protective gear for doctors and nurses, and overwhelmed hospitals have had to turn away many people with flulike symptoms.
Eleven days into the lockdown of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the epidemic began, the government there is extending its quarantine in an effort to halt the coronavirus that has killed at least 224 people in the city.
Starting Sunday, the authorities are putting into quarantine people in Wuhan who have had close contact with confirmed carriers of the virus and people with pneumonialike symptoms who may be carriers. Under the new rules, many may face supervised quarantine away from their families.
The government had already ordered residents not to leave the city and to stay indoors as much as possible. Now, people who have had close contact with confirmed carriers of the virus “ will be sent to centralized isolation and observation points, ” according to the new rule.
The regulation did not specify where people will be kept for observation, but it warned that people would have no choice.
“ Those who refuse to cooperate will be compelled under the law by assisting public security offices, ” the order said. “ During isolation, each district will provide free room and board, as well as medical observation and treatment. ”
President Trump’ s national security adviser played down the risk of an outbreak of the coronavirus in the United States, saying on CBS’ s “ Face the Nation ” on Sunday that “ right now there’ s no reason for Americans to panic. ”
The national security adviser, Robert O’ Brien, said that the United States had offered to send health officials to China to help contain the epidemic, but that officials had not yet received a response from Beijing.
Mr. O’ Brien also defended remarks by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who said on Thursday that the United States could benefit economically from the outbreak because it could cause companies to reconsider their global supply chains and ultimately “ help to accelerate ” the return of jobs to the United States.
“ I think what Commerce Secretary Ross is saying is there’ s a danger, there’ s a risk factor in doing that, and wouldn’ t it be better if we had supply chains and factories here in the U.S.? ” Mr. O’ Brien said.
New Zealand imposed new restrictions on travelers from mainland China, saying it would deny entry to visitors departing from or transiting through the mainland for two weeks starting on Monday.
Citizens and residents will be allowed entry to New Zealand, but will be required to quarantine themselves for 14 days, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The government will also send a charter flight to repatriate up to 300 citizens in Wuhan.
“ Ultimately, this is a public health decision, ” she said.
Many other countries have expanded travel restrictions on noncitizens who had traveled to China, including the Philippines, the United States and Australia. Japan and South Korea are barring noncitizens who have traveled to Hubei. ( South Korea also said it would restrict tourism to and from China.)
Vietnam recently barred almost all flights to and from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau until May 1, according to the United States Federal Aviation Administration. But Vietnam then partly eased its ban, allowing flights from Hong Kong and Macau to continue.
Indonesia is suspending visa-free travel for Chinese citizens and barring passengers who have visited mainland China. Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia depends heavily on Chinese tourism. On Thursday alone, 10,000 Chinese tourists canceled their trips to Bali, according to one industry association.
Russia, which shares a 2,600-mile border with China and which had temporarily stopped issuing work visas to Chinese citizens, is also halting visa-free entry for Chinese tour groups, the government said.
Iraq is temporarily barring travelers coming from China. Chinese people working in oil production are allowed to remain, though any who leave will not be able to return for the time being.
Saudi Arabia’ s state airline and Oman also suspended flights to China on Sunday, according to Reuters.
Updated June 12, 2020
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “ very rare, ” but she later walked back that statement.
Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’ s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.
A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.
The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’ s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.
Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.
Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “ start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid, ” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “ When you haven’ t been exercising, you lose muscle mass. ” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.
States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’ t being told to stay at home, it’ s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. ( Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
Taking one’ s temperature to look for signs of fever is not as easy as it sounds, as “ normal ” temperature numbers can vary, but generally, keep an eye out for a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. If you don’ t have a thermometer ( they can be pricey these days), there are other ways to figure out if you have a fever, or are at risk of Covid-19 complications.
The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’ t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’ t replace hand washing and social distancing.
If you’ ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
If you’ re sick and you think you’ ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’ s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’ re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’ t be able to get tested.
A day after New York City’ s health authorities said that a woman hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital Center might have the new coronavirus, the authorities on Sunday announced that two more patients might have the virus.
Samples from all three patients are being sent for testing to a laboratory in Atlanta that is run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The turnaround time for the results is usually at least 36 hours, but often longer.
For more than a week, New York City has been bracing for the arrival of the new coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, as isolated cases began to appear elsewhere in the country.
In all three suspected cases in New York, the individuals had recently been in China and came down with flulike symptoms. All three had been tested for influenza and a number of other common illnesses, and those tests came back negative.
Citing what it called the “ apparently inevitable ” spread of the coronavirus, Israel’ s government on Sunday closed its borders to arrivals from China and said that it would work on producing a vaccine.
Israeli citizens who have traveled to China will be allowed back, officials said. And the Israeli news media reported that the country was expected to extend the work permits of nearly 1,700 Chinese construction workers whose contracts expired. The arrival of the same number of workers from China who were due to replace them has been indefinitely postponed.
Taiwan complained on Sunday that it was being punished because the World Health Organization considers it part of China, which has been subject to travel bans as the coronavirus spreads.
Italy and Vietnam included Taiwan in banning flights from China, a move that they announced after the W.H.O. declared the outbreak a global health emergency.
Vietnam backtracked on Saturday, but the ban from Italy remains, Joseph Wu, Taiwan’ s foreign minister, said on Sunday.
He pointed out that Taiwan had 10 confirmed cases, versus more than 14,000 in mainland China.
“ The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Taiwan is not higher than in most countries affected, ” Mr. Wu said, adding that other than China, “ no other country has had its flight banned by Italy. ”
China considers self-governed Taiwan to be part of its own territory and has long sought to limit Taiwan’ s diplomatic relations and recognition at international bodies.
Taiwan also announced that it would deny entry to Chinese nationals from Guangdong, a coastal province that has been battered by the virus, and travelers who have recently visited the area.
As many as 9,000 medical workers in Hong Kong have pledged to strike this week, a threat that alarmed officials in the territory, which confirmed its 14th coronavirus case late Saturday.
The workers are demanding that Hong Kong close all border checkpoints to visitors from mainland China, saying they represent a threat to health care workers in the city.
Matthew Cheung, Hong Kong’ s No. 2 official, appealed to the medical workers to reconsider. “ At this critical moment, I believe the general public would count on medical personnel to fight against the epidemic together, in the spirit of professionalism, ” he wrote in a blog post on Sunday.
Health officials said it was unclear where the latest coronavirus patient in the territory had developed the disease. The patient, an 80-year-old man, had visited mainland China during a cruise, and later spent several days on a cruise ship in Japan with more than 3,000 passengers and employees.
“ We are very worried, ” said Chuang Shuk-kwan, a Hong Kong health official. “ Everyone should prepare mentally for the possibility that the disease is spreading within the community. ”
Hong Kong officials say that the number of visitors from the mainland and other countries has decreased significantly after they closed several border points and cut flight arrivals by half.
But several border points remain open, and many medical workers fear that Hong Kong’ s well-regarded health care system will be overwhelmed. They have also voiced frustrations about patients from mainland China hiding their travel and medical history, potentially endangering other patients.
Two of the 120 Germans repatriated from China on Saturday have fallen ill and are being treated for the coronavirus in a university hospital in Frankfurt, the German authorities said.
All of those who were repatriated by the German government are being quarantined for two weeks at army barracks in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Eight cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the southern German state of Bavaria, the state ministry said. All of them are linked to a company in the town of Starnberg that was visited by a Chinese woman who began exhibiting symptoms on her return flight to China.
Eleven British citizens were expected to return from Wuhan on Sunday, raising to 94 the total number of people who have been repatriated, the country’ s foreign secretary said.
The group — which traveled on a French flight carrying people from 29 European countries — will be taken to a hospital in northwestern England where a previous batch of repatriated citizens have been staying in isolation, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, told the BBC.
Most of the 64 French citizens on the flight will be quarantined near Aix-en-Provence in southern France or the resort area Carry-Le-Rouet, a spokesman for France’ s health ministry said.
In Britain, footage from the facility, Arrowe Park Hospital, showed some of the quarantined people wearing face masks while eating breakfast or playing pool indoors.
Ben Pinkerton, a 23-year-old teacher from Northern Ireland, described the facility as “ very comfortable. ”
“ We have TVs, video games, a nice room and good food, ” he said in a Facebook message.
Kharn Lambert, who is also in quarantine at the center, told Sky News on Saturday that those being kept in the facility were in good health and good spirits — “ albeit subdued. ” He said that they were allowed to go in a courtyard, but an outer perimeter that prevents them from leaving “ is patrolled by the police quite regularly. ”
Reporting was contributed by Austin Ramzy, Chris Buckley, Tiffany May, Jason Gutierrez, Sui-Lee Wee, Choe Sang-Hun, Tess Felder, Anton Troianovski, Alissa J. Rubin, Isabel Kershner, David Halbfinger, Christopher F. Schuetze, Iliana Magra, Chris Cameron, Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Constant Meheut. | business |
Trump Defends Closing Borders to Travelers to Fight Coronavirus | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump defended a decision that would bar foreign nationals who had recently visited China from entering the United States as his administration continued to assess the growing threat of a coronavirus outbreak.
Sitting with the Fox News personality Sean Hannity, Mr. Trump used a roughly nine-minute interview taped on Saturday evening at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, and broadcast on Sunday as an opportunity to condense his usual rally-speak into Super Bowl pregame chatter. The topics included the virus, his impeachment and quick-paced insults of his potential 2020 rivals.
“ We pretty much shut it down coming in from China, ” Mr. Trump said of the coronavirus. “ But we can’ t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. We’ re going to see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes. ”
He said his administration was offering the Chinese “ tremendous help ” to contain the spread of the virus. On Sunday afternoon, the administration put into effect a rule that would also essentially quarantine American travelers who had visited China within the past two weeks, diverting them to seven airports “ to implement enhanced screening procedures, ” according to guidelines issued Sunday by the Department of Homeland Security.
There have been seven confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, but no deaths.
Earlier in the day, Robert C. O’ Brien, Mr. Trump’ s national security adviser, appeared on television to advise Americans that there was “ no reason to panic ” about the spread of the virus. Indeed, during his Fox sit-down, both Mr. Trump and his interviewer seemed more interested in allowing the president to focus on his grievances over impeachment and his re-election effort rather than elaborate on a global public health crisis.
“ It’ s been very unfair from the day I won, ” Mr. Trump said. “ Mostly it was unfair to my family. ”
He derided the impeachment effort as “ a hoax ” and said he had not thought to delay his annual State of the Union address before the culmination this week of his Senate trial — an expected acquittal that Mr. Hannity framed as a “ fait accompli. ”
Mr. Trump then spent a large part of the interview insulting a slate of potential Democratic rivals. He and Mr. Hannity played a lightning round where Mr. Hannity invited the president to say whatever came to mind about Democratic presidential candidates, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.
Mr. Trump falsely called Mr. Sanders a “ communist ” and claimed that he had been married in Russia.
“ I think of communism when I think of Bernie, ” Mr. Trump said. “ Didn’ t he get married in Moscow? ”
Mr. Sanders married in Burlington, Vt., before traveling to the Soviet Union soon after, and the trip has been used as fodder by his critics as evidence that he has communist leanings.
At one point, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Bloomberg had requested a “ box ” to stand on should he attend a Democratic debate, a comment that drew sharp rebukes from both Mr. Bloomberg and his spokeswoman, Julie Wood, who called the president a “ pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity and his spray-on tan. ”
Mr. Trump also called Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who oversaw the impeachment effort into his presidency, a “ very confused, very nervous woman, ” adding that Ms. Pelosi would not last in office: “ I think the radical left is going to take over. ” | business |
Japan plans fourth Wuhan evacuation flight later this week as virus-infected hit 20 | The government plans to send another charter flight to evacuate Japanese nationals from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of a new coronavirus outbreak, in the middle of the week or soon after, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
The fourth government-chartered aircraft to travel to Wuhan will collect some 140 people that remain in the city and nearby areas who wish to return to Japan.
The Japanese Embassy in China notified them of the plan by email on Saturday, adding that the government is asking Beijing to allow their spouses with Chinese citizenship to travel on the flight.
More than 560 Japanese have returned since Wednesday, when the first evacuation flight arrived in Tokyo, as the outbreak of the deadly virus continues to spread across China and to other countries.
The total number of people infected with the virus in Japan has risen to 20, with some of the returnees testing positive for the pneumonia-causing virus.
Chinese health authorities said Sunday the number of infections rose 2,590 from the previous day to 14,380 in mainland China, with the death toll rising 45 to at least 304. Most of the fatalities have occurred in Hubei province, that capital of which is Wuhan.
Abe on Saturday stressed the need to make sure people across the country have access to necessary medical examinations and supplies, including masks, as infections have been confirmed in various parts of the country.
The government officially classified the virus as a designated infectious disease on Saturday, enabling authorities to enact, among other measures, compulsory hospitalization when necessary. Taxpayers’ money will cover the costs of treating patients forced to stay in hospitals.
To prevent the deadly virus from spreading further, foreign nationals who have been to Hubei province within two weeks — the virus’ s estimated incubation period — prior to their arrival to Japan, will be barred. They are now required to declare at airports if they have been to Hubei during that period, Japanese officials said.
Holders of Chinese passports issued in the central Chinese province, the capital of which is the virus-hit city of Wuhan, will also be prohibited from entering the country in principle.
They are subject to the precautionary measures whether they display symptoms or not.
Government officials say it is not a blanket ban on holders of Hubei-issued Chinese passports, noting that exceptions will be made under special circumstances.
But it is still unclear, for instance, whether a case in which a person has a Chinese passport issued in Hubei but lives in a different province or country will warrant an exception. Uncertainty also remains over whether a Chinese national with a passport from Hubei who is married to a Japanese will be allowed to enter Japan. | tech |
Coronavirus travel bans on China imposed by growing list of nations — Quartz | On almost every continent, countries have taken the dramatic step of closing their borders to most, if not all, flights from China, or to foreign visitors who’ ve been to China or certain parts of it. With more than 300 now dead from the Wuhan coronavirus, the US, Israel, and a handful of other nations have imposed stringent restrictions on air travel.
These bans run counter to the official advice from groups such as the World Health Organization ( WHO). Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the group’ s director-general, spoke out against bans of this sort: “ The WHO doesn’ t recommend and actually opposes any restrictions for travel and trade or other measures against China, ” he said. “ If anyone is thinking about taking measures, it’ s going to be wrong. ” He stressed that such restrictions often needlessly damage economies and encourage travelers to lie.
The bans vary by country, but China, for its part, is taking some of them personally. Upon learning of the US’ s travel ban—barring any foreign national who’ s been to China in the last 14 days—Chinese officials deemed the move “ mean. ”
“ Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the US rushed in the opposite direction, ” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. “ [ It is ] certainly not a gesture of goodwill. ”
The Philippines, however, announced a similar measure today, shortly before it recorded the first death from the coronavirus outside China. Meanwhile in Ethiopia the government is getting slammed on social media for not implementing such a ban.
In countries where Beijing holds more sway, authorities have resisted the idea of banning flights from China. Among them is Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, who at a packed news conference went so far as to say any journalist wearing a face mask would be kicked out.
This is a developing story. | tech |
China culls 18,000 chickens after H5N1 bird flu cases in Hunan province | SHANGHAI – A city in China’ s central Hunan province reported that it had culled almost 18,000 chickens after an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in statement on its website Saturday.
The statement didn’ t say when the outbreak occurred, or when the cull happened. Hunan is next to Hubei, the epicenter of the separate coronavirus outbreak.
The avian influenza, found in a farm in Shaoyang City, killed 4,500 chickens, more than half the farm’ s flock, the ministry said. The city culled almost 18,000 poultry after the outbreak. The statement said the outbreak was of a “ highly pathogenic subtype ” of the H5N1 flu.
Since 2003, the H5N1 avian flu has killed 455 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. | tech |
Thailand sees apparent success treating virus with drug cocktail | Hi, what are you looking for?
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A Chinese woman infected with the new coronavirus showed a dramatic improvement after she was treated with a cocktail of anti-virals used to treat flu and HIV, Thailand's health ministry said Sunday.
The 71-year-old patient tested negative for the virus 48 hours after Thai doctors administered the combination, doctor Kriengsak Attipornwanich said during the ministry's daily press briefing.
`` The lab result of positive on the coronavirus turned negative in 48 hours, '' Kriengsak said.
`` From being exhausted before, she could sit up in bed 12 hours later. ''
The doctors combined the anti-flu drug oseltamivir with lopinavir and ritonavir, anti-virals used to treat HIV, Kriengsak said, adding the ministry was awaiting research results to prove the findings.
The news comes as the new virus claimed its first life outside China -- a 44-year-old Chinese man who died in the Philippines -- while the death toll in China has soared above 300.
Thailand so far has detected 19 confirmed cases of the virus believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which is under lockdown.
That is the second highest number of cases outside of China, with Japan recording 20.
So far, eight patients in Thailand have recovered and returned home, while 11 remain in hospital.
In a video released Sunday, health minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited a patient from Wuhan who had recovered from the coronavirus, chatting with her amicably in Mandarin as she thanked him and the medical staff.
Thai authorities are trying to balance screening of inbound Chinese visitors with the economic needs of its tourist sector, which is heavily reliant on arrivals from the mainland.
Messages of support saying `` Our hearts to Wuhan '' in English, Chinese and Thai were plastered on a Bangkok mall popular with tourists.
The bulk of confirmed cases have been Chinese visitors to Thailand, but on Thursday the kingdom recorded its first human-to-human transmission when a Thai taxi driver was diagnosed with the disease.
The taxi driver had not travelled to China, but may have had contact with tourists.
Thailand's government is also battling public criticism that it has been slow to evacuate scores of its citizens from Hubei province, at the centre of the outbreak.
Anutin said evacuation would happen on Tuesday, and the returnees would be quarantined for 14 days.
A Chinese woman infected with the new coronavirus showed a dramatic improvement after she was treated with a cocktail of anti-virals used to treat flu and HIV, Thailand’ s health ministry said Sunday.
The 71-year-old patient tested negative for the virus 48 hours after Thai doctors administered the combination, doctor Kriengsak Attipornwanich said during the ministry’ s daily press briefing.
“ The lab result of positive on the coronavirus turned negative in 48 hours, ” Kriengsak said.
“ From being exhausted before, she could sit up in bed 12 hours later. ”
The doctors combined the anti-flu drug oseltamivir with lopinavir and ritonavir, anti-virals used to treat HIV, Kriengsak said, adding the ministry was awaiting research results to prove the findings.
The news comes as the new virus claimed its first life outside China — a 44-year-old Chinese man who died in the Philippines — while the death toll in China has soared above 300.
Thailand so far has detected 19 confirmed cases of the virus believed to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which is under lockdown.
That is the second highest number of cases outside of China, with Japan recording 20.
So far, eight patients in Thailand have recovered and returned home, while 11 remain in hospital.
In a video released Sunday, health minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited a patient from Wuhan who had recovered from the coronavirus, chatting with her amicably in Mandarin as she thanked him and the medical staff.
Thai authorities are trying to balance screening of inbound Chinese visitors with the economic needs of its tourist sector, which is heavily reliant on arrivals from the mainland.
Messages of support saying “ Our hearts to Wuhan ” in English, Chinese and Thai were plastered on a Bangkok mall popular with tourists.
The bulk of confirmed cases have been Chinese visitors to Thailand, but on Thursday the kingdom recorded its first human-to-human transmission when a Thai taxi driver was diagnosed with the disease.
The taxi driver had not travelled to China, but may have had contact with tourists.
Thailand’ s government is also battling public criticism that it has been slow to evacuate scores of its citizens from Hubei province, at the centre of the outbreak.
Anutin said evacuation would happen on Tuesday, and the returnees would be quarantined for 14 days.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
The shallow lake, called the Level Place Lake in the native Sumas language, varied in size, depending on the seasons and amount of rainfall.
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'Please take my daughter ': Mom of girl with cancer pleads for passage at virus blockade | JIUJIANG, CHINA – Hours ticked by on Saturday as 50-year-old Lu Yuejin struggled to get past the police checkpoint on the bridge over the Yangtze river and out of Hubei province, which is on virtual lockdown as China scrambles to control a new coronavirus outbreak.
Lu, a farmer from a village on the Hubei province side of the bridge, was trying to gain passage for her daughter, 26-year-old Hu Ping, who has leukemia. She has been unable to receive a second round of chemotherapy treatment in the overwhelmed hospitals of provincial capital Wuhan, the epicenter of the viral outbreak.
“ My daughter needs to go to hospital in Jiujiang, ” she said at the checkpoint. “ She needs to have her treatment. But they won’ t let us through. ”
Her daughter sat on the ground wrapped in a blanket while Lu tearfully pleaded with police.
“ Please, take my daughter. I don’ t need to go past … please, just let my daughter go past, ” she asked.
Her pleas were almost drowned out by a loudspeaker playing a pre-recorded message that residents would not be allowed into Jiujiang, the Jiangxi province city on the southern side of the Yangtze.
The bridge has been largely closed off in an attempt to halt the spread of the new disease, which has infected 14,380 people, the vast majority of them in China, and killed more than 300.
Dozens of people have attempted to cross the police checkpoint in recent days. Some had succeeded by holding the right train or plane ticket departing from Jiujiang and bought before Jan. 24, but many had failed.
For much of Saturday morning, that was the case for Lu as she pleaded her daughter’ s case with authorities.
About an hour after she spoke with a reporter at the checkpoint, police began to move. Phone calls were made, an ambulance was called and Lu and Hu were both eventually allowed through.
Hu appeared to be limping as she walked through temperature checks at the checkpoint and toward the waiting ambulance. | tech |
Brazilians stranded in Wuhan issue plea to Bolsonaro for rescue | Brazilian citizens trapped in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, have issued an urgent plea to their president, Jair Bolsonaro, for them to be evacuated.
In a six-minute YouTube video the Brazilians noted how other countries – including the US, the UK, France, Japan and Italy – had already taken steps to rescue their citizens from the city.
On Saturday, Mexico’ s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, announced that 10 of the country’ s citizens had also been evacuated from Wuhan – under lockdown since 23 January – with help from the French government.
But Brazilian authorities have yet to take similar steps, with Bolsonaro citing legal obstacles to such an operation because Brazil lacked laws concerning the quarantining of people.
Bolsonaro’ s foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, told BBC Brasil such an evacuation would have to be negotiated with the Chinese government, “ but this isn’ t something that is obvious and immediate ”.
In their YouTube video the group of Brazilian people, which includes two children, urged Bolsonaro to offer “ a quick and efficient response, at this urgent moment ”. They said: “ We are absolutely happy to undergo a period of quarantine and observation once we reach Brazil. ”
Brazil’ s presidency told BBC Brasil, which first reported the video, it would not comment on the plea to Bolsonaro.
The coronavirus, which the World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency, has now spread to at least 28 countries, according to the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So far no infections have been confirmed in Latin America but health authorities have reportedly detected 16 suspected cases in Brazil.
According to Brazil’ s Jornal Nacional, the government is still considering ways to remove about 40 Brazilian citizens from China and believes they would have to be quarantined on a military base far from any large cities. | general |
Asian Destinations Hit by Fallout From Coronavirus and 6 Other Top Tourism Stories This Week | Get exclusive stories and unlimited access to Skift.com news
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Danielle Hyams, Skift
February 2nd, 2020 at 1:30 PM EST
This week in tourism news, destinations that rely heavily on Chinese travelers like Thailand and Japan are feeling the pinch as China halts outbound tours in its struggle to contain the rapidly spreading coronavirus. Plus, Pakistan, which was once one of the most dangerous places, is gearing up with a new tourism push.
Danielle Hyams
Throughout the week we post dozens of original stories, connecting the dots across the travel industry, and every weekend we sum it all up. This weekend roundup examines tourism trends.
For all of our weekend roundups, go here.
Asian Destinations Reel From China’ s Outbound Travel Ban: For a string of Asian destinations, China is by far the number one market, so the outbound travel ban that became effective Monday there has shaken tourism businesses even though they know it is for the good.
Virus Outbreak Leaves Asia Grappling With Tourism Fallout — and Growing Xenophobia: The coronavirus threat has given rise to a cloud of anti-Chinese discrimination. A virus outbreak is not an occasion for xenophobia or prejudice but a time for the tourism sector to work in solidarity to overcome the crisis. After all, viruses respect no borders or nationalities.
China Cancels Group Trips as Coronavirus Control Measures Expand: It’ s going to be a long, cold winter for China’ s travel industry and for businesses that rely on outbound Chinese tourists, as the novel coronavirus epidemic expands, and people stay put during China’ s biggest travel season.
Pakistan Gets Serious About Its Tourism Pitch: Once thought of as one of the world’ s most dangerous countries, Pakistan is back in the spotlight, but this time as a budding tourist destination. The government — led by former cricket star Imran Khan — has an amazing opportunity to leverage this interest into economic development, but in a country prized for its natural beauty, sustainable growth must be a priority.
Where the Travel Industry Will Intersect With Wellness in 2020: Wellness trends come and go, but travel companies in 2020 are increasingly looking toward ancient traditions to find practices that are built to last.
Travel Advisors See Changing Cruiser Preferences for Peak Booking ‘ Wave Season’: Travel advisors say this year’ s “ wave season ” is showing strong preferences for less-visited ports and immersive land experiences. There are also indicators that passengers are more likely to hold the cruise industry accountable on sustainability.
How Event Planners Are Finally Embracing Green Practices: New Report: Planners are taking simple steps to address sustainability at their events, with a specific focus on reducing waste. How effective they can be in transforming their events, though, is another question altogether.
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Danielle Hyams, Skift
February 2nd, 2020 at 1:30 PM EST
Tags: tourism, Travel Trends, trends roundups
Photo credit: Destinations that are popular with Chinese tourists, like Thailand and Japan are feeling the impact of Chinas ban on tours as the country tried to contain the coronavirus. Artinun / Adobe
Subscribe to Skift Pro to get unlimited access to stories like these ( $ 25/month) | general |
Locked-down Wuhan and why we always overplay the threat of the new | “ A major outbreak of novel, fatal epidemic disease can quickly be followed… by plagues of fear, panic, suspicion and stigma. ” So wrote the sociologist Philip Strong in a seminal paper on “ epidemic psychology ” published in 1990. Strong was writing in the wake of the HIV/Aids pandemic of the 1980s. But, he pointed out, most epidemics, going back to the medieval plagues, exhibit a similar pattern. So do more recent ones, from Sars to Ebola to the current coronavirus outbreak.
Last week the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global emergency. Whether the drastic steps being taken to contain it are proportionate or an over-reaction are a matter of debate. But responses to epidemics, as Strong observed, are rarely shaped by medical needs alone.
A new threat always seems more menacing than one with which we are familiar. So far, about 250 people have died from the coronavirus epidemic, though that figure will undoubtedly rise. The Sars pandemic in 2002-03, which went unchecked for many months because of the refusal of the Chinese authorities to acknowledge its existence, cost 774 lives. Ordinary seasonal flu leads to about half a million deaths every year globally. Yet we barely take notice of flu but feel imperilled by new diseases.
There are medical reasons for this. There is no vaccine yet for the coronavirus. The mortality rate may be higher, though, so far, there is little evidence of that.
But it’ s not just medical factors that are at play here. New diseases, Strong observed, seem also to expose the existential fragility of human societies. Responses to epidemics are often attempts by the authorities to show that they are in control, and to shape the public narrative.
Consider the decision by the Chinese authorities to lock down the city of Wuhan, the source of the coronavirus. The historian Howard Markel was one of a group of scholars who investigated the responses to the 1918 flu pandemic, the most severe in recent history, and its lessons for today. “ Incremental restrictions, enforced steadily and transparently, tend to work far better than draconian measures, ” he argues.
The Chinese response has been almost the opposite of the ideal scenario. Initially slow to acknowledge the spread of the virus, Beijing used the full force of the authoritarian state to impose a quarantine larger than any seen before. The lockdown might seem a logical step in stopping the virus from spreading but, in creating overcrowded hospitals and food shortages, it enables, in the words of one epidemiologist, “ the perfect mixing vessel ” for viruses, and generates antagonism and distrust that may hinder the medical fight against the disease.
In 2009, the H1N1, or swine flu, pandemic caused up to 550,000 deaths and, like the coronavirus, was declared a global health emergency. In Mexico, where the virus was first detected, the government shut schools and businesses, banned public gatherings and imposed quarantines. These moves helped limit new cases of H1N1, but were abandoned after 18 days, partly because of the huge social and economic costs they imposed. Although between 4,000 and 12,000 died from the outbreak in Mexico, the cost of preventing it spreading further was seen as greater than the cost wreaked by the virus itself.
When some west African states imposed cordons sanitaires to seal off large areas during the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic, tens of thousands were left starving, leading to mass violence.
Quarantines have their place in the medical toolkit, but demonstrating you’ re in control may not be the best way of tackling an epidemic.
The authorities want to transmit other messages. There is no medical reason for Australia to quarantine its nationals returning from Wuhan on Christmas Island, 2,000 miles from the mainland. But it is making a point. For years, Canberra has incarcerated undocumented migrants in “ offshore ” camps. “ You will not sully Australian soil ” is the message. It’ s the same message about those who might be infected with the coronavirus.
The link between the treatment of immigrants and of suspected epidemic cases is not coincidental. From the blaming of Jews for the Black Death in medieval Europe to Irish workers becoming scapegoats for cholera epidemics in 19th-century Britain, there is a long history of stigmatising migrants and minorities as carriers of disease. It’ s a history that finds its latest expression in travel bans and cafe bans and in headlines about the “ yellow peril ”.
We should take seriously the health risk posed by the coronavirus. We should be equally alert to the way misguided responses can generate plagues of fear, panic, suspicion and stigma.
• Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist | general |
Pompeo condemns China's Xinjiang crackdown during Central Asia tour | Hi, what are you looking for?
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on countries to offer asylum to ethnic minorities fleeing China's troubled Xinjiang region during a visit Sunday to oil-rich Kazakhstan -- a country that borders the region.
`` We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum for those seeking to flee China, '' Pompeo said at a press appearance with Kazakh foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi.
`` Protect human dignity, just do what is right, '' Pompeo said.
Pompeo was meeting top officials in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan as he rounds off a five-nation tour in two countries where Russia and China enjoy privileged interests.
His visit to the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan also saw him meet with Kazakhs who say their family members are detained in Xinjiang, where over a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities are believed to have been incarcerated as part of an unprecedented security crackdown in the region.
Kazakhstan has allowed several ethnic Kazakhs of Chinese citizenship who fled the region to stay in the country, but has not given any of them asylum -- a reluctance local activists attribute to Chinese pressure.
Pompeo also commended Kazakhstan's `` quick action '' over the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people and infected more than 14,000 in mainland China and beyond, forcing governments around the world to take drastic measures.
Kazakhstan has presently hospitalised over 40 people that returned to the country from China with flu-like symptoms, but has yet to confirm any cases of the disease.
On Sunday evening Pompeo will fly to Uzbekistan, a country of 33 million that is emerging from nearly three decades of isolation.
Pompeo also visited two other ex-Soviet countries -- Belarus and Ukraine -- as part of a trip that began with a stop in Britain.
Ahead of the visit, Pompeo stressed that the Central Asian countries on his itinerary `` want to be sovereign and independent '', and Washington had `` an important opportunity to help them achieve that ''.
But he also acknowledged `` a lot of activity ( in the region) -- Chinese activity, Russian activity ''.
Washington has often struggled to keep a foothold in Central Asian states that were part of the Soviet Union up to its collapse in 1991.
At the height of hostilities in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, NATO and the United States maintained important logistics centres in the region, but these have now closed.
Russia has retained military bases and heads security and trade blocs that have helped to entrench its position there.
But Central Asia also increasingly looks east to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road global trade plan as a panacea to treat battered economies.
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have both seen leadership transitions since John Kerry toured the region in 2015 -- the last US secretary of state to visit.
In Kazakhstan, Pompeo was to meet President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as well as his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, who last year shocked Kazakhs by retiring from the presidency after nearly three decades in office.
In Uzbekistan, he was to hold talks with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has embarked on ambitious reforms, welcoming tourism and investment in the once-isolated republic while keeping the authoritarian system intact.
Mirziyoyev's long-ruling hardline predecessor, Islam Karimov turned his back on the United States in 2005 after a row over the Uzbek government's bloody crackdown on protests.
The relationship had healed somewhat by the time of Karimov's death in 2016.
Mirziyoyev, who visited Trump at the White House in 2018, has mused on the benefits of joining the Moscow-backed Eurasian Economic Union, a five-country bloc including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that is seen as a key vehicle for Russia to wield influence in the region.
In addition to holding bilateral meetings, Pompeo on Monday in Tashkent will hold a meeting with foreign ministers from all five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
This format was first tried under Kerry to enhance regional, economic, environmental and security cooperation.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on countries to offer asylum to ethnic minorities fleeing China’ s troubled Xinjiang region during a visit Sunday to oil-rich Kazakhstan — a country that borders the region.
“ We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum for those seeking to flee China, ” Pompeo said at a press appearance with Kazakh foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi.
“ Protect human dignity, just do what is right, ” Pompeo said.
Pompeo was meeting top officials in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan as he rounds off a five-nation tour in two countries where Russia and China enjoy privileged interests.
His visit to the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan also saw him meet with Kazakhs who say their family members are detained in Xinjiang, where over a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities are believed to have been incarcerated as part of an unprecedented security crackdown in the region.
Kazakhstan has allowed several ethnic Kazakhs of Chinese citizenship who fled the region to stay in the country, but has not given any of them asylum — a reluctance local activists attribute to Chinese pressure.
Pompeo also commended Kazakhstan’ s “ quick action ” over the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people and infected more than 14,000 in mainland China and beyond, forcing governments around the world to take drastic measures.
Kazakhstan has presently hospitalised over 40 people that returned to the country from China with flu-like symptoms, but has yet to confirm any cases of the disease.
On Sunday evening Pompeo will fly to Uzbekistan, a country of 33 million that is emerging from nearly three decades of isolation.
Pompeo also visited two other ex-Soviet countries — Belarus and Ukraine — as part of a trip that began with a stop in Britain.
Ahead of the visit, Pompeo stressed that the Central Asian countries on his itinerary “ want to be sovereign and independent ”, and Washington had “ an important opportunity to help them achieve that ”.
But he also acknowledged “ a lot of activity ( in the region) — Chinese activity, Russian activity ”.
Washington has often struggled to keep a foothold in Central Asian states that were part of the Soviet Union up to its collapse in 1991.
At the height of hostilities in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, NATO and the United States maintained important logistics centres in the region, but these have now closed.
Russia has retained military bases and heads security and trade blocs that have helped to entrench its position there.
But Central Asia also increasingly looks east to China’ s trillion-dollar Belt and Road global trade plan as a panacea to treat battered economies.
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have both seen leadership transitions since John Kerry toured the region in 2015 — the last US secretary of state to visit.
In Kazakhstan, Pompeo was to meet President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as well as his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, who last year shocked Kazakhs by retiring from the presidency after nearly three decades in office.
In Uzbekistan, he was to hold talks with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has embarked on ambitious reforms, welcoming tourism and investment in the once-isolated republic while keeping the authoritarian system intact.
Mirziyoyev’ s long-ruling hardline predecessor, Islam Karimov turned his back on the United States in 2005 after a row over the Uzbek government’ s bloody crackdown on protests.
The relationship had healed somewhat by the time of Karimov’ s death in 2016.
Mirziyoyev, who visited Trump at the White House in 2018, has mused on the benefits of joining the Moscow-backed Eurasian Economic Union, a five-country bloc including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that is seen as a key vehicle for Russia to wield influence in the region.
In addition to holding bilateral meetings, Pompeo on Monday in Tashkent will hold a meeting with foreign ministers from all five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
This format was first tried under Kerry to enhance regional, economic, environmental and security cooperation.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
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Single Mutation Could Significantly Enhance Wuhan Coronavirus | Mechanics of infection by the Wuhan coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV) appear to be similar to the SARS virus ( SARS-CoV).
The recent emergence of Wuhan coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV) has put the world on high alert for transcontinental transmission, reminiscent of the outbreak of SARS — also a coronavirus — in 2002-2003.
“ Alarmingly, our data predict that a single mutation [ at a specific spot in the genome ] could significantly enhance [ the Wuhan coronavirus’ s ] ability to bind with human ACE2. ”
Decade-long structural studies by Fang Li of the University of Minnesota, et al. have shown how the SARS virus ( SARS-CoV) interacts with animal and human hosts in order to infect them. The mechanics of infection by the Wuhan coronavirus appear to be similar. These investigators used the knowledge they gleaned from multiple SARS-CoV strains — isolated from different hosts in different years — and angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 ( ACE2) receptors from different animal species to model predictions for the novel Wuhan coronavirus. ( Both viruses use ACE2 to gain entry into the cell, but it serves normally as a regulator for heart function.)
“ Our structural analyses confidently predict that the Wuhan coronavirus uses ACE2 as its host receptor, ” the investigators wrote. That and several other structural details of the new virus are consistent with the ability of the Wuhan coronavirus to infect humans and with some capability to transmit among humans.
“ Alarmingly, our data predict that a single mutation [ at a specific spot in the genome ] could significantly enhance [ the Wuhan coronavirus’ s ] ability to bind with human ACE2, ” the investigators write. For this reason, Wuhan coronavirus evolution in patients should be closely monitored for the emergence of novel mutations at the 501 position in its genome, and to a lesser extent, the 494 position, in order to predict the possibility of a more serious outbreak than has been seen so far.
Reference: “ Receptor recognition by novel coronavirus from Wuhan: An analysis based on decade-long structural studies of SARS ” by Yushun Wan, Jian Shang, Rachel Graham, Ralph S. Baric, Fang Li, 29 January 2020, Journal of Virology. DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00127-20
The research is published in the Journal of Virology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The study provides the basic, translational and public health research communities with predictive insights that may help study and battle this novel coronavirus. | tech |
Chinese ambassador to Israel likens coronavirus bans to Holocaust | China’ s acting ambassador to Israel has apologised after likening the closures of several national borders to Chinese citizens to the turning away of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.
Dai Yuming told reporters at a English-language press conference in Tel Aviv that the “ errors to limit or even ban entries of Chinese citizens ” reminded him of “ the old days, the old stories that happened in world war two, the Holocaust, the darkest days in human history ”.
“ Millions of Jewish were killed, and many, many Jewish were refused when they tried to seek assistance from other countries. Only very, very few countries opened their door, and among them is China, ” Dai said.
The Chinese embassy in Israel later issued a statement saying “ there was no intention whatsoever to compare the dark days of the Holocaust with the current situation and the efforts taken by the Israeli government to protect its citizens.
“ We would like to apologise if someone understood our message the wrong way, ” the embassy said. The world marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp last week.
Israel halted direct flights to China on Thursday, and Israel’ s health ministry has authorised border control agents to deny entry to non-Israelis who have visited China in the past two weeks. Israeli citizens returning from China have been instructed to remain quarantined at home for two weeks in order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and sickened thousands of others in China.
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 14,550 according to China’ s National Health Commission and authorities in other countries.
Most reported cases are in China but around 150 have been reported in two dozen other countries.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the country had “ closed land crossings, seaports and airports to arrivals from China ” for the time being. He said he has instructed the health ministry to develop a vaccine. “ We are also updating the Palestinian Authority on all preventive steps and public health measures that they must take into account here as well, ” he said. | general |
1.2tn yuan to be pumped into Chinese markets to fight coronavirus slump | China’ s central bank has pledged to pump 1.2tn yuan ( £130bn) into its financial system in an attempt to protect its economy from the coronavirus epidemic.
The People’ s Bank of China ( PBoC) announced it would launch the operation on Monday, to ensure a stable currency and “ reasonable and abundant liquidity ” in the banking system.
Under this “ reverse repo ” scheme, PBoC will purchase a range of securities from investors seeking ready cash, to avoid a wave of forced selling as investors return to work from the lunar new year break, which was extended after the coronavirus outbreak.
According to Reuters’ data, just over 1tn yuan of existing reverse repo contracts expire on Monday – the PBoC’ s move will allow these to be rolled over, plus an extra 150bn yuan ( £16bn) of fresh support.
Over the weekend, the PBoC also announced more monetary and credit support for hospitals and medical institutions at the frontline of the battle against the Wuhan coronavirus. It urged financial institutions to provide “ sufficient credit resources ” to hospitals and medical research units.
Economists believe the virus will hurt the global economy in 2020. Goldman Sachs predicts it could knock Chinese growth down to 5.5% for the year, from 6.1% in 2019.
Turbulence is expected on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges when they reopen on Monday. They have been shut for the holidays since 23 January, when the coronavirus crisis was intensifying.
Other markets have already suffered heavy losses, with Hong Kong’ s Hang Seng index losing 6% last week when it reopened after the new year break. Britain’ s FTSE 100 dropped by 4% during the week, hitting a seven-week low.
Stephen Innes, chief market strategist at AxiCorp, said the PBoC’ s liquidity injection went “ well beyond a Band-Aid fix ”. But Chinese investors could still “ hit the panic button out of the gates ”, he feared, given the scale of the crisis – and China’ s major role in the global economy.
Weekend markets update: # DAX 12877 -0.50% # DOW 28086 -0.71% # FTSE 7221 -0.56% # HANGSENG 25711 -1.17% # GBPUSD 13185 -0.16% # IGWeekendMarkets
“ The markets continue to view the Wuhan virus through the lens of the Sars epidemic of 2002-03. Still, given the importance of China in the global supply chain in 2020 versus 2003, the risk might be that the market is not alarmist enough, ” Innes added.
According to trading firm IG, Hong Kong is on track to fall a further 1% on Monday, while the FTSE 100 was down 0.5% in futures trading.
On Friday, the US announced an entry ban on foreign nationals who have visited China in the past two weeks, as countries around the globe evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, where the epidemic began.
The death toll from the coronavirus passed 300 people on Sunday, with the first fatality outside China recorded in the Philippines. | general |
South Korea to bar people who visited virus-hit province in China | SEOUL – South Korea will bar entry by foreigners who have visited China’ s Hubei province, the epicenter of a new coronavirus outbreak, the country’ s prime minister said Sunday, according to the Yonhap news agency.
The entry ban will go into effect on Tuesday, Yonhap reported, citing Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun.
On Sunday, South Korea reported three new confirmed cases of the infection, bringing the total to 15 cases in the country. | tech |
Ninth US case confirmed in San Francisco Bay area | The coverage on this live blog has ended — but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team.
All times in U.S. eastern standard time
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide is now 14,557, most of which are in China, according to World Health Organization ( WHO) data. The death toll has risen to at least 304. A 44-year-old man in the Philippines died of the virus on Saturday, making him the first reported death outside of China. All territories and provinces in China have now been impacted by the virus.
The ninth U.S. case of coronavirus was confirmed in Santa Clara County on Sunday. It's the second case in the San Francisco Bay area. The case is in a woman who was recently in Wuhan, China, and visited the U.S. to see family on Jan 23, according to the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department.
Russian Railways said on Sunday that it would temporarily suspend passenger trains to China from midnight until further notice, including rail services along the Moscow-Beijing route.
The Chinese city of Wuhan has finished building an emergency hospital to treat patients infected with the virus. Huoshenshan Hospital will have 1,400 medical staff from the armed forces starting on Monday and a capacity of 1,000 beds, China's state news agency Xinhua reported.
OPEC and non-OPEC's Joint Technical Committee ( JTC) will likely hold a meeting on Feb. 4 and 5 to discuss the potential impact from the spread of the coronavirus, which has caused oil prices to slide, a source familiar with OPEC's plans told CNBC's Brian Sullivan.
Beijing has not yet accepted an offer from the U.S. to help combat and contain the virus outbreak, White House National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said on Sunday.
`` So far the Chinese have been more transparent certainly than in past crises and we appreciate that, '' O'Brien said in an interview with CBS ' `` Face the Nation. ''
O'Brien said the U.S. has offered to send medical and health professionals to China.
The latest situation report from the WHO on Sunday found that no new countries have reported cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. The WHO said its risk communication and social media teams have been tracking and responding to false information and rumors about the virus, such as false prevention measures or cures.
A plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals from Wuhan, China, landed at a military airbase in Istres, France on Sunday. About 65 French citizens will be quarantined in the South of France, while other non-French citizens will travel back to their home countries.
The situation in Hubei, the province at the center of the outbreak, remains `` severe and complicated, '' and medical resources are weak, Vice Governor Xiao Juhua told a press conference Sunday. However, the accuracy of virus testing kits has improved, according to Wang Wei, director of Hubei's science and technology department. The time needed to confirm the virus with the kits has been cut in half to roughly two hours.
White House economic advisers are looking into a potential hit to the U.S. economy by the coronavirus outbreak, as the U.S. continues to implement travel restrictions to and from China, according to The Washington Post.
The White House National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers are together studying the potential impact, according to officials. White House economists forecast a hit to the first quarter of 2020 of roughly 0.2%. | business |
Coronavirus updates: Mainland China deaths surpass SARS, stocks plunge | The coverage on this live blog has ended — but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's US team.
All times below in Beijing time.
China told the World Health Organization ( WHO) on Monday that channels of communication with Taiwan had been `` unblocked, '' with Beijing sharing full information on the coronavirus with authorities across the Strait.
Taiwan, which is not a WHO member due to China's objections, has 10 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
China considers self-governing Taiwan a wayward province to be brought under its control.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has recognized coronavirus control as the most important task facing the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported Monday, citing state media.
China's National Health Commission confirmed on Monday that there have been 17,205 cases of the coronavirus in the country, with 361 deaths.
Market participants also continue to closely monitor the potential economic fallout of the virus, with mainland Chinese markets plunging on their return from the extended Lunar New Year holiday on Monday. ( See 3:15 p.m. update).
The World Health Organization's ( WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has reaffirmed the health agency's view that there is no need to impose restrictions that `` unnecessarily '' interfere with international travel and trade.
He told the WHO's executive board on Monday that `` global collectiveness is a weakness '' as the coronavirus continues to spread `` but it is also our greatest strength. ''
Tedros said there have been 151 coronavirus cases in 23 countries outside of China.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced Monday that the city would suspend 10 out of a possible 13 border crossings with mainland China in an effort to curb the fast-spreading coronavirus.
Thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong went on strike starting Monday to compel the city's government to accede to a demand for a complete shutdown of its borders with mainland China to keep out the spread of the virus. ( See 12 p.m. update).
Lam said Monday that the medical worker strike was putting patients at risk, describing the move as `` extremely mean. ''
The city's chief executive has previously said a complete border shutdown with mainland China would be `` discriminatory. ''
Italy's health ministry has confirmed health ministers from the Group of Seven ( G-7) will discuss the coronavirus outbreak in a teleconference call at 10 p.m. Beijing time ( 2 p.m. London time) on Monday.
The G-7 group comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
It comes shortly after China's National Health Commission reported 361 people in the country had died as a result of the virus.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Monday that foreign nationals found to be infected with the coronavirus may be deported, according to the Interfax news agency.
His comments come after the first two cases of the deadly pneumonia-like virus were reported in Russia last week.
Moscow has suspended direct passenger trains to China, as well as direct flights.
China's foreign ministry on Monday said some countries, especially the U.S., have overreacted to the coronavirus outbreak, according to Reuters.
The U.S., in particular, has spread fear instead of offering significant assistance, the Chinese foreign ministry said. It was the first country to impose a travel ban on Chinese travelers, it said.
U.S. President Donald Trump last week signed an order for the U.S. to deny entry to any foreign nationals who have traveled in China within the past two weeks.
`` All it has done could only create and spread fear, which is a bad example, '' ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, according to Reuters.
The ministry added that it is unreasonable to prevent people from entering borders. Several other countries have also placed travel restrictions on Chinese nationals, or those with travel history in China.
Mainland Chinese markets plunged on their return from the extended Lunar New Year holiday, and maintained steep declines by the close.
The Shanghai composite fell 7.72% while the Shenzhen component dropped 8.45%. The Shenzhen composite dived 8.41%. Earlier, they fell by as much as nearly 9%.
The onshore Chinese yuan touched a low of 7.0223 against the greenback, last trading at 7.0141 while its offshore counterpart was at 7.0132 per dollar.
Russia plans to start evacuating its citizens from Wuhan on Monday. There are more than 600 Russians in the Chinese city, according to a Reuters report citing Russia's deputy prime minister.
Russia, which reported two coronavirus cases last week, has suspended direct passenger trains to China, as well as direct flights.
The number of deaths in mainland China has now surpassed that of SARS. Officials said earlier that the current coronavirus outbreak had killed 361 people through the end of Sunday. According to the World Health Organization, the first case of novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China was reported Dec. 31.That number is greater than the 349 deaths during the SARS epidemic which lasted from 2002 to 2003.
China's production capacity of face masks has doubled as of Sunday night, said Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a briefing in Beijing Monday morning.
After the threat of the virus passes, the government will purchase the excess masks, Lian said, noting businesses ' concerns about overproduction.
Meanwhile, the inventory of vegetables in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, has returned to `` normal levels, '' according to Wang Bingnan, a vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, at the same briefing.
Lian added that the impact of the virus on the economy, especially consumption, is increasing, but the overall impact to the economy is `` temporary. ''
Thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong went on strike starting Monday to compel the city's government to accede to a demand for a complete shutdown of its borders with mainland China to keep out the spread of the virus.
Around 2,400 employees took part in a strike on Monday, according to a Reuters report. If the government does not respond by 6:00 p.m HK/SIN, all staff — including more than 6,000 workers in essential services — would go on a full strike from Tuesday, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.
Chinese tech giant Huawei said Monday it has resumed production of goods, including consumer devices and other telecoms equipment.
The move was in line with a government directive that allows certain critical industries to remain in operation, amid the government's decision to extend a shutdown in more than half of China's provinces and regions in a bid to control the outbreak.
Vietnam confirmed three new coronavirus cases, according to Reuters citing the country's ministry of health. That brings its total to eight cases. The country had declared a public health emergency on Saturday and suspended all flights to and from mainland China.
Two more cases — a couple — were confirmed in San Benito in California late on Sunday. The husband recently traveled to Wuhan, while the wife did not. That made the total number of cases in the U.S. at 11.
Mainland Chinese markets plunged on their return from the extended Lunar New Year holiday.
The Shenzhen component dived 8.69%, and the Shenzhen composite plunged 8.65% in early trading. The Shanghai composite tumbled more than 8%.
Both the onshore and offshore yuan weakened past the 7 level against the dollar on Monday morning, a key psychological level.
The People's Bank of China, however, announced Sunday that it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan ( $ 174 billion) worth of liquidity into the markets via open market reverse repo operations.
That will make the total liquidity in the banking system around 900 billion yuan more as compared to a year ago, it added.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission told the state-owned People's Daily on Sunday, however, that it believed the outbreak's impact on markets would be short lived. To support firms, it said it would call on corporate bond investors to extend the debt maturity dates, and consider launching hedging tools for the A-share market to ease market panic.
As of Monday morning, at least 24 provinces, municipalities and other regions in China have told businesses not to resume work before Feb. 10 at the earliest. That's according to publicly available statements from the governments.
Last year, those parts of China accounted for more than 80% of national GDP, and 90% of exports, according to CNBC calculations of data accessed through Wind Information.
Beijing: encouraged companies to have employees work from home until Feb. 10.
Hubei: businesses are not to reopen until at least Feb. 14. However, officials said Friday that Hubei would further extend the holiday to an `` appropriate extent, '' according to state-owned newspaper People's Daily.
Tianjin: Businesses and schools are not to reopen until further notice.
Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanghai, Shanxi, Suzhou, Xi'an, Yunnan, Zhejiang: work is to resume no earlier than midnight on Feb. 9.
Investors are bracing for the reopening of mainland Chinese markets at 9:30 a.m. after the extended holiday, with expectations they will take a battering amid the virus outbreak.
The People's Bank of China, however, announced Sunday that it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan ( $ 173 billion) worth of liquidity into the markets via open market reverse repo operations.
Meanwhile, other Asia markets tumbled at Monday's open, with Japan, Australia and South Korea all dropping more than 1%.
China's National Health Commission said there were an additional 57 deaths and 2,829 new confirmed cases, as of the end of Sunday. That brings the country's total to 361 deaths and 17,205 confirmed cases, the government said.
The Hubei Provincial Health Committee confirmed 2,103 new cases and an additional 56 deaths in the province through the end of Feb. 2. It said that brings total confirmed cases in the region to 11,177 as the death toll rises to 350 deaths in the province.
Wuhan, China is the capital city of Hubei province and the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
All times below in U.S. eastern standard time.
The ninth U.S. case of coronavirus was confirmed in Santa Clara County on Sunday. It's the second case in the San Francisco Bay area. The case is in a woman who was recently in Wuhan, China, and visited the U.S. to see family on Jan. 23, according to the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department.
Russian Railways said on Sunday that it would temporarily suspend passenger trains to China from midnight until further notice, including rail services along the Moscow-Beijing route.
The Chinese city of Wuhan has finished building an emergency hospital to treat patients infected with the virus. Huoshenshan Hospital will have 1,400 medical staff from the armed forces starting on Monday and a capacity of 1,000 beds, China's state news agency Xinhua reported.
For more coverage on the coronavirus, read the overnight blog from CNBC's U.S. team.
— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng, Eustance Huang and Emma Newburger, as well as Reuters, contributed to this report. | business |
The U.S.-China Trade War Was All About ‘ Winning.’ Coronavirus Shows Why That’ s Wrong. | Americans are spoiled for choice if they want to feel threatened by China. This month, a new coronavirus may take the top spot for worry. Last month it was trade; before that was the geopolitical influence of Beijing’ s Belt and Road investments in infrastructure. But all of these more or ( mostly) less valid reasons for unease demonstrate both the promise and peril of a positive-sum world.
Washington is obsessed with zero-sum thinking on China—one country’ s gain is the other’ s loss. Trade worries are motivated by the idea that one more job in Chongqing is one less in Chicago. And economic diplomacy has followed the questionable logic that China building a railway to Vientiane must disadvantage American security. Some on Capitol Hill were so worried about the growing China threat that earlier this month they pushed successfully for Peace Corps volunteers to leave the country. As Florida Senator Rick Scott put it, “ There’ s no reason we should prop up our adversaries with U.S. tax dollars. ”
China will surely survive the small drop in rural access to English-language training that will result from the Peace Corps’ departure in 2021. But if Americans needed disabusing of the idea that only one country can win from an economic relationship, President Donald Trump’ s tariff wars have provided a useful corrective. They have cost jobs both here and in China. U.S. tariffs threatened to cost each American household $ 300 to $ 2,200 a year. China has been blamed for the state of U.S. manufacturing, but the evidence suggests it was at most a minor factor in the loss of factory jobs. Just as important, Chinese imports have helped lower the cost of goods from televisions to toys that poor people spend more of their money on than the rich do. The falling price of consumer goods was one of the few economic forces favoring reduced inequality over the past two decades.
U.S.-China trade is an illustration of a much bigger phenomenon: The global economy simply isn’ t based on zero-sum inputs any more. The World Bank suggests nearly two-thirds of global wealth is in the form of “ intangible capital ” —technologies, ideas, institutions, and education—compared to just over one-third accounted for by physical capital, like roads and factories as well as natural capital including farmland, oil, and minerals. The great thing about technologies and ideas like double-entry book-keeping or the design of internal-combustion engines and web browsers is that many people can use them at once. In fact, those technologies are more valuable the more people use them—they are positive-sum. That contrasts with zero-sum resources like oil—if I burn it, you can not. Economists Bill Easterly and Ross Levine estimate that 90% of the gap between incomes in rich and poor countries can be accounted for by how far ideas, institutions and technologies have spread. And as they spread further, the world as a whole gets richer and healthier—to the immense benefit of the United States.
That spread is facilitated by global connections. It is true that the Belt and Road Initiative’ s infrastructure investments may cause debt distress in a few of the most exposed countries, including Laos and Timor Leste. But those projects are also likely to improve trade, investment, and growth prospects globally. And if China continues to grow, it will be a good thing not just for Chinese people still living on about $ 332 a month ( compared to $ 2,096 per month in the U.S.). It will also be a good thing for the world: creating larger export and investment markets, supplying goods, services and finance, supporting research and development into cheaper products from solar power to self-driving cars, and making everyone better able to respond to disease threats and help preserve the global commons from the atmosphere to the oceans.
That said, a more closely connected and wealthier world has created new challenges, as the past few weeks have demonstrated. A new deadly illness is spreading worldwide from China, which is now also the world’ s largest greenhouse-gas emitter. The country’ s banks are carrying a large amount of bad debt; perhaps Shanghai will be the epicenter of the next financial crisis. How well China responds to global threats now has implications for the quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world.
The panicked, late and costly response to the coronavirus outbreak, including putting tens of millions of people in lockdown, suggests the political weaknesses of an authoritarian regime still committing massive human-rights violations on minority populations. The country is hardly a model of peace and stability. A stagnant China sliding into civil unrest is a far greater global concern than a stable, growing country committed to international institutions like the World Trade Organization and the Paris climate accords.
But that perspective speaks to the importance of engagement with China and the other countries who are collectively home to the 96 percent of the world’ s population that does not live in the U.S. In a positive-sum world, global cooperation is vital, making the zero-sum thinking that has infected Washington ever-more mistaken. | business |
Taiwan scrambles diplomats to keeps flights going amid China virus inclusion-á-á-á-á-á-á-á | inclusion  Â
TAIPEI, Feb 2 ( Reuters) - Taiwan is asking its diplomats to talk to governments where Taiwanese airlines fly to ensure more flights are not cut off due the island's inclusion by the World Health Organization as part of China due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Taiwan has only reported 10 cases, compared to more than 14,000 in China, but as the WHO considers self-ruled Taiwan part of China, it has included it in its advice that China is `` very high risk. ''
Taiwan is not a member of the WHO due to Chinese objections. China considers democratic Taiwan its own territory with no right to participate in international organizations unless it acknowledges it is part of China, something Taiwan's government has refused to do.
Italy last week ordered all flights between the country and China to be stopped based on the WHO categorisation, including Taiwan's China Airlines, the only Taiwanese airline to fly between the island and Italy.
Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said on Sunday they are asking their diplomats around the world in places where Taiwan airlines fly to explain that what the WHO is doing to include the island as part of China is wrong and should not be allowed to affect flights.
`` Taiwan is Taiwan. Taiwan is not a part of the People's Republic of China, '' he told reporters in Taipei, adding they had totally separate health and airline management systems.
`` This simple reality the WHO should not get wrong. ''
No other place aside from China has seen flights restricted and it is not fair to include Taiwan as part of the China restrictions, Wu added.
Johnson Chiang, the head of Taiwan's Foreign Ministry's Europe department, said they had told the Italian government on Friday their ban on Taiwan flights was not based on science.
`` We think this decision is incorrect, '' he said.
The WHO has put Taiwan under China which has misled Italy's health department, Chiang added.
Taiwan managed within a few hours to get Vietnam to lift its ban on flights to Taiwan, as the Southeast Asian country had likewise included the island in its ban on flights from China.
Taiwan has called on the WHO to grant it access to ensure it gets the most up-to-day virus information. The WHO says Taiwan is getting the information it needs, though has not been permitted to attend emergency meetings. ( Reporting by Fabian Hamacher; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) | business |
Quinn L'Esperance talks 'Heavyweight, ' Lady Gaga, and digital age ( Includes interview) | Hi, what are you looking for?
By
Published
On her plans for 2020, she said, “ It is going to be a very busy and productive year. I am so excited to keep releasing more new music. I plan to continue to grow as an artist, actor, and human being through my creativity. ”
Regarding her “ Heavyweight ” single and music video, she said, “ My music producer, Matt Wilder, in Nashville introduced ‘ Heavyweight’ to me. When I listened to the demo, I knew I had to record it because the song sounded and felt like me and the message I wanted to tell others. Working on this song made me realize what I could do and what message I could say to th world. Working in Nashville, a writing town, has inspired me so much from a composition point of view. Having access to so many other talented people to draw on in a very warm and embracing place is indescribable. ”
She continued, “ People really love and care about their craft. It is a gift to have worked with so many talented musicians with great work ethics and professional attitudes. I knew that the music video had to be shot in a boxing gym. We found this really cool, old school boxing gym in Cleveland, Ohio, my hometown, called Old Angle Boxing Gym. We set up each shot with artistic ideas in mind and went for it. I was blessed to work with amazing and dedicated crew members, dancers, and actors. ”
On her music and songwriting inspirations, she said, “ I work on my music primarily in Nashville. When I write songs, I start by writing the tracks with a certain feel in mind. I like to use both acoustic and digital sounds because I think there is a really cool balance between the two. I think the world could use more positivity, empowerment, and inclusivity. One thing that I want to call attention to is providing a voice for the special needs community. My brother has special needs, so all my life I’ ve felt needed to be an advocate for kids and adults with special needs. By promoting positivity, empowerment, and inclusivity through music, I hope to bring all people together. ”
Regarding the impact of technology on the music industry, she said, “ I think technology has definitely changed the music industry. For example, if I am working on a project in Nashville but am in Los Angeles, I can cut vocals in LA and send them to Nashville for it to be continued to be worked on from there. Technology allows a lot of accessibility for artists. ”
On being an artist in the digital age, she said, “ It’ s really fun to be an artist in the digital age because there is a lot more accessibility and room to collaborate with other artists. It makes it a lot easier and allows for every artist, big or small, to create their music. ”
“ I use technology to communicate with the people I am working with nonstop on a daily basis, ” she said. “ Through social media and streaming platforms, music is more readily available for listeners and I can keep in tune with what other artists are releasing both similar and different from me. Not to mention I can keep up with my favorite artists and bands more closely. ”
She listed Jon Bellion and Lady Gaga as her dream collaboration choices in music. “ Both of these artists have been such huge inspirations for me because of their creativity and authenticity. The thing that I admire the most about Jon Bellion is how he can put so many different sounds together to create something truly unique and relatable for listeners from a lyric and music standpoint. Lady Gaga has the ability to demand the room and make her audience feel her music and performance. They both are so true to their music and who they are, which is what I want to show the world as an artist myself, ” she said.
For young and aspiring artists, she said, “ My advice for young and aspiring artists is to never let anyone tell you that you have to do something a certain way. People are always going to have an opinion about what you’ re doing no matter what. Once you learn to stop caring what people think about you and let go of negativity, the possibilities are endless. Never lose sight of your dream. Truly love what you do and believe in the message you want to tell the world. ”
Regarding the title of the current chapter of her life, she said, “ Making It Happen. ”
On her definition of success, she said, “ To me, success comes in little victories that all lead up to the main goal. Success means accomplishing goals that lead to your ultimate happiness; in this case, releasing a song and a video that I am proud of that shares my voice with the world. I’ ve learned that you have to enjoy the journey you are on and not treat it like a sprint. ”
To learn more about Quinn L’ Esperance and her music, check out her Facebook page and on Instagram.
Markos Papadatos is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for Music News. Papadatos is a Greek-American journalist and educator that has authored over 16,000 original articles over the past 15 years. He has interviewed some of the biggest names in music, entertainment, lifestyle, magic, and sports. He is a five-time consecutive `` Best of Long Island '' winner, and in the past two years, he was honored as the `` Best Long Island Personality '' in Arts & Entertainment, an honor that has gone to Billy Joel six times.
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Coronavirus update: Philippines reports first death outside of China | The Philippines confirmed that a man who tested positive for the new coronavirus died on Saturday.
The 44-year-old man was the second confirmed case in the Philippines. Officials from the Department of Health said he was the companion of the person in the first confirmed case, a 38-year-old woman.
Both people are from Wuhan, China — the city at the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak. Earlier Sunday, officials said the virus has claimed 304 lives and infected at least 14,380 in China.
`` This is the first reported case outside of China. However, we need to keep in mind that he came from Wuhan, China, '' Dr. Rabi Abeyasinghe, a World Health Organization representative in the Philippines said in a statement on Twitter.
Officials said the 44-year-old man was admitted to the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila on Jan. 25 after experiencing a fever, cough and sore throat. Officials said he developed a severe pneumonia due to viral and bacterial infections before stabilizing in his last few days. The man's condition, however, deteriorated rapidly in his last 24 hours, officials said.
`` I would like to emphasize that this is an imported case with no evidence of local transmission. We are currently working with the Chinese Embassy to ensure the dignified management of the remains according to national and international standards to contain the disease, '' Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said in a statement.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually infect animals but can sometimes evolve and spread to humans. Symptoms in humans include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, which can progress to pneumonia.
For more on the coronavirus outbreak, see the latest from CNBC's live blog.
Correction: This story has been updated to remove a reference to a tweet from the World Health Organization Philippines, which contained erroneous information on the type of infections the man had. | business |
Coronavirus fears will drive bond yields even lower, Wells Fargo warns | Wells Fargo Securities ' Michael Schumacher expects the bond rush to intensify.
According to the firm's global head of rate strategy, coronavirus fears will drive more investors into the U.S. Treasury market as a safe haven play and drive yields sharply lower.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury Note yield is already down 22% so far this year.
`` Our big concern is that investors get more and more nervous, '' Schumacher told CNBC's `` Trading Nation '' on Friday. `` We would say that probably the last 25 to 30 basis points mainly in the 10-year is largely due to the virus. ''
On Friday, the 10-year yield hit a low of 1.50% — its lowest level since early September.
`` It's really a function of the news flow coming out of China in the near-term, '' he said.
If the coronavirus situation continues to deteriorate, Schumacher warns 10-year yields could fall at least another 30%.
`` The worst case I would say with respect to the virus is that it has a massive effect on the global economy and knocks yields down to let's say somewhere in the low ones for the 10-year, '' he added. `` It's a low probability, but it's not zero in our opinion. ''
He warns the coronavirus outbreak coupled with negative interest rates around the world is making U.S. Treasurys particularly attractive right now despite the historically low yield.
`` Will there be a lot of follow on hedging activity by investors who pushed the yield down quickly? We haven't seen a lot of it so far, but it could happen, '' said Schumacher.
The coronavirus scare was also responsible on Friday for the stock market's big pullback. The Dow lost 603 points, and the index is now negative for the year.
The S & P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq are now having their worst start to the year since 2016.
If stocks continue to get hammered, Schumacher expects it to put Treasury yields under more pressure.
`` For every one percent move in the S & P, it's worth four basis points maybe in the 10-year, '' Schumacher said. `` If you saw a downdraft of a couple percent more in stocks, that could push yields back to that 1.44% to 1.45% level. ''
Disclaimer | business |
Coronavirus: OPEC+ technical panel to meet to discuss virus impact, report says |
OPEC and non-OPEC's Joint Technical Committee ( JTC) has scheduled a meeting over Feb. 4-5 in Vienna to assess the impact of China's new coronavirus on oil demand, OPEC+ sources told Reuters.
The technical panel is likely to make a recommendation on whether to extend current oil supply curbs beyond March or to implement deeper output cuts, the sources said.
OPEC officials are considering their options on how best to deal with the potential impact from the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and caused oil prices to slide.
| business |
First Wuhan coronavirus death reported outside China |
A man in the Philippines has died from the
Wuhan coronavirus
-- the first time a death has been reported outside mainland China since the outbreak
began in December
.
Philippines health officials announced Sunday that a 44-year-old Chinese man had died the day before from coronavirus after flying into the country from Wuhan, the Chinese city of 11 million at the center of the outbreak.
There are more than 14,300 confirmed cases around the world, and 305 people have died. All but one of the deaths have been in mainland China.
Within China, almost 60 million people remain on effective lockdown as the country battles to contain the virus amid reports its
health system is on its knees
, running out of beds and supplies.
International response
Read More
There are now more than 160 confirmed cases in 26 countries or territories outside of mainland China.
Germany confirmed its 10th case on Sunday, and there were also new cases reported South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Macao and Hong Kong.
And as the virus continues to spread around the world, governments are stepping up their responses.
The United States, Australia and New Zealand have all announced that they will
not allow foreign nationals
who have traveled from or transited through China to enter. All three countries will continue to allow citizens who have visited China to enter, although they will need to be quarantined.
Some governments have also raised their travel advisory warnings. The US, for instance, has labeled China a ``
do not travel
`` destination -- the highest possible warning.
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A number of countries have evacuated
their citizens
from Wuhan.
A second French carried European citizens from Wuhan to Europe, where they were going to be placed in quarantine. French, Belgian, Dutch, Danish, British Czech and Slovak citizens were on board the plane which was chartered by France, and was part of the European Crisis Management Mechanism.
The US evacuated
195
Americans
, who are under a 14-day quarantine on an air force base in California. A second evacuation flight that will carry US citizens out of the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak was on its way to the city of Wuhan as of Sunday morning, a US official with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper has also approved a request to provide military housing for up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined after arriving in the US from overseas travel, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Fears over the pandemic have
rattled global stock markets
and forced both US and global carriers to amend flight schedules as demand for China travel declines.
Major airlines -- including British Airways and Australia's Qantas -- have announced they will no
longer fly to mainland China
. Delta said it will suspend flights between the US and China starting on Sunday until at least April 30, according to a press release.
Chinese response
In mainland China, tens of millions of people remain under effective quarantine after the government imposed travel restrictions on a number of cities in Hubei province.
Wuhan
-- where the outbreak was first reported -- is the capital of Hubei province.
Although the outbreak has spread to every province and region of China, the outbreak remains worst in Hubei, where more than 7,100 have been diagnosed with coronavirus and 249 people have died.
Construction of the first of two new medical facilities in the city of Wuhan that were commissioned to provide 2,600 extra beds for patients affected by the outbreak has been completed, according to state media CCTV.
CCTV reported that construction finished Saturday morning on the Huoshenshan Hospital and that control was handed to the military, which will begin operations Monday. The second facility, Leishenshan Hospital, in Wuhan is due to be complete February 5, according to state media.
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Medical staff wearing protective suits ride down an escalator at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport on Wednesday, March 18.
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Hasidic Jewish men take part in a
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A patient in a biocontainment unit is carried on a stretcher in Rome on March 17.
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A pedestrian walks a dog through a quiet street in New York on March 17.
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People gather to collect free face masks in New Delhi on March 17.
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Dermot Hickey, left, and Phillip Vega ask a pedestrian in New York to take their picture on a thinly trafficked Fifth Avenue on March 17. Many streets across the world are much more bare as people distance themselves from others. In the United States, the White House has advised people
not to gather in groups of more than 10.
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Students at the Attarkiah Islamic School wear face masks during a ceremony in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat on March 17.
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People wait outside a Woolworths store in Sunbury, Australia on March 17. Australian supermarket chains announced special shopping hours for the elderly and people with disabilities so that they can shop in less crowded aisles.
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A member of Spain's Military Emergencies Unit carries out a general disinfection at the Malaga airport on Monday, March 16.
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Displaced families near Atme, Syria, attend a workshop aimed at spreading awareness about the coronavirus.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is seen on a screen in Paris as he announces new coronavirus containment measures on March 16.
France has been put on lockdown,
and all nonessential outings are outlawed and can draw a fine of up to €135 ( $ 148). Macron also promised to support French businesses by guaranteeing €300 billion worth of loans and suspending rent and utility bills owed by small companies.
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A police officer checks the temperatures of bus passengers at a checkpoint in Manila, Philippines, on March 16.
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Flowers are stored prior to their destruction at a flower auction in Aalsmeer, Netherlands, on March 16. Lower demand due to the coronavirus outbreak is threatening the Dutch horticultural sector, forcing the destruction of products.
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Two nuns greet neighbors from their balcony in Turin, Italy, on Sunday, March 15.
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Pope Francis, inside the Church of San Marcello in Rome's city center,
prays at a famous crucifix
that believers claim helped to save Romans from the plague in 1522.
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Passengers wait for their flights at Marrakesh Airport in Morocco on March 15.
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US Vice President Mike Pence takes a question during a White House briefing about the coronavirus on March 15.
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A Sea World employee sprays disinfectant in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Saturday, March 14.
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People wait in line to go through customs at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on March 14. Travelers returning from Europe say they were
being made to wait for hours
at US airports, often in close quarters, as personnel screened them for the coronavirus.
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Hundreds of people lined up to enter a Costco in Novato, California, on March 14. Many people have been stocking up on food, toilet paper and other items. As a response to
panic buying,
retailers in the United States and Canada have started limiting the number of toilet paper that customers can buy in one trip.
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A member of the White House physician's office takes a media member's temperature in the White House briefing room on March 14. It was ahead of a news conference with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
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Reporters in Arlington, Virginia, sit approximately 4 feet apart during a briefing by Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie on Friday, March 13.
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People walk past a closed Broadway theater on March 13 after New York canceled all gatherings over 500 people.
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Body temperatures are scanned as people enter the Buddhist temple Wat Pho in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 13.
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A Costco customer stands by two shopping carts in Richmond, California, on March 13.
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A woman looks at an empty bread aisle in Antwerp, Belgium, on March 13.
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Employees of the Greek Parliament wear plastic gloves ahead of the swearing-in ceremony for Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
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A motorcyclist drives through disinfectant sprayed in Jammu, India, on March 13.
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Workers prepare to construct an additional building on a hospital on the outskirts of Moscow.
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Paul Boyer, head equipment manager of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings, wheels out equipment bags in Washington on Thursday, March 12. The NHL is among the sports leagues that have suspended their seasons.
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Students leave Glacier Peak High School in Snohomish, Washington, on March 12. Beginning the following day, schools in the Snohomish school district planned to be closed through April 24.
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An Uber Eats delivery biker stands at a deserted Piazza di Spagna in Rome.
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People at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, watch a live broadcast of US President Donald Trump on March 12. Trump announced that, in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, he would
sharply restrict travel
from more than two dozen European countries.
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Workers in protective suits disinfect Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace on March 11.
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A person wearing a face mask walks outside of a shopping mall in Beijing on March 11.
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Police officers restrain the relative of an inmate outside the Sant'Anna jail in Modena, Italy, on March 9.
Riots broke out
in several Italian jails after visits were suspended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
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Medical staff in Wuhan, China, celebrate after all coronavirus patients were discharged from a temporary hospital on March 9.
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 9.
Stocks plummeted
as coronavirus worries and an oil price race to the bottom weighed on global financial markets.
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Rescuers search for victims at the site of a
collapsed hotel
in Quanzhou, China, on March 8. The hotel was being used as a coronavirus quarantine center.
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The Grand Princess cruise ship, carrying at least 21 people who tested positive for coronavirus, is seen off the coast of San Francisco on March 8.
The ship was being held at sea.
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Sumo wrestlers attend a tournament in Osaka, Japan, that was being held behind closed doors because of the coronavirus outbreak.
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A couple rides a bicycle at a park in Seoul, South Korea, on March 7.
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A volunteer from Blue Sky Rescue uses fumigation equipment to disinfect a residential compound in Beijing on March 5.
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Airmen from the California National Guard drop coronavirus testing kits down to the
Grand Princess cruise ship
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Municipal workers are seen at the Kaaba, inside Mecca's Grand Mosque. Saudi Arabia emptied Islam's holiest site for sterilization over coronavirus fears, an unprecedented move after the kingdom suspended the year-round Umrah pilgrimage.
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Passengers react as a worker wearing a protective suit disinfects the departure area of a railway station in Hefei, China, on March 4.
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Teachers at the Nagoya International School in Japan conduct an online class for students staying at home as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus.
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Soldiers spray disinfectant throughout a shopping street in Seoul.
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A Muslim worshipper attends a mass prayer against coronavirus in Dakar, Senegal, on March 4. It was after cases were confirmed in the country.
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People wear face masks in New York's Times Square on March 3. New York reported its first case of coronavirus two days earlier.
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A security guard stands on the Shibuya Sky observation deck in Tokyo on March 3.
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US President Donald Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, speaks during a meeting with pharmaceutical executives and the White House coronavirus task force on March 2. Throughout
the meeting,
Trump was hyperfocused on pressing industry leaders in the room for a timeline for a coronavirus vaccine and treatment. But experts at the table -- from the administration and the pharmaceutical industry -- repeatedly emphasized that a vaccine can't be rushed to market before it's been declared safe for the public.
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Medical staff stand outside a hospital in Daegu, South Korea, on March 1.
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Healthcare workers transfer a patient at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, on March 1. The long-term care facility is linked to confirmed coronavirus cases.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits a London laboratory of the Public Health England National Infection Service.
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Tomoyuki Sugano, a professional baseball player on the Yomiuri Giants, throws a pitch in an empty Tokyo Dome during a preseason game on February 29. Fans have been barred from preseason games to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
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Commuters wearing masks make their way to work during morning rush hour at the Shinagawa train station in Tokyo on February 28.
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Medical staff transport a coronavirus patient within the Red Cross hospital in Wuhan on February 28.
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Inter Milan plays Ludogorets in an empty soccer stadium in Milan, Italy, on February 27. The match
was ordered to be played behind closed doors
as Italian authorities continue to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.
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A bank clerk disinfects banknotes in China's Sichuan province on February 26.
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A child wearing a protective face mask rides on a scooter in an empty area in Beijing.
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A Catholic devotee wears a face mask as he is sprinkled with ash during Ash Wednesday services in Paranaque, Philippines, on February 26.
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People disinfect Qom's Masumeh shrine in Tehran, Iran, on February 25.
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A worker in Daegu stacks plastic buckets containing medical waste from coronavirus patients on February 24.
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Paramedics carry a stretcher off an ambulance in Hong Kong on February 23.
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People attend a professional soccer match in Kobe, Japan, on February 23. To help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, the soccer club Vissel Kobe
told fans not to sing, chant or wave flags
in the season opener against Yokohama FC.
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A team of volunteers disinfects a pedestrian bridge in Bangkok, Thailand.
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A man rides his bike in Beijing on February 23.
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Hospital personnel in Codogno, Italy, carry new beds inside the hospital on February 21. The hospital is hosting some people who have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus.
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Doctors look at a CT scan of a lung at a hospital in Xiaogan, China, on February 20.
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A sales clerk wears a mask as she waits for customers at a hat shop in Beijing on February 18.
Small companies that help drive China's economy
are worried about how much damage
the coronavirus outbreak will cause to business.
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Buses carrying American passengers arrive at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo on February 17. The passengers
were leaving the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship
to be repatriated to the United States.
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A medical worker rests at the isolation ward of the Red Cross hospital in Wuhan on February 16.
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Authorities watch as the Westerdam cruise ship approaches a port in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on February 13. Despite having no confirmed cases of coronavirus on board, the Westerdam was refused port by four other Asian countries before being allowed to dock in Cambodia.
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A worker has his temperature checked on a shuttered commercial street in Beijing on February 12.
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Beds are made in the Wuhan Sports Center, which has been converted into a temporary hospital.
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A child rides a scooter past a police officer wearing protective gear outside the Hong Mei House in Hong Kong on February 11. More than 100 people evacuated the housing block after four residents in two different apartments tested positive for the coronavirus.
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Relatives of quarantined passengers wave at the Diamond Princess cruise ship as it leaves a port in Yokohama, Japan, to dump wastewater and generate potable water. Dozens of people on the ship
were infected with coronavirus.
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The Deneway branch of the County Oak Medical Centre is closed amid coronavirus fears in Brighton, England, on February 11. Several locations in and around Brighton were quarantined after
a man linked to several coronavirus cases in the United Kingdom
came into contact with health-care workers and members of the public.
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A police officer, left, wears protective gear as he guards a cordon at the Hong Mei House in Hong Kong on February 11.
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A worker wears a protective suit as he waits to screen people entering an office building in Beijing on February 10. China's workforce is
slowly coming back to work
after the coronavirus outbreak forced many parts of the country to extend the Lunar New Year holiday by more than a week.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping has his temperature checked during an appearance in Beijing on February 10.
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Photojournalists wearing face masks take photos of a bus carrying passengers after they disembarked from the World Dream cruise ship in Hong Kong on February 9.
More than 5,300 people were quarantined on two cruise ships
off Hong Kong and Japan.
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People participating in a Lunar New Year Parade in New York City hold signs reading, `` Wuhan stay strong! '' on February 9.
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A shopper walks past empty shelves at a grocery store in Hong Kong on February 9. China's Ministry of Commerce
encouraged supermarkets and grocery stores
to resume operations as the country's voluntary or mandatory quarantines began to take an economic toll.
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A worker wearing a protective suit uses a machine to disinfect a business establishment in Shanghai, China, on February 9.
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Workers in protective gear walk near the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama on February 7.
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People in Hong Kong attend a vigil February 7 for
whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang.
Li, 34, died in Wuhan after contracting the virus while treating a patient.
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A woman grieves while paying tribute to Li at Li's hospital in Wuhan on February 7.
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The Anthem of the Seas cruise ship is seen docked at the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey, on February 7. Passengers were to be screened for coronavirus as a precaution, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN.
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A light installation is displayed by striking members of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance and other activists at the Hospital Authority building in Hong Kong on February 7.
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Passengers are seen on the deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked at the Yokohama Port on February 7.
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Flight attendants wearing face masks make their way through Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok on February 7.
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Workers check sterile medical gloves at a latex-product manufacturer in Nanjing, China, on February 6.
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A woman wears a protective mask as she shops in a Beijing market on February 6.
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This aerial photo shows the Leishenshan Hospital that is being built in Wuhan to handle coronavirus patients.
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A passenger shows a note from the World Dream cruise ship docked at the Kai Tak cruise terminal in Hong Kong on February 5.
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A mask is seen on a statue in Beijing on February 5.
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An ambulance stops at a traffic light in front of the Grand Lisboa Hotel in Macao. The virus turned China's gambling mecca
into a ghost town.
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A dog in Beijing wears a makeshift mask constructed from a paper cup.
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Striking hospital workers in Hong Kong demand the closure of the border with mainland China on February 4.
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The Diamond Princess cruise ship sits anchored in quarantine off the port of Yokohama on February 4. It arrived a day earlier with passengers feeling ill.
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A medical worker wearing protective gear waits to take the temperature of people entering Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong on February 4.
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Medical workers in protective suits help transfer patients to a newly completed field hospital in Wuhan.
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People wearing protective overalls talk outside a Wuhan hotel housing people in isolation on February 3.
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A man stands in front of TV screens broadcasting a speech by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on February 3. Lam said the city would shut almost all border-control points to the mainland.
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A colleague sprays disinfectant on a doctor in Wuhan on February 3.
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Commuters in Tokyo walk past an electric board displaying dismal stock prices on February 3, the first business day after the Chinese New Year. Asia's markets recorded their
worst day in years
as investors finally got a chance to react to the worsening coronavirus outbreak.
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Medical workers move a coronavirus patient into an isolation ward at the Second People's Hospital in Fuyang, China, on February 1.
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Children wear plastic bottles as makeshift masks while waiting to check in to a flight at the Beijing Capital Airport on January 30.
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Passengers in Hong Kong wear protective masks as they wait to board a train at Lo Wu Station, near the mainland border, on January 30.
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A volunteer wearing protective clothing disinfects a street in Qingdao, China, on January 29.
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Nanning residents line up to buy face masks from a medical appliance store on January 29.
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Lyu Jun, left, a member of a medical team leaving for Wuhan, says goodbye to a loved one in Urumqi, China, on January 28.
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A charter flight from Wuhan arrives at an airport in Anchorage, Alaska, on January 28. The US government chartered the plane to bring home US citizens and diplomats from the American consulate in Wuhan.
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in wears a mask to inspect the National Medical Center in Seoul on January 28.
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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, center, attends a news conference in Hong Kong on January 28. Lam said China will stop individual travelers to Hong Kong while closing some border checkpoints and restricting flights and train services from the mainland.
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Workers at an airport in Novosibirsk, Russia, check the temperatures of passengers who arrived from Beijing on January 28.
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Alex Azar, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, speaks during a news conference about the American public-health response.
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Two residents walk in an empty park in Wuhan on January 27. The city remained on lockdown for a fourth day.
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A person wears a protective mask, goggles and coat as he stands in a nearly empty street in Beijing on January 26.
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Medical staff members bring a patient to the Wuhan Red Cross hospital on January 25.
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People wear protective masks as they walk under Lunar New Year decorations in Beijing on January 25.
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Construction workers in Wuhan begin to work on a special hospital to deal with the outbreak on January 24.
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Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, speaks to reporters on January 24 about
a patient in Chicago
who had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. The patient was the second in the United States to be diagnosed with the illness.
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A couple kisses goodbye as they travel for the Lunar New Year holiday in Beijing on January 24.
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Workers manufacture protective face masks at a factory in China's Hubei Province on January 23.
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Shoppers wear masks in a Wuhan market on January 23.
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Passengers are checked by a thermography device at an airport in Osaka, Japan, on January 23.
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People wear masks while shopping for vegetables in Wuhan on January 23.
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A militia member checks the body temperature of a driver in Wuhan on January 23.
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Passengers wear masks as they arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Philippines, on January 23.
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A customer holds boxes of particulate respirators at a pharmacy in Hong Kong on January 23.
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Passengers wear masks at the high-speed train station in Hong Kong on January 23.
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A woman rides an electric bicycle in Wuhan on January 22.
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People in Guangzhou, China, wear protective masks on January 22.
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People go through a checkpoint in Guangzhou on January 22.
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Medical staff of Wuhan's Union Hospital attend a gathering on January 22.
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Health officials hold a news conference in Beijing on January 22.
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All major cities in Hubei province were under lockdown, affecting more than 62 million people.
Huanggang -- a city of 7.5 million in Hubei province -- is only allowing one representative from each household to leave their home every other day to go out for grocery shopping in order to minimize the flow of people in the city.
The unprecedented decision to shut down entire cities comes as the country faces a shortage of medical supplies. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has even asked the European Union to help China procure medical supplies, according to a Chinese government statement.
Patients and medical staff have also told CNN of
delays in testing for the virus
, raising concerns that the outbreak in China may be worse than is reported.
CNN's Yong Xiong and Steven Jiang in Beijing; Carly Walsh in Hong Kong and Ivana Kottasovaá in London contributed reporting. | general |
I’ m the Guardian’ s new readers’ editor, and I welcome your views | As I write this first column in my third week as the fifth Guardian readers’ editor, I am still in learning mode. It would be disingenuous to say I arrive as an outsider; I am a former managing editor who has spent half her adult life working on the Guardian, Guardian Weekly or Observer. But in 2013 I left and, until I returned for my interview last autumn, had crossed the threshold only twice and briefly. As a reader I found the journalism indispensable, but as a journalist I had lost track of exactly how it was made.
Seven years is a long time in the life of a news organisation in the 21st century. I’ m only slightly embarrassed to say I needed a diagram to see how all the moving parts fit together in 2020. Guardian journalism happens every minute of every day, over at least a dozen platforms, from its publishing centres in London, New York and Sydney.
As well as the website ( with four editions), three print titles and three apps, there are podcasts, documentaries and social-media feeds. From Instagram posts to the long read, from Today in Focus to a video explainer such as Sarah Boseley’ s on coronavirus that has been watched more than 7m times in the past 10 days, the “ readers’ ” editor is clearly here for listeners and viewers too.
Our desk also handles corrections, and feedback, and promotes your voice to editors
What doesn’ t change are the values, and what shouldn’ t change are high standards. It hardly needs spelling out how much trust in news matters – a commitment to accuracy, fairness and accountability is owed to those who read it and those who are written about. Public admission of errors may not be pleasant for those behind them ( I still burn hot over slips I have made), but ultimately it assists rather than hinders good journalism.
As readers’ editor I report directly to the Scott Trust rather than the editor-in-chief, so that I can consider comments, concerns and complaints from a position of independence. I sit physically in an office just off the London newsroom, but figuratively I sit halfway between you ( wherever you are in the world) and the journalism. My priority must be complaints under Guardian News & Media’ s editorial code – an updated version of which is in progress – but our desk also handles corrections, and feedback, and promotes your voice to editors.
I am also learning that the vast majority of emails, letters and phone calls ( about 32,000 a year) are from people being helpful in picking up small mistakes, or sincere in raising a serious concern. Sometimes a writer also appears in the inbox to report, unprompted, an inaccuracy in their own work. That is the system working.
As I begin, I make five pledges:
1. I start from a position that all complaints are made in good faith – and equally that no journalist comes to work to mislead or mistreat readers
2. All reader feedback will be read and considered, even if the volume prevents a personal reply to each individual
3. I will seek new ways to honour the “ open door ” ethos for the benefit of readers
4. I will welcome your ideas for topics in this column
5. This is the last time I’ ll write about myself.
• Elisabeth Ribbans is the Guardian’ s readers’ editor | general |
Blockchain technology used to monitor air pollution | Hi, what are you looking for?
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For the new service, PlanetWatch will develop its digital ledger for air pollution assessment with the company Algorand blockchain, combing the blockchin with Internet-of-Things technologies, as the website Smart2Zero reports. The companies will work with the European research organization CERN, using the European Union’ s Control and Monitoring Platform ( C2MON) to assist with data gathering and analytics.
With the partnership, PlanetWatch will collect and hold data produced from air quality sensors. The sensors will be laced in residential or businesses locations, or carried, by environmentally conscious people, helping to create an eco-network. The data will be uploaded to the Algorand blockchain. Once the ecosystem is established, each contributor will be awarded a Planet token.
The aim is to improve the accuracy and reliability of climate data, with data grouped into different grids to make the analysis process easier. A flaw with some air quality monitoring is a lack of no real-time data. This, in turn, means that pollution peaks detection can be missed. Furthermore, the ability to issue warnings about high air pollution is weakened. By high air pollution, the World Health Organization uses two measures: particulate matter of less than 10 and 2.5 microns in diameter ( commonly coded as PM10 and PM2.5 respectively).
Some demographic groups are especially vulnerable to air pollution, including children, the elderly, and people who have heart or lung disease conditions. Early warnings of high air pollution days can prompt vulnerable people to take different measures, such as staying indoors.
Commenting on the new scheme, W. Sean Ford, Chief Operating Officer at Algorand says: “ The eco-friendliness of the Algorand network makes for a natural partnership with PlanetWatch to help global populations access transparent, reliable information about air quality in their locations. ”
Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.
There are two confirmed cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Ottawa, the Ontario government announced Sunday.
Drug and alcohol addiction treatment experts blame treatment services closing their doors to addicts during the pandemic.
Donald Trump, pictured in his final days in office, is the first president since Herbert Hoover nearly a century ago to lose the House,...
Dubai, a former pearling town and now a brash trade and financial centre, boasts a forest of skyscrapers including the 830-metre Burj Khalifa.
COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2021 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
CORRECTED-UPDATE 2-Vietnam bans all flights to and from China over coronavirus | coronavirus @ ( Corrects first name of the head of the Taiwan Foreign Ministry's Europe department in paragraph 9)
HANOI, Feb 1 ( Reuters) - Vietnam declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus epidemic on Saturday and said it would halt all flights to and from China.
The government said it would also stop issuing visas for foreign visitors who had been in China in the past two weeks.
All permits granted for flights between Vietnam and China, including Hong Kong and Macau as well as self-ruled Taiwan which China claims as its territory, have been revoked until further notice, the government said in a statement.
But Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a later statement that it had spoken to the Vietnamese government and had the ban on flights to the island lifted.
Taiwan's largest carrier, China Airlines, also said flights had returned to normal after it was forced to cancel a service to Hanoi on Saturday.
Vietnam's civil aviation authority confirmed that carriers could still operate flights to Taiwan, but flights to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau were still suspended.
Taiwan is a major investor in Vietnam, investing some $ 32 billion in the past three decades.
Taiwan is also upset that Italy has canceled flights by China Airlines between Taipei and Rome as part of Italy's ban on flights from China, though China Airlines will be allowed to carry back stranded passengers on Monday.
Johnson Chiang, head of the Taiwan Foreign Ministry's Europe department, told reporters in Taipei that was because the World Health Organization, which follows Beijing's guidance and considers Taiwan part of China, had included the island in its warnings about the extent of the virus in China. Taiwan has only reported 10 cases of the virus, compared to almost 12,000 in China, including 259 deaths.
Budget carrier Vietjet Air and the national firm, Vietnam Airlines, earlier said they would suspend all flights to and from China from Feb. 1. ( Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Additional reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard in Taiwan; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Nick Macfie) | business |
Apple to close all its stores in mainland China through Feb. 9 | Hi, what are you looking for?
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The coronavirus There is a map showing location and number of cases to the end of January. There have been almost 15,000 confirmed cases and 305 deaths. Also, over 300 people are already recovered from the illness. The majority of the illnesses are in mainland China but there are cases in almost two dozen other countries. So far there as only be one death outside of China, a Chinese man in the Philippines. It is not surprising that Apple is being cautious and closing facilities in mainland China.
Apple told CNN: “ Out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts, we’ re closing all our corporate offices, stores and contact centers in mainland China through February 9. We will continue to closely monitor the situation and we look forward to reopening our stores as soon as possible. ”
Tim Cook, the Apple Chief Executive Office ( CEO) said that Apple had been regularly deep cleaning stores in China during this week and temperature checks had been taken on all employees to detect any symptoms of infection. He said that decline in traffic and now closures of stores would negatively impact Apples sales of which about 15 percent are in China.
Coronavirus outbreak declared a global public health emergency
There is a Center for Disease Control ( CDC) mandatory quarantine the first in half a century. Foreign nationals returning from China are banned. Many US airlines are suspending all flights to China. Last Friday Delta, American, and United Airlines all suspended flights to mainland China. Airlines in some other countries are following suit.
Some Apple factories run by Foxconn still open
As of Tuesday Foxconn had said that it was operating on a holiday schedule and it did not not anticipate any reduction in production. Apple says its online store also will remain open. Nintendo has said that the effects of the coronavirus has aleady impacted production of its Nintendo Switch game console.
A reportedly indestructible steel box, roughly the size of a city bus will digitally collect and store climate-related conversations, data, artifacts.
China’ s tantrums on every possible subject are becoming a bore. The Chinese rage over diplomatic boycotts of the Olympics is no exception.
The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever built, is finally set for launch in late December.
Nations need domestic capacity to produce trustworthy baseboard-level electronics for use in high-security settings.
COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2021 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
Op-Ed: Trump jumps right into the middle of Super Bowl LIV via Twitter | Hi, what are you looking for?
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Trump advertised his pre-taped Super Bowl Interview with Fox News Channel’ s Sean Hannity, which aired on Fox hours before sports’ biggest night of the year. The only thing wrong with that is he didn’ t actually talk about the Super Bowl.
But with prompting by Hannity, those watching got an earful of the same trash-talk Trump is famous for putting out there, all of it directed to the Democrats, and that is sad. Trump is working hard at keeping this country divided, and I wonder sometimes if he even has time to rule, between Twitter storms and playing golf.
Now personally, I have never bet on the Super Bowl – even the often silly bets that are set up in offices or with friends and family. You know the kind of bets I mean – Like who will score the first touchdown or what color Gatorade will the winning head coach be drenched in?
The New York Daily News has a few more suggestions for losing your money quickly with prop bets.
Will Andy Reid Coach The Super Bowl In A Hawaiian Shirt? I have no inside information on this one, but he could. After all, it is warm in Miami and the Chiefs, all of them, did wear Hawaiian shirts on the plane down to Florida, so I heard.
Will A Fan Run Onto The Field During The Game? If anyone does run onto the field, they better wait until halftime. I wouldn’ t want to come up against a defensive lineman. And besides, unless you have a particular reason for being arrested, it just isn’ t worth the risk.
Total Donald Trump Tweets On February 2 Now, you notice the bet says “ on February 2. ” not just during the Super Bowl. This looks to be the most talked-about bet of them all. Trump is addicted to Twitter and just can’ t leave his smartphone alone for even a minute.
You can bet Trump will do one of two things – Either Tweet a congratulatory message to the winning team, or regale us with some more claims on how he is the most persecuted president in U.S. History.
About the only thing the president is expected to do this afternoon, according to the Associated Press, is host a Super Bowl watch party.
Karen Graham is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for environmental news. Karen's view of what is happening in our world is colored by her love of history and how the past influences events taking place today. Her belief in man's part in the care of the planet and our environment has led her to focus on the need for action in dealing with climate change. It was said by Geoffrey C. Ward, `` Journalism is merely history's first draft. '' Everyone who writes about what is happening today is indeed, writing a small part of our history.
There are two confirmed cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Ottawa, the Ontario government announced Sunday.
Sweden's first female prime minister Magdalena Andersson, leader of the minority Social Democrats, was reappointed on Monday.
Scammers are using a technique called “ like-farming, ” where they ask you to like or comment on their post for a chance to win a...
Aerial view from a helicopter of a group of Burchell's plains zebras ( Equus quagga burchellii), Okavango Delta, Botswana. Source - Diego Deiso. CC SA...
COPYRIGHT © 1998 - 2021 DIGITAL JOURNAL INC. Digital Journal is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more about our external linking. | general |
Travel bans in virus-hit China jeopardise auditing deadlines | The restrictions come just as accountants enter their busiest period of the year when the majority of companies are due to file full-year accounts.
A delay in filings could hit companies ' ability to raise funds if they can not show would-be investors and lenders up-to-date numbers. Reduced confidence could also impact share prices.
`` This is a real problem. If things get worse, both companies and auditors will have a hard time getting done on time, '' said Paul Gillis, a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management.
Accounting firms are in talks with China's securities regulator over difficulties they are having meeting the April-end deadline for Shanghai-listed companies to announce their results, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The people declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak publicly about the matter.
Similar lobbying efforts are underway in Hong Kong, where companies must publish their results by March 31, but where the regulator - the Securities and Futures Commission ( SFC) - has high standards on allowing an extension because of the importance of fresh information for fair trading conditions.
`` Normally it is quite a challenging reporting timeline. With the coronavirus happening at such an unfortunate time, we are facing almost an impossible task because of the travel restrictions, '' said Clement Chan, managing director in the assurance practice at BDO partners.
Chan said the problem was compounded because many staff in companies ' in-house finance teams were unable to travel back to their city of work after visiting their families for the Lunar New Year holiday.
A total of 1,241 mainland-headquartered companies were listed on the stock exchange of Hong Kong at the end of December, and many other Hong Kong-listed companies have substantial operations on the mainland.
`` It is the SFC's view that an issuer would need to demonstrate specific, practical impediments, which are not capable of resolution, to justify any delay, '' a spokesman for the regulator said.
The Hong Kong stock exchange was `` closely monitoring developments, '' a bourse spokesman said.
Year-end audits involve a large degree of field-work, where auditors visit sites to check figures. While much of the work will have been done before year-end, visits now are needed to finalise details.
`` You need to sit next to them and make them give you that detailed excel spreadsheet otherwise they don't respond, '' an employee at one of the so-called Big Four auditors told Reuters.
`` You also need to randomly check the stock, for example if you're counting female pigs you actually need to go and check that they're female, '' the person said.
The flu-like virus, originating in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has resulted in 361 deaths on the mainland, local health authorities said.
Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province are in virtual quarantine, travel restrictions have been imposed across China, and the Lunar New Year public holiday has been extended to keep people at home and help stop the virus spreading.
By Engen Tham and Alun John | business |
Virus restrictions hit Australia AFC Champions League games | Hi, what are you looking for?
By
Published
The AFC Champions League was thrown into further chaos Sunday with Australia advising fixtures due to be held in Perth and Sydney can no longer take place due to travel restrictions over the deadly coronavirus.
It follows the government on Saturday announcing that non-citizens arriving from mainland China would be barred from entering the country under measures to combat the spread of the epidemic.
Perth Glory were due to host Shanghai Shenhua on February 11 and Sydney FC face Shanghai SIPG a day later.
Football Federation Australia said it had told the Asian Football Confederation that `` it will now not be possible to play matchday one in Australia as originally scheduled ''.
Last week, home games for Chinese clubs in the AFC Champions League during February and March were rescheduled, and will now be played as away fixtures instead.
FFA said the AFC had called an urgent meeting for Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the situation with all stakeholders.
Australian officials have confirmed 12 cases of coronavirus in the country so far.
The AFC Champions League was thrown into further chaos Sunday with Australia advising fixtures due to be held in Perth and Sydney can no longer take place due to travel restrictions over the deadly coronavirus.
It follows the government on Saturday announcing that non-citizens arriving from mainland China would be barred from entering the country under measures to combat the spread of the epidemic.
Perth Glory were due to host Shanghai Shenhua on February 11 and Sydney FC face Shanghai SIPG a day later.
Football Federation Australia said it had told the Asian Football Confederation that “ it will now not be possible to play matchday one in Australia as originally scheduled ”.
Last week, home games for Chinese clubs in the AFC Champions League during February and March were rescheduled, and will now be played as away fixtures instead.
FFA said the AFC had called an urgent meeting for Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the situation with all stakeholders.
Australian officials have confirmed 12 cases of coronavirus in the country so far.
With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
Semi trucks drive along Interstate 70 near Booneville, Missouri on Nov. 1, 2011. KOMUnews/Anna Burkart. CC SA 2.0.Hundreds of B.C. truckers took to the...
The prospects for peace in Ukraine are tenuous, with warnings of a huge Russian troop build-up on the edges of a separatist-held territory.
At Acumatica Summit 2022, the cloud ERP leader announced updates to its future-proof platform and new paths toward success.
Several thousand people chanted “ no more mandates ” while marching in Washington D.C. Sunday afternoon in protest of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and vaccine passports.
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Week's must-read seafood news: Coronavirus chaos, ex-Icicle CEO returns, Nutreco backs RAS, Sealord deeper in salmon farming | With the coronavirus global health emergency dominating the headlines. Here's a chance to catch up on that and the biggest stories you may have missed. | general |
Twitter bans financial site Zero Hedge over false coronavirus claims | It's not just Facebook and Google fighting false coronavirus information. Twitter has permanently banned financial site and conspiracy promoter Zero Hedge after it shared a story that not only made unsubstantiated claims that a Wuhan-based scientist created the new coronavirus as a weapon, but doxxed the researcher by publishing a name, photo, email and phone number. As BuzzFeed News discovered, Zero Hedge had suggested that readers `` probably pay [ the scientist ] a visit '' -- a thinly-veiled threat of violence.
In a statement, Twitter said only that it had banned Zero Hedge for violating the social network's `` platform manipulation policy. '' However, Zero Hedge said it had received a notice on Friday that it was violating Twitter policies against `` abuse and harassment. '' Twitter had warned in late January that it would ban accounts involved in `` coordinated attempts '' to spread coronavirus misinformation.
The ban doesn't completely cut off Zero Hedge's social channels ( it's still on Facebook as we write this), but it does significantly limit the site's ability to disseminate stories when it had roughly 670,000 followers. The incident illustrates the risks sites take when they use mainstream social networks to spread conspiracies and make threats. While they might reach the largest potential audiences, it doesn't take much these days for social media sites to crack down on large-scale abusers and erase their presence in an instant. | tech |
Red Star Macalline: VOLUNTARY ANNOUNCEMENT ON EXEMPTING TENANTS IN PORTFOLIO SHOPPING MALLS FROM ONE-MONTH RENT AND MANAGEMENT FEE | Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.
Red Star Macalline Group Corporation Ltd.
紅星美凱龍家居集團股份有限公司
( A sino-foreign joint stock company incorporated in the People's Republic of China with limited liability)
( Stock Code: 1528)
VOLUNTARY ANNOUNCEMENT
ON
EXEMPTING TENANTS IN PORTFOLIO SHOPPING MALLS
FROM ONE-MONTH RENT AND MANAGEMENT FEE
This is a voluntary announcement made by Red Star Macalline Group Corporation Ltd. ( the `` Company '').
The board of directors ( the `` Board '') and all directors of the Company confirm that there are no false representations, misleading statements, or material omissions in this announcement, and they shall individually and collectively accept full responsibility for the truthfulness, accuracy and completeness of contents herein.
On 29 January 2020, the Company received a proposal from Mr. CHE Jianxing, the Chairman of the Board, to convene an extraordinary Board meeting to consider the resolution on the matters in relation to the exemption of relevant qualified tenants in Portfolio Shopping Malls from one-month rent and management fee.
In order to undertake the social responsibilities actively and support the development of tenants, the relevant qualified tenants in the relevant Portfolio Shopping Malls as set out in the Appendix to this announcement will be exempted from the rent and the management fee for a month of the year 2020 by the Company ( hereinafter referred to as the `` Rent-freeArrangement '') to facilitate their smooth operation under this novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic.
1
The main contents of the Rent-free Arrangement are as follows:
2
On 1 February 2020, the Company convened the third extraordinary meeting of the fourth session of the Board, which considered and approved the Resolution on the Matters in relation to
the Exemption of Tenants in Portfolio Shopping Malls from One-monthRent and Management Fee ( 《關於免除自營商場商戶一個月租金及管理費相關事宜的議案》), and approved the
Rent-free Arrangement and the authorization to the general manager and the person ( s) authorized by the general manager to handle the matters in relation to the Rent-free Arrangement at their absolute discretion within the scope of relevant laws and regulations. The Rent-free Arrangement falls within the scope of authority of the Board of the Company and need not be submitted to the shareholders ' general meeting of the Company for consideration pursuant to the relevant provisions of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Listing Rules and the Articles of Association.
3
Notice hereby is given.
By Order of the Board
Red Star Macalline Group Corporation Ltd.
GUO Binghe
Vice Chairman
Shanghai, the PRC
2 February 2020
This announcement is prepared in both Chinese and English versions. In case of inconsistency, the Chinese version shall prevail.
As at the date of this announcement, the executive Directors of the Company are CHE Jianxing, GUO Binghe, CHE Jianfang and JIANG Xiaozhong; the non-executive Directors are CHEN Shuhong, XU Guofeng, JING Jie and XU Hong; and the independent non-executive Directors are QIAN Shizheng, LEE Kwan Hung, Eddie, WANG Xiao and ZHAO Chongyi.
4
Appendix: Portfolio Shopping Malls Involved in the Rent-free Arrangement
1
Baotou High-tech
46
Shenyang Tiexi
2
Beijing North Fourth-ring
47
Shenyang Tiexi Phase II
3
Beijing North Fifth-ring
48
Shiyan Zhejiang Road
4
Beijing East Fourth-ring
49
Suzhou Mudu
5
Beijing West Fourth-ring
50
Suzhou Park
6
Changzhou Feilong
51
Taiyuan Changfeng
7
Changzhou Wujin
52
Tangshan Times
8
Changzhou Decoration Mall
53
Tianjin Beichen
9
Chengdu Jiannan Avenue
54
Tianjin Binhai
10
Chengdu Shuangnan
55
Tianjin Dongli
11
Chengdu Wuhou
56
Tianjin Hedong
12
Dalian Huanan
57
Weihai Economic Zone
13
Daqing Expo
58
Weifang Hanting
14
Datong Dongxin
59
Weifang Zhenhua
15
Dongguan Wanjiang
60
Urumqi Convention and Exhibition
16
Harbin Songbei
61
Wuxi Binhu
17
Harbin Xikezhan
62
Wuxi Xishan
18
Hangzhou Gudun
63
Wuhan Etouwan
19
Hefei Silihe
64
Wuhan Hanyang
20
Langfang Kaihong
65
Xining Shibo
21
Hengyang Yanfeng
66
Xilinhot
22
Hohhot Yuquan
67
Yantai Phase II
23
Jinan Tianqiao
68
Yangzhou Runyang Light Building Materials Mall
24
Lanzhou Yantan
69
Yangquan Xinqu
25
Panjin Xinglong
70
Yichang Xiling
26
Liuzhou Ogloria
71
Kunming Guangfu Road
27
Nanchang Honggu Tan
72
Yunnan Qujing
28
Nanchang Xianghu
73
Changchun Yuanda
29
Nanjing Mingdu
74
Changsha Shaoshan
30
Nanjing European City
75
Changsha Yuelu
31
Nanjing Pukou
76
Zhengzhou Shangdu
32
Nantong Saige
77
Zhongshan Gangkou
33
Ningbo Yinzhou
78
Chongqing Chayuan
34
Shanghai Jinqiao
79
Chongqing Erlang
35
Shanghai Jinshan
80
Chongqing Jiangbei
36
Shanghai Pudong Hu'nan
81
Chongqing Nanping
37
Shanghai Pujiang
82
Chongqing Yongchuan
Note: The name of the above shopping malls are the same as those referred to in the Company's announcements on operating statistics.
5
Attachments
Disclaimer
Red Star Macalline Group Corp. Ltd. published this content on 02 February 2020 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 02 February 2020 10:49:04 UTC | business |
Macau casino revenue drops 11.3 percent in Jan as coronavirus worries mount | January's figure of 22.1 billion patacas ( $ 2.76 billion) was worse than analyst expectations of a drop of around 2 percent - estimates that were made prior to the implementation of visitor restrictions last week.
Some analysts forecast a decline of at least 30% for as long as visiting restrictions are in place.
Transport links with mainland China have been curtailed, with dozens of flights and ferry services cancelled. The local government has also extended the Lunar New Year break to the end of the week, keeping banks and businesses closed as the death toll from the virus outbreak topped 250 and hundreds of new cases were confirmed.
( Reporting by Farah Master) | business |
AirAsia shares plunge after Airbus bribery allegations | AirAsia shares fell as much as 11% to 1.27 ringgit - their lowest since May 2016 - while those of AirAsia X tanked 12% to their all-time low of 11.5 Malaysian sen.
Malaysia's anti-graft agency is investigating the allegations from Britain. AirAsia has said it never made any purchase decisions that were premised on Airbus sponsorship, and that it would fully cooperate with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission ( MACC).
Malaysia's Securities Commission said on Sunday it would also examine whether AirAsia broke securities laws.
The allegations were revealed on Friday as part of a record $ 4 billion settlement Airbus agreed with France, Britain and the United States. Prosecutors said the company had bribed public officials and hidden payments as part of a pattern of worldwide corruption.
Airbus said at the weekend it would not comment on the Malaysian investigations.
Analysts said the accusation against AirAsia comes at a particularly bad time as airlines grapple with a slowdown in business because of the fast-spreading coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people in China and disrupted air travel.
`` Besides being embroiled in this corruption scandal, we expect a tough operating environment to persist over the medium term with maintenance cost remaining high... and concerns over the Wuhan virus outbreak which could derail propensity for air travel in the region, '' Malaysia's Kenanga Investment Bank wrote in a research note.
TA Securities downgraded AirAsia Group stock to `` sell '' from `` buy ''.
`` We choose the'sell first, ask questions later ' approach to avoid the uncertainty in association with the corruption investigation by MACC, where the impact on AirAsia could be significant in terms of corporate governance, '' it said in a note.
( Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Christopher Cushing) | business |
TSA issues new directive for anyone entering the US from China as coronavirus spreads |
The Transportation Security Administration ( TSA)
issued a new directive effective Sunday
requiring airlines to ask passengers on flights from outside the United States if they 've been to mainland China in the past 14 days.
This is where Wuhan coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide
The directive comes as the Wuhan coronavirus, which was first detected in China in December, continues to spread around the world. The virus
has killed 304 people in mainland China
, one man in the
Philippines
and infected more than 14,000 in over 20 countries and territories.
In the United States,
an eighth case of coronavirus has been confirmed
-- a Boston college student in his 20s, health officials said Saturday.
Chinese nationals coming from China and connecting through another foreign airport will be denied travel, according to a person briefed on the new restrictions. Those with pre-clearance are exempted.
The TSA notified
airlines about the restrictions Saturday,
a day after the White House announced plans to set up
new travel rules
. The directive to both US and foreign airlines goes into effect at 5 p.m. ET Sunday.
Read More
`` Under these directives, non-US citizens who have been in China within 14 days of their planned travel will not be permitted to fly to the United States, '' TSA administrator David Pekoske said in an email directive sent to employees Saturday.
`` US citizens who have been in China within 14 days of their planned travel will be permitted to enter the country through one of seven airports -- Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta, and John F. Kennedy International airports -- where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the capability to conduct medical screening. This applies to travel from any airport with direct flights to the US, not just airports in China. ''
In addition to the directive, Pekoske said,
all frontline employees will be permitted
to wear surgical masks if they choose to do so.
The US declared coronavirus a public health emergency on Friday.
Once the declaration goes into effect at 5 pm ET Sunday, US citizens returning to the United States who 've been in China's Hubei province in the two weeks before their return will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine.
US citizens returning from the rest of mainland China in the two weeks prior will face a health screening. They will also get up to two weeks of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they pose no health risk.
`` I want to stress: the risk of infection for Americans remains low, '' Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. `` And with these and our previous actions, we're working to keep the risk low. ''
CNN's Austen Bundy contributed to this report | general |
TCL Electronics: Takes Active Measures against Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia | HONG KONG, Feb. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- TCL Electronics Holdings Limited ( `` TCL Electronics '' or `` the Company '', HKSE stock code: 01070.HK) has taken several active measures against the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus ( the `` Epidemic ''). Meanwhile, the Company assures that the global supplies and the business operations remain normal during the Epidemic.
On 26 January, TCL Electronics donated LCD displays to Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, Hubei Province for their need in the process of construction, and the Company sent off a special team for the installation. At the same time, the Company's subsidiary company Shenzhen Falcon Network Technology ( Falcon Network Technology), which is the Company's internet TV operating platform, sets up a coronavirus-themed channel on the homepage of the TCL TV and provides some popular paid contents to the public for free.
In addition, the Company puts the life safety and health of employees as the top priority and promptly carries out a series of measures, including: 1) implementing effective prevention and control, such as daily disinfection in factories, offices and dormitories, provision of sanitary supplies and isolated observation areas, strengthening health protection and monitoring of on-duty employees, and keeping a daily updated health record of homecoming employees; 2) establishing a multi-level working group to implement various prevention and provide necessary services; 3) strict control and checking on access and exit of personnel and vehicles; 4) the employees in Guangdong start working from home, remotely or online to ensure global business operations since 3 February. Most of the employees will resume work in office from 10 February; 5) postponing the resumption of work of employees from Hubei Province.
In response to the Epidemic, the Company spares no efforts to ensure its business developing smoothly. Overseas markets have become the engine of the Company's TV business. In 2019, sales volume of TCL brand TV in overseas markets accounted for more than 65% of the overall TCL brand TV sales volume. At present, the Company's overseas sales business are moving on as usual. Meanwhile, with factories in Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam, Poland, India, etc., the Company's total production capacity layout in overseas exceeds 15 million sets per year, which is sufficient to meet its shipment demand in the overseas markets.
For the PRC market, the Company has prepared inventory prior to the Chinese Lunar New Year, which can guarantee the supplies in the domestic market in the near future. In recent years, the Company keeps strengthening its online sales channels and increasing its e-commerce sales proportion of the total sales. Efforts have also been made to clearly define customer segments and develop new online customers. At present, its e-commerce business channels are rather mature, covering the official online mall, Suning, JD, and Tmall, and enough to meet customer demands. As for after-sales service, the Company has rolled out online self-service in response to the Epidemic, which provides customers with shopping guide services, such as upgrading discounts, purchasing large-screen products, etc.
For the Internet business, during the Chinese Lunar New Year, Falcon Network Technology particularly has launched a featured channel for the Spring Festival Gala, and more than 20 featured categories across movies, TV series, variety shows, cartoons for children, and documentaries, providing users with more high-quality films and television contents and continuously enhancing user experience. In addition, aligned with Tencent, Falcon Network Technology specially has provided 56 free-for-limited-time high-quality contents, to meet users ' demands during the Chinese Lunar New Year, which further enhances user loyalty and extends TV screen time. Meanwhile, such many activities as Warm-up for New Year Purchases, sending blessing cards, lucky draw, special designed programs are provided. These activities will be extended to the Lantern Festival to accommodate extension of the holiday. As of 31stJanuary 2020, the number of existing subscribers grew by 177.3% （1）compared to the same period in 2019.
（1）User data as of 31/1/2020 vs. 31/1/2019
About TCL ElectronicsHeadquartered in China, TCL Electronics Holdings Limited ( stock code: 01070.HK, incorporated in the Cayman Islands with limited liability) is one of the leading companies in the global TV industry engaging in the research and development, manufacturing and sales of consumer electronics products. Adopting a new business model oriented towards products and users and strategically focusing on `` smart technologies + Internet '' and `` products + services '', TCL Electronics is dedicated to becoming a globally leading smart technology Company and strives to build a comprehensive ecosystem for smart TVs, which provides users with smart and healthy living products and services. According to the latest Sigmaintell report, in the first three quarters of 2019, the Company ranked second in the global TV market in terms of its market share based on sales volume. TCL Electronics has been incorporated into the eligible stocks list of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect Scheme, Hang Seng Stock Connect Hong Kong Index, Hang Seng Composite MidCap & SmallCap Index and Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Benchmark Index. For more details, please visit the Company's website: http: //electronics.tcl.com.
View original content: http: //www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tcl-electronics-takes-active-measures-against-novel-coronavirus-pneumonia-300997351.html
SOURCE TCL Electronics Holdings Limited | business |
Haichang Ocean Park: VOLUNTARY ANNOUNCEMENT STATEMENT IN RELATION TO THE INFLUENCE OF NOVEL CORONAVIRUS PNEUMONIA EPIDEMIC ON BUSINESS | Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.
HAICHANG OCEAN PARK HOLDINGS LTD.
海昌海洋公園控股有限公司
( Incorporated in the Cayman Islands with limited liability)
( Stock Code: 2255)
VOLUNTARY ANNOUNCEMENT
STATEMENT IN RELATION TO THE INFLUENCE OF NOVEL CORONAVIRUS PNEUMONIA EPIDEMIC ON BUSINESS
This announcement is made by Haichang Ocean Park Holdings Ltd. ( the `` Company '', together with the subsidiaries, the `` Group '') on a voluntary basis, for the purpose of keeping the shareholders and potential investors of the Company informed of the latest business development of the Group.
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic ( the `` Epidemic ''), a number of provinces and municipalities in China have activated level I - the highest-level response to major public health emergencies and adopted various strict measures to curb the spread of the Epidemic. As part of our efforts to facilitate the prevention and containment of the Epidemic and ensure the health and safety of our employees and customers, the board of directors of the Company ( the `` Board '') has determined to suspend all projects of the Company ( including self-operated projects in the asset-light sector) since 24 January 2020, which shall be resumed according to the results of the prevention and containment of the Epidemic and requirements of the government.
The Company has initiated the corporate prevention and containment contingency plan against the Epidemic by closely tracking the health status of its employees. As of the date of this announcement, no reports on confirmed cases have been received. No polar or marine animals of the Company have been affected by the Epidemic, and animal health and conservation work has been carried out normally; facilities and equipment of all parks have been in good condition. Meanwhile, the Company has actively carried out various safety protection work, and publicized Epidemic information, according to the requirements of local government departments.
The Company will pay great attention to the status of the Epidemic, and keep a close communication with local governments and financial institutions, and actively and properly carry out Epidemic prevention and containment, ensure personnel and asset safety and provide funds and operation support.
1
Shareholders and potential investors of the Company are advised to exercise caution when dealing in the shares of the Company.
By Order of the Board
Haichang Ocean Park Holdings Ltd.
Wang Xuguang
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer
Shanghai, the People's Republic of China, 2 February 2020
As at the date of this announcement, the executive directors of the Company are Mr. Wang Xuguang, Mr. Qu Cheng and Mr. Gao Jie; the non-executive directors of the Company are Mr. Qu Naijie, Mr. Li Hao and Mr. Yuan Bing; and the independent non-executive directors of the Company are Mr. Chen Guohui, Mr. Wang Jun and Ms. Zhang Meng.
2
Attachments
Disclaimer
Haichang Ocean Park Holdings Ltd. published this content on 02 February 2020 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 02 February 2020 10:19:02 UTC | business |
'Pandemic ' doctors break down what the Netflix series can ( and can't) tell us about coronavirus | Word of Netflix's Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak is spreading fast.
Interest in the six-part docuseries has been supercharged by a deadly outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China, that's been dominating headlines since the middle of last week. The show takes a look at the medical professionals and scientists preparing for what many have called an “ inevitable ” flu pandemic. It’ s a thorough and engaging series, as compelling as any other documentary on the streaming service.
Interest in Pandemic and projects like it has become less than coolheaded.
But as information ( and, more often, misinformation) about the coronavirus is shared online, interest in Pandemic and projects like it has become less than coolheaded.
Plague Inc., a video game simulating the spread of virulent disease, is among the most downloaded games in China. Steven Soderbergh’ s sci-fi thriller Contagion, released nearly a decade ago, has shot to the top of the iTunes movie charts. Pretending to have coronavirus has become a popular TikTok `` prank, '' and “ Corona beer virus ” has seen a spike in Google searches. ( The beverage brand has said they are not concerned about the association.)
Some conspiracy theorists are even claiming Netflix concocted the virulent disease to promote Pandemic, which launched at the same time news of the coronavirus reached Western audiences. More insidious are the viewers mistakenly conflating the demonstrable facts of Pandemic with the unknowns of this specific disease. With fear in the air, it’ s easy to misconstrue the series ' scientific forecasts as our present danger.
Mashable spoke with Dr. Sheri Fink and Dr. Ryan McGarry — two physicians who executive-produced Netflix's Pandemic — about what the series can and can’ t tell us about coronavirus, and why they think their show is more cause for hope than alarm.
Image: courtesy of dr. sheri fink and dr. Ryan mcgarry
The following interview has been edited, condensed, and re-organized for clarity.
`` Pandemic can tell us how new viruses emerge, how people around the world monitor for them, what frontline doctors face in trying to treat them, what it looks like to try to stop an outbreak, and the basic things that people can do to themselves stay healthy, '' says Fink. `` What it can't tell us about is this specific novel coronavirus, because of course we were not filming when this coronavirus came out. So it can't tell you what the situation is now where you live. ''
`` There are people who wake up every day and want to attack this. ''
`` This is not exactly uncharted ground, '' adds McGarry, emphasizing the cyclical nature of pandemic fear. ( Numerous other virulent diseases have caused similar alarm in the past, namely H1N1, or `` swine flu, '' and SARS.)
`` I think there's like five things that are called 'Pandemic ' alone out there, and most of them are either scare pieces or really fact overload. What was missing in the space was: Who are these people who get up every day and want to take this stuff on when it's been fully forgotten by the institutional memory? [... ] This story [ of coronavirus ], like all others, will fade and people will forget about it, but there are people who wake up every day and want to attack this. So we wanted to make a series about them. ''
`` The good news, at least at our medical center and others, is that we're very prepared for this kind of an outbreak, '' says McGarry, who currently practices emergency medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California at LA County. `` Our staff regularly drills for this kind of thing, just as you see in [ episode 1 of ] the documentary. ''
`` The cool thing with the series is that it takes you inside, '' remarks Fink. `` Most people who aren't in healthcare don't know that increasingly, because of SARS, which was an earlier coronavirus outbreak in 2003, and because of some cases of Ebola in the U.S. many years ago, there has been an investment. But it's also true that hospitals and intensive care wards have only so much capacity and could be overwhelmed in a widespread outbreak. ''
According to Fink and McGarry, outbreak drills are becoming far more common among U.S. hospitals with the resources to accommodate them — and physicians are already beginning to screen for signs of coronavirus despite the few cases evident in the U.S.
`` This is where we're all being adequately prepped, and have always been, '' says McGarry. `` I guarantee you that every ER in the country right now has a Post-it next to the triage station that says, 'Criteria number one: Do you have a fever? ' And, in all caps, 'Have you traveled to China or had exposure to anyone who's traveled to China in the last 14 days? ' ''
`` It is possible that a new virus like this may ultimately not be contained, '' says Fink. `` In case that happens, scientists are already working to develop diagnostics, medicines, and a vaccine. That is similar to the work shown in Pandemic that's focused on flu. ''
`` We are afraid of what we don't know, what we can't see, and is invisible. ''
Image: netflix
`` This was talked about a lot when the largest Ebola outbreak in history happened in West Africa in 2014, '' says Fink, who was there for three months at the time of the crisis, winning a Pulitzer Prize for her journalistic coverage on behalf of The New York Times.
`` It has something to do with our human nature, but to me, as somebody who is both a doctor and a journalist, I feel that information can be really helpful. It's that classic thing of, we are afraid of what we don't know, what we can't see, and is invisible. Not everybody has a science background and has the luxury of understanding how viruses work and how we can protect ourselves, and I know that can be very scary. Then there's that compounding effect of the rumors and the internet and social media spreading fears very quickly. ''
Fink and McGarry say the best thing you can do right now is get the vaccine to protect against seasonal influenza and wash your hands regularly. Fink noted that while there are reports of people purchasing surgical masks and N95 respirators, `` experts are not currently recommending their general use in the U.S. ''
McGarry particularly cautioned against `` permanent '' fabric masks, the kind you 'll often see sold in varying patterns available online.
`` Wear a seatbelt, get a flu shot, don't drink and drive. There are a lot of risks that we contend with on a daily basis. ''
`` In theory, any mask you wear needs to be replaced every time you're exposed to something. There's no such thing as 'your own mask ' for the next three weeks. If you're going to do it, I don't recommend buying one with a skull and crossbones on it for $ 50 on Amazon. That doesn't make any sense medically. ''
McGarry noted that the only spaces one might consider using a mask at this time ( outside of a clinical setting) are `` indoor areas that are tightly enclosed, namely airplanes and other capsules. ''
`` Viruses, at least airborne viruses, travel very poorly outdoors, '' he noted. `` So when you see streets in the city with people wearing masks, that's a dramatic photo of course, but not really practical. ``
`` Certainly, there are many better things you can do to protect your health while something is not yet circulating broadly, '' added Fink. `` Wear a seatbelt, get a flu shot, don't drink and drive. There are a lot of risks that we contend with on a daily basis. ''
`` Sometimes the things that we do in fear can be even more harmful than the actual virus, '' cautions Fink, reiterating the dangers of misinformation. `` So it's really important for people not to get so scared that they start to do things that are irrational. ''
At present, there is no evidence of sustained transmission in the U.S., meaning the risk to individuals here is quite low. `` But of course, that could change, '' says Fink. `` The key thing is for people to pay attention to the messages that are from really good sources. ''
Fink recommends keeping a close watch on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, and routinely checking major news outlets for updates on coronavirus spread. `` I would urge people not to believe in rumors and to really view anything that you see coming from a random person on social media with a skeptical eye. ''
`` I 've got a shift later today, and we're being encouraged to not cause panic by saying 'coronavirus, ' '' says McGarry, adding that many doctors will instead use the shorthand `` ILI, '' a generic term for an influenza-like illness. `` The [ coronavirus ] has the same foundational similarities as any respiratory virus does. This is not something that is new ground. This is the kind of thing that we 've got fairly well-practiced policy for. ''
As of Jan.18, the CDC estimates there have been anywhere between 8,200 and 20,000 deaths in the U.S. for this flu season.
`` The most basic thing we can do is get the influenza seasonal vaccine. ''
Image: netflix
`` On Thursday, the head of the World Health Organization announced that because a limited number of cases of the new coronavirus had appeared in many countries outside of China, it now constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, '' reports Fink. `` That's an official designation that comes with recommendations from an expert committee. They emphasized that countries needed to coordinate efforts, share knowledge about the virus, work on vaccines, and assist regions of the world that might need more resources... ''
Fink says the announcement is not cause for alarm.
`` It's a step in a system set up after the SARS outbreak to help stop the international spread of new viruses and other pathogens. It confirms what the public already knows, which is that while the vast majority of illnesses from the new coronavirus have occurred in China, vigilance and resources are needed to prevent it from becoming a problem in other countries. ''
`` We want to emphasize that the timing in this case was coincidental and the release date was planned long in advance, '' notes Fink. ( It's worth noting, the series ' launch date was announced in mid-December.)
Still, the timing reiterates the series ' central message.
`` It emphasizes the point that I think many of the people in Pandemic emphasize, which is that these risks are with humanity all of the time. These are existential threats that always exist, and that's why there are people around the world who are really passionate about trying to prevent and detect and stop these types of threats. ''
`` There are things we can do and there are things that are being done to address these threats. ''
`` The key takeaway for me is that novel viruses such as this coronavirus or other novel influenza ought to be right up there with our most basic emergency preparedness, '' concurs McGarry. `` Most of us, we 've got smoke alarms, we worry about carbon monoxide in our homes, more and more of us are taking floods more seriously as the climate changes. But boy, [ flu preparedness ] should be right up there with them. And I think the most basic thing we can do is to get the influenza seasonal vaccine. ''
`` I just hope that [ Pandemic is ] really useful to people who might be afraid right now or might be interested [ in the subject ]. We also hope that there's a hopeful message there, which is that there are things we can do and there are things that are being done to address these threats. ``
In a statement sent to Mashable via e-mail, Pandemic showrunner Jeremiah Crowell agreed with his colleagues, stressing that the project was not created to instill fear in its viewers: “ All of this is scary because most of us don’ t know anything about it. The reason we made the series is because there is a small group of people out there who do know a great deal about it and are working hard everyday to save us from the worst of it. ”
Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak is now streaming on Netflix. | tech |
'No reason for Americans to panic ': White House seeks to calm fears over coronavirus |
National security adviser Robert O'Brien on Sunday said at this time `` there's no reason for Americans to panic '' about the
Wuhan coronavirus
, saying the threat is `` low risk '' in the United States.
`` Right now, there's no reason for Americans to panic. This is something that is a low risk, we think, in the US, '' he said during an interview on CBS ' `` Face The Nation, '' adding that the virus is a `` top priority '' for President Donald Trump and the administration is `` taking steps to keep Americans safe. ''
There are more than 16,000 confirmed cases of the virus globally, and more than 350 people have died since the outbreak in December. All but one of the deaths have been in mainland China. Eight cases have been confirmed in the US.
In comparison, the 2019-2020 flu season is
projected to be one of the worst in a decade
, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The flu virus has infected 19 million Americans across the country and killed at least 10,000 people this season alone.
The White House on Thursday announced a
coronavirus task force
that `` will lead the Administration's efforts to monitor, contain, and mitigate the spread of the virus. '' It is lead by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and includes members from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Homeland Security and others.
Read More
On Saturday, the Pentagon
announced
that Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a request to provide military housing for up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined upon arrival in the United States from overseas travel due to concerns about possible infection of the virus.
Countries are now sending planes to evacuate their citizens from the infection zone, and imposing travel bans or restrictions on travelers from China. DHS announced it will begin enforcing
travel restrictions
set to go into effect Sunday evening in an effort to contain the virus outbreak.
`` These steps will also expedite the processing of U.S. citizens returning from China, and ensure resources are focused on the health and safety of the American people, '' DHS Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf said in a statement. `` We realize this could provide added stress and prolong travel times for some individuals, however public health and security experts agree these measures are necessary to contain the virus and protect the American people. ''
Nearly 60 million people are under lockdown in Chinese cities as international researchers race to develop a vaccine and halt its spread.
CNN's Kristina Squeglia, Julia Hollingsworth, Barbara Starr, Scottie Andrew and Dakin Andone contributed to this report. | general |
Wuhan residents are the unwanted faces of China's coronavirus outbreak |
In China,
Wuhan
used to be known as a city of cherry blossoms, an economic engine of the central heartland, and the birthplace of a century-old revolution that brought down the country's last imperial dynasty.
But now, the metropolis of approximately 11 million people in Hubei province has become the face of a deadly new
coronavirus outbreak
-- a stigma the people of Wuhan increasingly find themselves unable to shake off.
With the death toll surging past 300 and 14,300 confirmed cases spreading all over China, local authorities across the country have activated the highest public health emergency response, stepping up screening of arrivals from Wuhan.
However,
fears over the spread
of the outbreak have fueled resentment and discrimination against people from Wuhan. Some have become outcasts in their own country, shunned by hotels, neighbors and -- in some areas -- placed under controversial quarantine measures.
Photos:
Chinese health workers standby to check the temperature of travelers entering a subway station in Beijing, China, on January 25.
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Two residents walk through the empty Jiangtan park on January 2 in Wuhan, at the center of the outbreak.
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A man wears protective gear as he stands in a nearly empty street during the Chinese New Year holiday on January 26 in Beijing.
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A pedestrian walks near the Bund, usually a busy commercial and tourism area in Shanghai on January 29.
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A woman checks a boy's forehead temperature on January 27 in Wuhan.
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A lone traveler sits at a gate in the Hong Kong High Speed Rail Station on January 29. The Hong Kong government said it will tighten international travel and border crossings to stop the spread of the virus.
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Visitors carry umbrellas as they walk through the Disneytown area of the Shanghai Disney Resort, which announced that it will be closed indefinitely from January 25, as the virus continues to spread.
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A man wearing a protective mask rides an escalator in a shopping area that would usually be busy during the Chinese New Year in Beijing, on January 28.
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Security officials stand near the closed gates at the entrance to the Forbidden City. Cultural landmarks have closed their doors to visitors due to the outbreak.
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A pedestrian passes a closed McDonald's restaurant in Shanghai on January 30.
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A cluster of passengers wait at Luohu railway station in Shenzhen on January 22.
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A couple wearing face masks ride an elevator at a nearly empty shopping mall in Beijing on January 29.
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A cyclist rides past Beijing's Tiananmen Square, normally crowded with tourists during the Lunar New Year holiday, on January 27.
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A worker disinfects the grounds near the Wuhan Huoshenshan hospital construction site on January 28.
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A salesperson sits in an empty shop at a mall in Tianjin on January 25.
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A woman crosses an empty road on January 27 in Wuhan.
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A hotel cafe devoid of guests is pictured in Wuhan on January 29.
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Cleaners wipe down gates in the arrival hall at Hong Kong High Speed Rail Station on January 29.
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A restaurant patron waits for his food in an empty restaurant in Beijing.
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A discarded face mask rests on a street in Wuhan on January 26.
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Wuhan officials estimate about 5 million people had left the city for the annual Lunar New Year holiday before authorities canceled all outbound flights, trains and buses in an unprecedented lockdown on January 23.
Read More
Many of them are migrant workers or university students returning to their hometowns for new year family reunions. Others are holidaymakers taking advantage of the long annual break.
China only declared that the coronavirus could be transmitted from person to person on January 20, following a sudden jump in confirmed cases. Until then, authorities had said the outbreak was `` preventable and controllable. ''
`` Many of my friends who left Wuhan did not realize ( how severe) the situation was, '' April Pin, a Wuhan resident, wrote in a widely circulated open letter pleading her countrymen to forgive those who left without knowing.
Pin, one of the
millions of people
who had stayed in Wuhan, told CNN she wrote the letter because `` there are too many comments online hurling abuse and denunciation at Wuhan people. ''
`` I feel wronged, '' she added.
Persona non grata
Following the lockdown, Wuhan residents traveling in other parts of China soon found themselves no longer welcomed by local hotels and guesthouses, nor were they able to return to Wuhan due to the newly imposed travel restrictions.
They were stranded in their own country.
On social media, posts of Wuhan tourists seeking help for a place to stay sprang up. One user on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, claimed in a post last Sunday that she was kicked out by her guesthouse in Changsha, Hunan province, because guests from neighboring Hubei province were no longer allowed.
`` I 'm only asking for help here because I 'm really at the end of my rope, '' wrote the user, Ludougao, who said she left Wuhan on January 20, three days before the lockdown.
Chinese passengers, most wearing masks, arrive to board trains before the Lunar New Year at a Beijing railway station.
She went to the train station, only to find out that no trains will stop at Wuhan anymore. She called the police, but was told to go to a `` relief station '' -- shelter for homeless people. She called the Wuhan mayor's hotline, to no avail. She even went to the hospital to get a health check, but still no hotels would take her. By then, she had already contacted more than 10 hotels and guesthouses, but was rejected by all, according to her post.
`` I don't understand it. Even if all of us Wuhan people are 'walking dead, ' to contain the outbreak's spread, shouldn't I be allowed to stay indoors? Now I 'm forced to go out, and I 've got nowhere to go, '' she wrote.
The post -- which was later deleted -- went viral, so much so that it drew the attention of the Changsha `` internet police, '' or censors, who then alerted authorities about her case, the city's internet regulator said in
a statement
on Weibo. She finally managed to check into a hotel later that evening, according to the regulator and her own subsequent posts.
When contacted by CNN, Ludougao said she stood by her deleted post. She declined to comment further, saying she has been contacted by the government.
Ludougao's plight was echoed by many others across the country. In southern Yunnan province, popular for its balmy weather and nature, there were so many Hubei tourists with nowhere to stay calling authorities for help that the provincial culture and tourism bureau
issued a notice
last Sunday ordering every city to designate
at least one hotel
to accommodate them.
Other provinces and cities in China, such as southern Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, soon followed suit, reserving hotels for tourists from Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province,
according to state media
. The Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau also complied
a list of hotels
designated for Wuhan tourists acriss the country. But it remains unclear how many travelers from Wuhan know about them.
With a growing number of international airlines canceling their flights to Wuhan, many tourists from the city have also been stranded outside China. As of January 27, there were still
more than 4,000
Wuhan tourists overseas, according to the Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau.
China's foreign ministry announced Friday that charter flights will be arranged to take them home.
`` In view of the practical difficulties Chinese citizens from Hubei province, especially Wuhan, have faced overseas, the Chinese government has decided to send charter flights to take them directly back to Wuhan as soon as possible, '' foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
According to the ministry, two flights chartered by the Chinese government landed at the Wuhan international airport on Friday night, bringing Hubei travelers home from southeast Asia.
One flight from Bangkok, Thailand, carried 76 passengers, the ministry said. it is unclear how many people were aboard the other flight from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Authorities had earlier said that the two flights were expected to carry more than 200 Hubei residents.
A woman wears a protective mask as she walks by Chinese flags in Beijing during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Blocked roads, barricaded homes
Apart from tourists, local authorities have also been on high alert for people who have returned to their hometowns from Wuhan for the Lunar New Year.
In some cities, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, neighborhood committees have been tasked with searching for Wuhan returnees door by door, and reporting their information to authorities, according to
state media
.
Eric Chen, a 33-year-old from Jingzhou, Hubei, who lives and works in the coastal province of Zhejiang, said some are so wary of Wuhan people that a neighbor called police upon spotting a car with a number plate from Wuhan in their gated community.
`` It turned out that the car owner had not been to Wuhan recently at all. He got a Wuhan number plate because license plates in Hangzhou are too difficult to come by, having to go through a lottery, '' Chen told CNN.
In rural areas, some villages have dispatched villagers to guard the entrance, blocking anyone returning from Wuhan from entering. Unverified images on social media show roads leading to villages blocked by trucks, excavators, rocks, felled trees -- and in some cases dug up -- to prevent people from entering.
The roadblocks were so prevalent that the country's ministry of transport had to
issue a notice
on Wednesday warning people against unauthorized blockage of roads, especially digging up roads to block rural traffic.
A motorbiker turns around at a road blockage and checkpoint in Huaibei in central China's Anhui province on January 29.
In some places, returnees from Wuhan were put under controversial -- and potentially dangerous -- quarantine measures. Videos purportedly showing homes of Wuhan returnees sealed off by banners -- and in some cases, barricaded by wooden planks or metal bars -- have gone viral online.
In one video, a red notice is apparently being plastered next to the front door of an apartment. It reads: `` This household has Wuhan returnees, please do not come into contact with them. '' The door -- still decorated with traditional red couplets for the Lunar New Year -- is being barricaded with multiple metal bars by several men in medical masks.
CNN can not independently verify the video, or where it was taken.
The resentment and discrimination faced by Wuhan people has even caught the attention of People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official mouthpiece.
In an opinion piece published on its mobile app Monday, the People's Daily acknowledged the online abuse targeting people from Wuhan and the wider Hubei province, as well as the control measures adopted by local authorities that had denied them entry from hotels and even their hometowns.
`` The majority of the 5 million people ( who left Wuhan) did not 'flee ' deliberately, nor does it mean that they all 'carry the virus ', '' the article read.
`` No matter where they have gone, we should not hold prejudice against them, or treat them cold-heartedly... In the face of the outbreak, they're the victims and they wish more than anyone else to eliminate the outbreak, and they desire safety, assurance and care more than anyone else. At this moment, what they need is understanding, not misconception. '' | general |
China moves to limit short selling as virus looms over market reopening | The sources said China Securities Regulatory Commission ( CSRC) had issued a verbal directive to brokerages including Citic Securities Co. and China International Capital Corp. to bar their clients from selling borrowed stocks on Feb. 3.
It was not clear if the suspension -- which was first reported on Sunday by Chinese media outlet 21st Century Business Herald -- would be extended beyond Monday, one of the sources said.
In an internal memo sent to its branches, Citic called the move a `` political task '' aimed at helping stabilize the market on the first trading day of the stock market in the Lunar New Year of Rat as the coronavirus outbreak unsettles global markets.
Investors are bracing for a volatile session in Chinese markets when onshore trades resume on Monday after a break for the Lunar New Year which was extended by the government.
China's policy makers have taken various of measures to protect the financial system from the fallout due to the outbreak. The central bank said it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan ( $ 174 billion) worth of liquidity into the markets via reverse repo operations on Monday.
The CSRC is also considering launching hedging tools for the A-share market to help alleviate market panic and will suspend evening sessions of futures trading starting from Monday, it said.
( Additional reporting by Samuel Shen and Cheng Leng; Editing by Helen Popper)
By Zhang Yan and Ryan Woo | business |
Wuhan residents are the unwanted faces of China's coronavirus outbreak | But now, the metropolis of approximately 11 million people in Hubei province has become the face of a deadly new coronavirus outbreak -- a stigma the people of Wuhan increasingly find themselves unable to shake off.
With the death toll surging past 300 and 14,300 confirmed cases spreading all over China, local authorities across the country have activated the highest public health emergency response, stepping up screening of arrivals from Wuhan.
However, fears over the spread of the outbreak have fueled resentment and discrimination against people from Wuhan. Some have become outcasts in their own country, shunned by hotels, neighbors and -- in some areas -- placed under controversial quarantine measures.
Wuhan officials estimate about 5 million people had left the city for the annual Lunar New Year holiday before authorities canceled all outbound flights, trains and buses in an unprecedented lockdown on January 23.
Many of them are migrant workers or university students returning to their hometowns for new year family reunions. Others are holidaymakers taking advantage of the long annual break.
China only declared that the coronavirus could be transmitted from person to person on January 20, following a sudden jump in confirmed cases. Until then, authorities had said the outbreak was `` preventable and controllable. ''
`` Many of my friends who left Wuhan did not realize ( how severe) the situation was, '' April Pin, a Wuhan resident, wrote in a widely circulated open letter pleading her countrymen to forgive those who left without knowing.
Pin, one of the millions of people who had stayed in Wuhan, told CNN she wrote the letter because `` there are too many comments online hurling abuse and denunciation at Wuhan people. ''
`` I feel wronged, '' she added.
Persona non grata
Following the lockdown, Wuhan residents traveling in other parts of China soon found themselves no longer welcomed by local hotels and guesthouses, nor were they able to return to Wuhan due to the newly imposed travel restrictions.
They were stranded in their own country.
On social media, posts of Wuhan tourists seeking help for a place to stay sprang up. One user on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, claimed in a post last Sunday that she was kicked out by her guesthouse in Changsha, Hunan province, because guests from neighboring Hubei province were no longer allowed.
`` I 'm only asking for help here because I 'm really at the end of my rope, '' wrote the user, Ludougao, who said she left Wuhan on January 20, three days before the lockdown.
She went to the train station, only to find out that no trains will stop at Wuhan anymore. She called the police, but was told to go to a `` relief station '' -- shelter for homeless people. She called the Wuhan mayor's hotline, to no avail. She even went to the hospital to get a health check, but still no hotels would take her. By then, she had already contacted more than 10 hotels and guesthouses, but was rejected by all, according to her post.
`` I don't understand it. Even if all of us Wuhan people are 'walking dead, ' to contain the outbreak's spread, shouldn't I be allowed to stay indoors? Now I 'm forced to go out, and I 've got nowhere to go, '' she wrote.
The post -- which was later deleted -- went viral, so much so that it drew the attention of the Changsha `` internet police, '' or censors, who then alerted authorities about her case, the city's internet regulator said in a statement on Weibo. She finally managed to check into a hotel later that evening, according to the regulator and her own subsequent posts.
When contacted by CNN, Ludougao said she stood by her deleted post. She declined to comment further, saying she has been contacted by the government.
Ludougao's plight was echoed by many others across the country. In southern Yunnan province, popular for its balmy weather and nature, there were so many Hubei tourists with nowhere to stay calling authorities for help that the provincial culture and tourism bureau issued a notice last Sunday ordering every city to designate at least one hotel to accommodate them.
Other provinces and cities in China, such as southern Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, soon followed suit, reserving hotels for tourists from Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province, according to state media. The Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau also complied a list of hotels designated for Wuhan tourists acriss the country. But it remains unclear how many travelers from Wuhan know about them.
With a growing number of international airlines canceling their flights to Wuhan, many tourists from the city have also been stranded outside China. As of January 27, there were still more than 4,000 Wuhan tourists overseas, according to the Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau.
China's foreign ministry announced Friday that charter flights will be arranged to take them home.
`` In view of the practical difficulties Chinese citizens from Hubei province, especially Wuhan, have faced overseas, the Chinese government has decided to send charter flights to take them directly back to Wuhan as soon as possible, '' foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
According to the ministry, two flights chartered by the Chinese government landed at the Wuhan international airport on Friday night, bringing Hubei travelers home from southeast Asia.
One flight from Bangkok, Thailand, carried 76 passengers, the ministry said. it is unclear how many people were aboard the other flight from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Authorities had earlier said that the two flights were expected to carry more than 200 Hubei residents.
Blocked roads, barricaded homes
Apart from tourists, local authorities have also been on high alert for people who have returned to their hometowns from Wuhan for the Lunar New Year.
In some cities, such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, neighborhood committees have been tasked with searching for Wuhan returnees door by door, and reporting their information to authorities, according to state media.
Eric Chen, a 33-year-old from Jingzhou, Hubei, who lives and works in the coastal province of Zhejiang, said some are so wary of Wuhan people that a neighbor called police upon spotting a car with a number plate from Wuhan in their gated community.
`` It turned out that the car owner had not been to Wuhan recently at all. He got a Wuhan number plate because license plates in Hangzhou are too difficult to come by, having to go through a lottery, '' Chen told CNN.
In rural areas, some villages have dispatched villagers to guard the entrance, blocking anyone returning from Wuhan from entering. Unverified images on social media show roads leading to villages blocked by trucks, excavators, rocks, felled trees -- and in some cases dug up -- to prevent people from entering.
The roadblocks were so prevalent that the country's ministry of transport had to issue a notice on Wednesday warning people against unauthorized blockage of roads, especially digging up roads to block rural traffic.
In some places, returnees from Wuhan were put under controversial -- and potentially dangerous -- quarantine measures. Videos purportedly showing homes of Wuhan returnees sealed off by banners -- and in some cases, barricaded by wooden planks or metal bars -- have gone viral online.
In one video, a red notice is apparently being plastered next to the front door of an apartment. It reads: `` This household has Wuhan returnees, please do not come into contact with them. '' The door -- still decorated with traditional red couplets for the Lunar New Year -- is being barricaded with multiple metal bars by several men in medical masks.
CNN can not independently verify the video, or where it was taken.
The resentment and discrimination faced by Wuhan people has even caught the attention of People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official mouthpiece.
In an opinion piece published on its mobile app Monday, the People's Daily acknowledged the online abuse targeting people from Wuhan and the wider Hubei province, as well as the control measures adopted by local authorities that had denied them entry from hotels and even their hometowns.
`` The majority of the 5 million people ( who left Wuhan) did not 'flee ' deliberately, nor does it mean that they all 'carry the virus ', '' the article read.
`` No matter where they have gone, we should not hold prejudice against them, or treat them cold-heartedly... In the face of the outbreak, they're the victims and they wish more than anyone else to eliminate the outbreak, and they desire safety, assurance and care more than anyone else. At this moment, what they need is understanding, not misconception. '' | business |
TSA issues new directive for anyone entering the US from China as coronavirus spreads | The directive comes as the Wuhan coronavirus, which was first detected in China in December, continues to spread around the world. The virus has killed 304 people in mainland China, one man in the Philippines and infected more than 14,000 in over 20 countries and territories.
In the United States, an eighth case of coronavirus has been confirmed -- a Boston college student in his 20s, health officials said Saturday.
Chinese nationals coming from China and connecting through another foreign airport will be denied travel, according to a person briefed on the new restrictions. Those with pre-clearance are exempted.
The TSA notified airlines about the restrictions Saturday, a day after the White House announced plans to set up new travel rules. The directive to both US and foreign airlines goes into effect at 5 p.m. ET Sunday.
`` Under these directives, non-US citizens who have been in China within 14 days of their planned travel will not be permitted to fly to the United States, '' TSA administrator David Pekoske said in an email directive sent to employees Saturday.
`` US citizens who have been in China within 14 days of their planned travel will be permitted to enter the country through one of seven airports -- Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta, and John F. Kennedy International airports -- where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the capability to conduct medical screening. This applies to travel from any airport with direct flights to the US, not just airports in China. ''
In addition to the directive, Pekoske said, all frontline employees will be permitted to wear surgical masks if they choose to do so.
The US declared coronavirus a public health emergency on Friday.
Once the declaration goes into effect at 5 pm ET Sunday, US citizens returning to the United States who 've been in China's Hubei province in the two weeks before their return will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine.
US citizens returning from the rest of mainland China in the two weeks prior will face a health screening. They will also get up to two weeks of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they pose no health risk.
`` I want to stress: the risk of infection for Americans remains low, '' Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. `` And with these and our previous actions, we're working to keep the risk low. ''
| business |
Travel restrictions go into effect to combat coronavirus spread in US | The plan, which went into effect at 5 p.m. ET, includes temporarily denying entry to foreign nationals who visited China in the 14 days prior to their arrival to the United States, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday.
Restrictions also apply to US citizens who have been in China's Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, in the two weeks prior to their return to the United States. Upon their return, those citizens will be subject to a mandatory quarantine of up to 14 days, he said.
US citizens returning from the rest of mainland China in the 14 days prior will undergo health screenings at selected ports of entry and face up to 14 days of self-monitored quarantine.
Azar outlined the restrictions Friday as he declared the coronavirus a public health emergency in the United States, stressing that `` the risk to the American public remains low at this time, and we are working to keep this risk low. ''
That sentiment was echoed by national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who told CBS ' `` Face the Nation '' on Sunday, `` Right now there is no reason for Americans to panic '' regarding the coronavirus. O'Brien added, `` This is something that is a low risk, we think, in the US. ''
The Department of Homeland Security announced it would begin enforcing the restrictions Sunday.
Initially, DHS said Americans who have recently been to China would be rerouted to one of seven airports -- John F. Kennedy in New York, Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare, San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma, Los Angeles and Honolulu -- where the CDC will conduct health screenings. DHS later expanded the list to include four more airports -- Dallas, Detroit, Newark and Washington's Dulles.
Acting DHS Secretary Chad F. Wolf said air carriers and Customs and Border Protection are working to identify such passengers before their scheduled flights.
If travelers who spent time in China show no symptoms, DHS said, they will be sent to their final destination and asked to quarantine themselves for up to 14 days in their homes.
The Transportation Security Administration also took steps to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The agency issued a new directive this weekend that requires airlines to ask passengers on flights from outside the United States whether they 've been to mainland China in the past 14 days. All frontline employees will also be permitted to wear surgical masks.
Three more cases confirmed in California, 11 total in the US
Three cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in California, officials said Sunday.
A husband and wife, both 57, were the latest confirmed cases, according to the San Benito County Public Health Services. That brings the total number of confirmed cases to six in California and 11 in the US.
The husband recently traveled from Wuhan, China, and the wife did not, health officials said. It is the second case of person-to-person transmission in US, officials said.
Public health officials have provided guidance to the couple for home isolation and are closely monitoring their medical condition.
The patients are not currently hospitalized.
Earlier, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department identified the ninth confirmed case as an adult woman who recently traveled to Wuhan.
The patient is a visitor in Santa Clara County, health officials said, and arrived on January 23 to visit family. She has remained at home ever since, except to seek medical care twice. `` She has been regularly monitored and was never sick enough to be hospitalized, '' the statement said.
The woman is the second case in Santa Clara County -- though officials said the two cases were unrelated -- and the fourth coronavirus case in the state of California.
The eighth confirmed case was identified Saturday as a student in his 20s at the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. The student had returned from Wuhan on January 29. He sought medical treatment after his return and has been isolated ever since. The few close contacts he had have been identified and monitored for symptoms.
The case poses no increased risk to other students on the schools ' campus, the medical director of the Boston Public Health Commission told reporters Saturday. He's `` doing quite well '' in quarantine at his home and is being monitored by public health nurses.
Other coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Washington state, Arizona and Illinois. In total, according to the CDC, at least 241 patients in 36 states are under investigation. Among those, 114 tested negative and 121 had results pending.
Outside the United States, at least 362 people have died of the coronavirus, nearly all of them in China. The Philippines on Sunday announced the first reported death outside mainland China, a 44-year-old Chinese man who had flown into the country from Wuhan. There are 173 confirmed cases in more than 20 countries outside of China.
Second evacuation of US citizens planned
A second evacuation flight is set to carry US citizens out of of Wuhan, a US official with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
The flight should be ready for departure Monday, according to the official, as indicated in US Embassy Beijing's email to American citizens who are still in the central Chinese city where the virus originated.
The official said there might be an additional evacuation flight due to continued high demand from US citizens in Wuhan.
`` I can't confirm the numbers yet, but this upcoming evacuation might not be the last, '' the official said said.
Last week the first chartered plane carrying nearly 200 US citizens -- including diplomats and their families -- arrived at March Air Reserve Base in Southern California.
The CDC ordered a federal 14-day quarantine for those citizens -- the first such order in more than 50 years.
Airlines expand their flight cancellations
The US travel restrictions prompted some airlines to expedite or expand their plans to suspend flights between the United States and China.
Delta Air Lines decided to suspended flights until April 30 beginning Sunday -- four days earlier than initially planned. Its last China-bound flight left Saturday and the last returning flight from China to the United States was due to leave Sunday.
In the meantime, American Airlines, which canceled all flights to mainland China on Friday, said Saturday it was canceling flights to Hong Kong through Monday and would make daily decisions on Hong Kong flights depending on the situation.
United Airlines announced Friday it would suspend flights from its hub cities in the United States and Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai from February 6 to March 28. Select flights will operate until next week to `` help ensure our US-based employees, as well as customers, have options to return home, '' it said in a statement. | business |
Coronavirus lurking in feces may be a hidden source of spread | MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – While doctors have focused on respiratory samples from pneumonia cases to identify coronavirus patients, they might have ignored a less apparent source of the spread: diarrhea.
The novel coronavirus was detected in the loose stool of the first U.S. case — a finding that hasn’ t featured among case reports from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. However, that doesn’ t surprise scientists who have studied coronaviruses, nor doctors familiar with the bug that caused SARS.
Diarrhea occurred in about 10 to 20 percent of patients afflicted with severe acute respiratory syndrome about 17 years ago and was the source of an explosive SARS outbreak in the Amoy Gardens residential complex in Hong Kong.
SARS and Wuhan viruses bind to the same distinctly shaped protein receptors in the body that are expressed in the lungs and intestines, making these organs the primary targets for both viruses, said Fang Li, an associate professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at the University of Minnesota.
The discovery of the Wuhan virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, in the fecal material of the 35-year-old man treated at the Providence Regional Medical Center Everett in Washington is “ interesting, ” said Scott Lindquist, the state epidemiologist for infectious disease at Washington’ s Department of Health.
“ That adds to the knowledge about this, ” he told reporters on a conference call Friday. “ It’ s not only excreted in your respiratory secretions, it’ s also secreted in your stool. ”
Researchers don’ t yet know how exactly 2019-nCoV spreads from person to person, but they suspect it is most likely from coming into contact with virus-containing droplets that could be emitted by an infected person’ s cough and transferred to their hands or surfaces and objects.
That has led to a run on face masks. But those may be of limited benefit in the event the virus is being transmitted via the fecal-oral route, said John Nicholls, a clinical professor of pathology at the University of Hong Kong.
Squat latrines lacking covers, common in China, and hands that aren’ t washed thoroughly with soap and water after visiting the bathroom could be a source of virus transmission, said Nicholls, who was part of the research team that isolated and characterized the SARS virus.
A virus-laden aerosol plume emanating from a SARS patient with diarrhea was implicated in possibly hundreds of cases at the Amoy Gardens housing complex in 2003. That led Hong Kong researchers to understand the importance of the virus’ s spread through the gastrointestinal tract and to recognize both the limitation of face masks and importance of cleanliness and hygiene, Nicholls said in an interview.
“ I think in Wuhan, that would be a very likely place where you might get the transmission ” from fecal material, he said. “ If it’ s using the same receptor as for SARS, I can’ t see why it shouldn’ t be replicating in the gut. ”
Nicholls and colleagues at the University of Hong Kong are testing laboratory models of human tissues and specimens to understand where and how the Wuhan virus replicates, he said.
Doctors have reported diarrhea infrequently in 2019-nCoV patients admitted to Wuhan hospitals, though it has been more prominent among reported cases outside the city, including members of a Shenzhen family infected in Wuhan, and more recently in the first U.S. case in Washington state. That patient experienced a two-day bout of diarrhea from which a sample tested positive.
The lab in Washington didn’ t attempt to grow the virus from that specimen, said Lindquist, “ because it wasn’ t going to add anything to his care. ”
Many of the emerging coronaviruses are so-called pneumoenteric viruses, meaning they can replicate both in the respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal system, said Ralph Baric, professor of microbiology and immunology at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has studied coronaviruses for decades.
Overwhelmed by hundreds of severely sick pneumonia patients, doctors in Wuhan might not have focused on any gastric signs, Baric said in a phone interview.
“ The Chinese are so overwhelmed at the moment and trying to do a combination of treating patients and dealing with the scope of the outbreak, and then trying to get out papers that describe what’ s happening, ” he said.
Any virus in stool is more likely to be present during the acute phase of an infection, occurring before hospitalized patients develop a life-threatening complication known as acute respiratory distress syndrome, Baric said.
“ I have also spent most of my time focusing on the respiratory tract symptomology rather than the gut because of the relationship between these different emerging viruses and acute respiratory distress syndrome, ” he said.
Zijian Feng, deputy director general of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and colleagues released a report Wednesday on the first 425 Wuhan cases, and noted that early infections that didn’ t appear to display typical signs — such as fever and viral pneumonia — or had mild symptoms might have been missed.
“ The initial focus of case detection was on patients with pneumonia, but we now understand that some patients can present with gastrointestinal symptoms, ” Feng and co-authors said in their report, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Emerging evidence of virus-containing diarrhea warrants further investigation, said Peter Collignon, a professor of clinical medicine at the Australian National University Medical School in Canberra, who advises the Australian government on infection control.
“ This is something new, ” Collignon said in an interview. “ We presume it’ s respiratory droplets, but with SARS there was evidence of other routes. We have to keep an open mind. ” | tech |
Why coronavirus will be a much bigger deal for petrochemicals than SARS – Asian Chemical Connections | Understand market developments and complex data and what they mean to you.
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“ ICIS price forecasts have helped us allocate resources smartly and efficiently, to anticipate price changes, and to buy PP at favourable prices. The reports have saved our internal team a lot of time and effort when analysing pricing trends. ”
THE WORLD was very different in 2003 when SARS struck. Back then, China accounted for just 4% of the global economy but last year this had risen to 17%.
The US was also the biggest source of global economic growth 17 years ago. China has since overtaken the US to become the main source of global growth, with its contribution to the expansion to world’ s economy now nearly three times that of the US.
It is thus obvious that the $ 33bn cost to the global economy of the SARS outbreak will be many times exceeded by the effects of the coronavirus outbreak, even assuming that this latest global health scare is quickly brought under control.
But it will not just be the headline cost of $ 33bn that will many times exceeded. More importantly, the effects of the economic loss will be much more keenly felt because China is a far more important source of total global economic growth than it was in 2003.
What applies to macroeconomics also applies to petrochemicals and polymers as the outputs of our industry are the raw materials for so many manufacturing chains.
When financial analysts and economists talk about the rise of Chinese consumption, they usually only refer to oil, copper and other well-understood commodities ( for example, in 2002, China accounted for some 18% of global consumption rising to 53% in 2019, according to BCA Research).
But just as good if not better a gauge of the potential impact of the coronavirus crisis are ICIS data on China’ s role in driving global polymers consumption.
The basket of polymers I have chosen for the above chart go into everything from cheap disposable single-use plastics, a big source of demand for polyethylene, all the way up the retail cost chain to resins such as polypropylene ( PP), polycarbonate ( PC) and nylon that go into expensive consumer durables such as autos and electronics.
Lumping them all together in this way is only a first level of analysis in order to indicate total exposure of the global petrochemicals industry to China.
( Watch this space. Later blog posts will provide updated 2020 growth forecasts for specific polymers).
We can seek from this chart is that China is expected to account for 43% of total global consumption of all these commodities in 2020, up from just 22% in 2003.
It is also worth noting that in 2003 over the previous year, China accounted for 48% of the total global growth in all these polymers. In 2020 compared with 2019, we forecast this will have increased to 54%.
It is not necessarily the case that all the resins will see weaker growth than we had expected in 2020. Some might even benefit from greater demand for face masks and other medical equipment.
And as The Economist points out, “ The [ Chinese ] economy is running on home delivery of food and goods ” because of travel bans on some 56m people.
This will support PE and expandable polystyrene packaging demand for home deliveries, that is until the government has the time and space to implement major new restrictions on single-use plastics.
But there are negatives for the consumption of polymers in autos as Wuhan, which is the epicentre of the outbreak, is a major hub for automotive production.
The extension of the Lunar New Year Holidays to 9 February in the key manufacturing hubs of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Chongqing will also weaken demand for polymers in general that go into finished goods.
The question on the exam paper then becomes whether or not this will only amount to a huge seasonal distortion in polymers demand.
This can only happen if the virus is quickly brought under control. Right, now, of course, nobody has a clue about whether this is achievable.
As far as the latest overall GDP growth projections are concerned, several economists seem to believe that the lost growth momentum from the coronavirus outbreak can not be entirely recovered.
For example, Oxford Economics is now forecasting Chinese GDP growth at 5.6% for the full-year 2020 versus its earlier prediction of 6%. It sees global growth at just 2.3% in 2020, which would be the lowest rate of increase since the Global Financial Crisis.
US GDP growth slowed to 2.3% in 2019, the slowest expansion in three years. The outbreak could drag growth lower as sales of goods and services in China take a hit.
Starbucks has closed nearly half of its outlets in China, Disney and Tesla have suspended operations and US airlines have stopped flights to China.
President Trump will very likely have to forget one of his big Phase One trade deal “ victories ” – China’ s pledge to buy $ 200bn worth of US commodities, finished goods and services over the next two years compared with the level of its purchases in 2017.
This was a very difficult target from the outset given China’ s current level of purchases in commodities such as nuts. China would have to this year raise its purchases of a US nuts to a value of no less than $ 2.5.bn from its previous record-high of $ 390m in 2012 in order to meet the overall target.
The $ 200bn target now seems impossible because of the virus-related slowdown in the Chinese economy.
Mr Trump might find himself under pressure from US farmers and manufacturers as he hits the re-election trail. How might he react? Consider the possibility of him losing his famous temper and the trade war accelerating again.
At the very least, there will be no major support to farm and manufacturing incomes, and thus US GDP, from Chinese commodities purchases in 2020.
Other commodity exporters such as Australia and Brazil will likely be badly affected, with countries such as South Korea and Vietnam also damaged through disruptions in Chinese-dominated manufacturing supply chains. Also expect countries such as Thailand to suffer from a big drop in Chinese tourism.
This just scratches this surface. There are many more ramifications to consider including the disruption to petrochemicals supply chains as a result of Chinese petrochemical plant shutdowns.
One example is in polyethylene terephthalate, where buyers of Chinese resins have had to seek alternative suppliers in Southeast and the Middle East.
I will keep you up to date on events as best I can, as this week I am travelling in Saudi Arabia.
ICIS is part of the LexisNexis® Risk Solutions Group portfolio of brands. | general |
Wuhan Completes Coronavirus Hospital in Just 9 Days | The structure spans across an area of 25,000 square meters.
Just last week, we reported how China was rushing to build a dedicated hospital in just six days with 1,000 beds for those affected by the coronavirus. Now it seems they simply have achieved the lofty goal in nine days, according to Business Insider.
A similar hospital had been set up in Beijing back in 2003 during the SARS virus and was successfully built in seven days. The Xiaotangshan Hospital was hailed at the time as a `` miracle in the history of medicine '' by the country's media.
Mission complete! 110s time-lapse video shows the construction of Wuhan’ s Huoshenshan Hospital from Jan 23 to Feb 2. pic.twitter.com/cIw7SjxqHx
Now, Wuhan has announced they managed to build their coronavirus hospital in just eight days, which is an equally impressive achievement. The hospital is called the Huoshenshan Hospital and has an area of 25,000 square meters.
It includes a total of 1,000 beds and will be operated by a staff of 1,400 people.
# BREAKING Construction work of Huoshenshan Hospital, # Wuhan's makeshift hospital built for treating pneumonia patients infected with the novel # coronavirus completed Sunday morning; the hospital will officially start services from Monday pic.twitter.com/njpeB8xqmG
According to the Chinese state media China Global Television Network ( CGTN.), the construction of the Huoshenshan Hospital began on January 23 and was completed on Sunday morning.
Now, the hospital will begin admitting patients as early as Monday Morning.
Chinese authorities have now turned their sights toward a second emergency hospital, 25 miles away from Huoshenshan Hospital, which will be called Leishenshan Hospital.
With a capacity of 1,600 beds, it is expected to open on Wednesday, according to CGTN.
Part of the reason the Chinese can build hospitals so quickly is because of their reliance on a top-down mobilization approach. `` They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial constraints and are able to mobilize all of the resources, '' Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told BBC.
`` China has a record of getting things done fast even for monumental projects like this, '' Huang added.
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Abe pressed to do more as coronavirus fatalities in China surpass SARS toll | Prime Minister Shinzo Abe revealed Monday that he had instructed officials to increase supplies needed to test people for the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV and arrange for more facilities where testing can be conducted.
During a Lower House Budget Committee session Monday, the prime minister said the government has already begun developing a portable testing kit for the virus, which has caused cases of pneumonia that have often been fatal.
The government, he added, is making arrangements for 2019-nCoV testing to be performed not only at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and public health centers, but also at private testing facilities.
“ As the number of confirmed cases within the country grows, I recognize that the expansion of testing infrastructure and consultation systems are urgent matters, ” Abe said. “ The situation is changing by the moment. The government will continue to make decisions and implement necessary measures without hesitation, as our highest priority is to protect Japanese citizens’ lives and health. ”
The announcement was the latest effort aimed at quelling fears about the virus taking hold in Japan. The number of confirmed cases in China continues to rise. Both opposition and ruling party lawmakers have chided the government, saying that its initial response was slow.
Partially in response to those admonishments, Abe had previously announced that Japan would ban foreign nationals who have been to China’ s Hubei province within 14 days before their arrival and all those who hold Chinese passports issued there from Saturday. The new virus is believed to have originated in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. Eight people had been denied entry due to the restrictions as of Sunday, Suga said at a news conference Monday afternoon.
At the Diet, Justice Minister Masako Mori said about 1,700 foreign nationals entered Japan via direct flights between Jan. 20 and Jan. 23, when direct flights were suspended. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently believes that symptoms of the virus appear within 2 to 14 days after exposure. Mori also said that about 34,180 Chinese nationals had entered the country between Jan. 20 and Feb. 1.
In the debate, opposition lawmaker Mitsunori Okamoto called for all those who had entered Japan prior to Jan. 23 to be screened but Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the existing health monitoring system was sufficient.
At a news conference, Suga said a quarantine inspection would take place on a private cruise ship scheduled to enter Yokohama port Tuesday, after a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong on Jan. 25 was found to be infected with the coronavirus. Kyodo News reported that the 80-year-old man had boarded the Diamond Princess in Yokohama on Jan. 20. The cruise shop operator, Carnival Japan, Inc., declined to confirm the number of passengers aboard to The Japan Times, but Kato, the health minister, told lawmakers he had received a report that several people on the ship had said they were not feeling well.
As of Monday afternoon, the number of confirmed cases worldwide was 17,389, with the overwhelming majority in China. The death toll in China had risen to 361, surpassing the toll from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. In Japan, the number of confirmed cases remained at 20.
The outbreak has been declared by the World Health Organization as a global health emergency, but obstacles remain for government efforts to deal with the situation. Suga acknowledged Monday that a fourth charter flight to repatriate about 140 Japanese who had expressed a wish to return from areas close to Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, would not fly until later this week.
Last week, a total of 565 Japanese nationals flew back to Tokyo on three charter flights. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi disclosed Monday that seven Japanese citizens were prohibited from boarding the flights after predeparture medical screening.
A majority of the returnees are staying in lodgings provided by the government. In addition to a hotel and a government agency’ s training facilities, Defense Minister Taro Kono has instructed his ministry to make space available on a privately owned vessel chartered by the Self-Defense Forces to offer further accommodation.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. | tech |
ETFs Not Reflecting Net Asset Value is a Feature, Not a Bug | ETFs had their genesis in 1989 with Index Participation Shares, an S & P 500 proxy that traded on the American Stock Exchange.
Are emerging markets ETFs trading strangely or are they delivering exactly what they’ re supposed to?
ETFs dedicated to China have dropped in price while Chinese markets remain closed and their underlying holdings haven’ t traded during the extended holiday. The same is true for broader emerging markets funds with significant exposure to Chinese stocks, though the discrepancy of their prices to their underlying net asset values is less extreme.
For example, the
Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF
( ticker: VMO) had a year-to-date return of -3.82% through January 30, while its mutual fund clone,
Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index
( VEMAX), had a -3.22% year-to-date return. Both funds track the same index, and have 37% of their assets in China.
Does this mean ETFs are warped vehicles for failing to deliver a price that reflects consistently the last available net asset value of their underlying holdings? Or does it mean they properly become the vehicles of price discovery when a market sustaining an adverse development like the coronavirus ( or, alternatively, a positive development) is closed for an extended period of time?
Matthew Bartolini, head of SPDR Americas Research at SPDR ETFs, said investors “ should be ecstatic that the price of [ their ] investment is reflecting the market’ s view. ” Indeed, the market, as it expresses its view through the ETF price, may be correct that prices of Chinese stocks will drop when Chinese markets next open. The important point, though, is the fund should reflect the market’ s current opinion regardless if the current opinion is correct or not.
After all, it may be that an ETF’ s underlying net asset values are stale and the most up-to-date information and opinions are reflected in the ETF prices. If a net asset value is so old, it may not make sense to look askance upon a vehicle that reflects a more recent opinion.
Bartolini gave the example of someone who makes 401 ( k) contributions on a Friday. Such a person investing in the Vanguard mutual fund will get net asset value of its underlying securities. But if those prices are stale, and the market is correct in anticipating lower prices on Monday, an ETF reflecting those current opinions and information will result in a purchase at a lower price, benefiting the investor.
Again, assuming the market’ s view as expressed in the ETF is correct and Chinese markets open and close at meaningfully lower prices on Monday, the mutual fund will experience a one-day drop on Monday that the ETF had already priced in for the past week or so. In that case, what looks like the ETF’ s failure to price its underlying assets according to their last closing prices may be a success in avoiding the stale pricing of the mutual fund.
It’ s tempting to view ETF behavior in this instance as similar to closed-end fund behavior. But Bartolini said when closed-end funds don’ t trade at net asset value of their underlying securities it’ s because of differences of supply and demand for the shares.
It’ s also true that ETFs don’ t simply reflect market sentiment. They use “ fair value pricing ” models that mutual funds with foreign stock holdings do to adjust prices when foreign markets aren’ t open. Rich Powers, head of ETF management at Vanguard, said, “ Mutual funds use models to tie together markets that are open and how they expect markets to open on Monday. ”
Powers conceded that one could expect more “ wobble ” in the efficacy of those models when foreign markets are closed over a one-week period than over a six hour period. But the point is that ETFs use the same models that mutual funds have been using for years.
Powers also said the price of an ETF, as opposed to its net asset value, is the midpoint of the ETF’ s bid and ask prices at the market close. He wasn’ t prepared to comment on whether the 0.60 percentage point difference between the year-to-date price return of the Vanguard ETF versus the Vanguard mutual fund ( which matches exactly the ETF’ s net asset value return) is unusually large.
Barron’ s
calculated the difference in annual price returns and NAV returns for the ETF over the last 10 calendar years as 0.32 percentage points.
It’ s a new world for mutual fund investors who are accustomed to funds trading at net asset value and not serving as vehicles for price discovery for other investors. But they may want to suspend their inclination to criticize ETFs too harshly for their structural differences from mutual funds. Bartolini said the current situation of ETFs not matching net asset value—when that net asset value is old—is “ a feature, not a bug ” of ETFs. Investors should be pleased with it, not alarmed by it.
Corrections and amplifications
: The year-to-date return of the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index fund is -3.22%. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the year-to-date return as 3.22%.
Write to
John Coumarianos at
john.coumarianos @ barrons.com | business |
Hong Kong to unveil depth of 2019 recession as protests, trade war bite | * Economy already in recession, Q4 seen worse than Q3
* 2020 GDP to take a hit from measures against China virus
* Retail, tourism worst hit by protests, health scare
By Clare Jim and Marius Zaharia
HONG KONG, Feb 3 ( Reuters) - Hong Kong is due to unveil the depth of its first recession in a decade later on Monday, as violent anti-government protests and trade tariffs between Washington and Beijing took more steam out of the economy in the final quarter of last year.
The worst is yet to come, with no end in sight to the protests in the Chinese-ruled city and a new coronavirus outbreak in mainland China.
Hong Kong, which has so far seen 15 confirmed cases of the virus, has taken measures to reduce the flow of visitors from China where the death toll has risen to 361. The city’ s retail and tourism sectors rely heavily on spenders from the Chinese mainland.
IHS Markit predicts a 5.8% annual contraction in the fourth quarter, while ING predicts 7.0%.
The economy shrank by 3.2% in July-September from the previous quarter and 2.9% from a year earlier.
“ The impact of the Wuhan virus epidemic is likely to further increase the negative shocks... in the near term, ” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific Chief Economist at IHS Markit.
ANZ analysts predicted a 1.4 percentage point negative impact on Hong Kong’ s first quarter gross domestic product from the effects of the virus, making it the worst hit region in Asia outside mainland China.
It was always going to be tough for Hong Kong to navigate 2019, with the U.S.-China trade war bound to hurt one of the busiest trading hubs in the world.
But protests have scared tourists and shoppers and often paralysed transport, shaking its remaining key pillars of growth.
In the past week, restaurants and shopping malls have been almost deserted, with people avoiding unnecessary exposure to large crowds and staff at many large companies working from home to protect themselves from catching the virus.
Gordon Lam, convener of a mom-and-pop restaurant alliance, said some eateries saw a 50% drop from a year earlier in Lunar New Year holiday business, much worse than during the protests.
“ People didn’ t even want to go out to visit family, ” said Lam, who owns a hot pot shop.
In November, the most recent data available, retail sales fell for a 10th consecutive month by 23.6% year-on-year.
Tourist arrivals plunged by an annual 55.9% in November, their steepest fall since May 2003, when the city was hit by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS) — its previous major health crisis, which at the time caused a recession on its own.
Also, the civil unrest has drawn corporate heavyweights including HSBC and Cathay Pacific into the political turmoil, underscoring the tightrope businesses must navigate between protesters and the city’ s political masters in Beijing.
Hong Kong — one of the world’ s most important financial hubs with total banking, fund and wealth management assets worth more than $ 6 trillion — has pledged HK $ 35 billion ( $ 4.50 billion) in stimulus to prop up the economy. Further measures are expected in a budget announcement later in February.
$ 1 = 7.7725 Hong Kong dollars Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Jacqueline Wong | business |
Coronavirus will ‘ shake markets out of their buy-the-dip’ mentality, says El-Erian | Mohamed El-Erian doesn’ t appear impressed by the bounce shaping up for U.S. stocks on Monday.
“
Investors ‘ need to decide if they want to opt for more of the same, by continuing to implement an investment playbook that has served them well, or if they want to treat the viral outbreak for what it is — a big economic shock that could derail global growth and shake markets out of their “ buy-the-dip ” conditioning.’
”
— Mohamed El-Erian
In
a guest column in the Financial Times
( paywall), the widely followed investor and chief economic adviser to Allianz, urged against buying the dip when it comes to the stock-market reaction to the spreading coronavirus, arguing that the long-running play of dismissing downbeat fundamentals on expectations central banks will be able to ride to the rescue could prove misguided in the current environment.
See:
W
hy the coronavirus ‘ poses a more significant threat’ to markets, economy than past epidemics
For now, U.S. investors appeared intent to stick to the long-running “ BTD, ” or buy-the-dip, playbook, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.41%
headed higher
, after a 600-point skid on Friday, with the blue-chip gauge and the S & P 500
SPX,
-0.35%
both turning negative for January.
El-Erian contends that the effects of the deadly outbreak are substantial in China and will cascade not only through the world’ s second-largest economy but will also slow global growth. A weakening China is a problem for Europe, he warns, where the European Central Bank is largely out of monetary-policy ammunition to fight a downturn.
Economic preview:
Coronavirus spreads damage to Wall Street — could the U.S. economy be next?
China’ s National Health Commission on Sunday said cases of the new virus reached 17,205, while the death toll exceeds 360. Cases have also been reported outside the country, with the World Health Organization last week declaring an international health emergency.
For markets, the coronavirus could mark a “ structural break, ” El-Erian said, in the form of “ a big enough shock that fundamentally shifts sentiment. ”
El-Erian argued that markets have been “ underpinned by the belief that central banks were always willing and able to repress volatility and boost asset prices. That fueled investors’ fear of missing out on a seemingly never-ending rally. ”
The multiyear gap between elevated asset prices and weaker economic conditions “ is becoming increasingly unsustainable, ” he wrote, with the global economy and markets “ nearing the neck of a T-junction. ”
“ What comes after that involves a contrast, depending on how policy makers respond, ” El-Erian said. “ One way involves recession, financial instability and even more complicated politics; the other, a genuine growth process that validates elevated asset prices in an orderly fashion and opens the way for more constructive politics. ” | business |
In virus-stricken Wuhan, animal lovers break into homes to save pets | A 43-year-old native of Wuhan, a central Chinese city ravaged by a coronavirus outbreak, said he climbed up rusty pipes to the third-floor balcony of an apartment to gain entry into the home of a middle-aged couple.
Lao Mao was no ordinary housebreaker - his mission was to feed two starving cats trapped in the home for 10 days.
He found the animals under a sofa, barely alive. Lao Mao rang up their owners, who broke down and cried on the video call at the sight of their pets.
Their owners had gone on what was originally a three-day trip to the north but had been unable to return, barred by travel curbs following the virus outbreak, which has claimed the lives of more than 360 people in China.
They learned of Lao Mao, or “ Old Cat ” as his friends call him, from social media and messaged him, pleading for help for their cats.
Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have first surfaced late last year, has been in a lockdown since Jan. 23, just as tens of millions of people across China started to leave for their Lunar New Year holidays.
Wuhan’ s mayor told a recent news conference that 5 million people had left the city ahead of the festive season.
Up to 50,000 pets had been left alone at home in Wuhan, Lao Mao estimated, based on the number of people who left the city in Hubei province.
“ The volunteers on our team, me included, have saved more than 1,000 pets since Jan. 25, ” said Lao Mao, declining to disclose his real name because he did not want his family to know he was out and about in the city.
“ My phone never stops ringing these days. I barely sleep. ”
Without intervention, the pets will starve to death. Many owners, either in quarantine or stranded in other provinces and countries, have sought help from animal lovers like Lao Mao on social media.
“ My conservative estimate is that around 5,000 are still trapped, and they may die of starvation in the coming days, ” Lao Mao said.
Animals in some parts of China were also caught up in spurious rumours that pets were exacerbating the virus’ s spread.
The number of abandoned pets rose in the past week, according to several animal rights groups, while isolated reports of pets being killed circulated on the internet.
Suichang, a small county in Zhejiang, the province second to Hubei with the most infections, on Friday ordered residents to keep their dogs at home. Dogs caught in public will be exterminated, county authorities said.
Many in Beijing and Shanghai also rushed to buy face masks for their dogs in their mistaken belief that pets could catch the virus.
“ I’ m worried about my dog being hated by the neighbourhood, ” said Beijinger Wang Fengyun, who has a poodle.
“ I haven’ t found any pet masks, so I’ ve made one myself with a paper cup. ”
Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan | business |
Coronavirus: China says US has spread fear over outbreak | China's Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. on Monday of setting a `` very bad example '' when it comes to tackling the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak, saying President Donald Trump's administration is spreading fear instead of providing much-needed assistance.
A ministry spokesperson said it's unreasonable for countries around the world to try to prevent people from crossing borders.
The ministry singled out the U.S., saying it was spreading panic instead of offering significant assistance to halt the coronavirus outbreak.
`` The U.S. government hasn't provided any substantive assistance to us, '' ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.
`` What it has done could only create and spread fear, which is a very bad example. ''
The White House was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
China's National Health Commission on Monday confirmed 17,205 cases of the coronavirus in the country and 361 deaths.
The number of deaths in mainland China as a result of the virus has now surpassed that of the SARS epidemic, which lasted from 2002 to 2003.
Late last week, Trump signed an order temporarily barring entry to foreign nationals who had traveled to China within the past two weeks. Australia, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Russia and Singapore have announced similar restrictions.
The World Health Organization has advised against imposing such measures, warning that travel restrictions can cause more harm than good.
`` In a globalized world, the destinies of all countries are closely linked, '' Hua said, emphasizing that the Trump administration's decision to impose travel restrictions `` could create and spread panic. ''
`` In the face of a public health crisis, countries should work together to overcome the difficulties, rather than resort to beggar-thy-neighbor practice, let alone take advantage of others ' difficulties. ''
The WHO last week declared the deadly pneumonia-like virus a global health emergency, citing concern that the outbreak continues to spread to other countries with weaker health systems.
WHO's designation was issued in order to help the United Nations health agency mobilize financial and political support to contain the outbreak.
In a speech to the WHO's executive board on Monday, China's delegate urged the international community not to `` deliberately create panic. ''
The delegate called on countries around the world to treat the outbreak objectively and said the Chinese government would continue to take a `` responsible attitude '' toward its citizens ' health.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that 151 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in 23 countries outside China.
Tedros also reaffirmed the health agency's view that there is no need to impose restrictions that `` unnecessarily '' interfere with international travel and trade. | business |
Coronavirus update: 361 have died, there are now 11 cases in the U.S. and the case count has doubled SARS | U.S. health officials expanded the number of airports that U.S. citizens returning from China’ s Hubei Province will be funneled through as part of the government’ s efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
There are now 11 airports that are expected to accept U.S. citizens, immediate family members of citizens, and permanent residents returning from Hubei. Wuhan, the city considered to be the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, is located in Hubei Province.
On Friday, Trump administration officials said all citizens who have traveled to Hubei Province in the last 14 days would have to undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days once they returned to the U.S. At that time, they said there would be seven airports accepting this group of individuals. The current list is: Chicago’ s O’ Hare International, Dallas Fort Worth International, Detroit Metropolitan, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, Honolulu’ s Official Daniel K. Inouye International, John F. Kennedy International, Los Angeles International, Newark Liberty International, San Francisco International, Seattle-Tacoma International, and Washington Dulles International airports.
As of noon on Monday, the only quarantined U.S. citizens are the 195 individuals who returned by Wuhan on a State Department flight last week.
There are 11 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S., nine of which were diagnosed in people who had recently traveled to Wuhan. There are two cases of transmission between spouses.
“ We made an aggressive decision in front of an unprecedented threat, ” Nancy Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a call Monday with reporters.
At least 361 people have died and 17,205 have been sickened by the novel coronavirus, according to the
latest figures
from China’ s National Health Commission. The World Health Organization ( WHO) said Monday that outside of China there are 151 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in 23 countries, including the first ex-China death, in the Philippines.
The case count for the virus has now surpassed that of severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS), which had infected 8,098 people during the 2002 and 2003 outbreak. About 770 had died. There were eight reported SARS infections in the U.S.
Last week marked a historic week. U.S. officials
implemented the first mandatory quarantine
in 50 years, of 195 U.S. citizens recently returned from Wuhan for two weeks. Starting Sunday night, all travelers returning from China have to go through one of the 11 designated U.S. airports. All citizens returning from Hubei Province have to
undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days
. The U.S. is also no longer allowing foreign nationals, excluding permanent residents and immediate family members of U.S. citizens, to enter the U.S. from mainland China in a bid to limit spread of the virus — a policy that a number of other nations such as Singapore have also implemented.
On Jan. 30, the WHO
designated the outbreak
a public health emergency of international concern ( PHEIC) after deciding Jan. 23 not to do so. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in remarks on Monday that the “ PHEIC-or-no-PHEIC system is too blunt an instrument for dealing with complex emergencies. We have a green light, a red light, and nothing in between. We need a yellow light, maybe other mechanisms, but the yes-no binary is not really suitable for emergencies. ”
Looking ahead, for the WHO to declare the outbreak a pandemic, there needs to be sustained transmission between humans on at least two continents. The last time the WHO declared a pandemic was in 2009, for the H1N1 flu virus, which is also referred to as swine flu. “ Sustained transmission is when the virus is transmitting beyond just clusters of cases in people who are contacts, ” Lisa Schnirring, news editor for Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy News, said in an email. “ Right now, that type of transmission is just happening in China. ”
Health care stocks rally again, on treatment plans:
Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc.
GILD,
-0.04%
rallied 5%
in premarket trading on Monday after the drugmaker said last week that it is working with Chinese authorities to test its investigational antiviral remdesivir as a treatment for people with the virus. Gilead noted in a statement that the therapy hasn’ t demonstrated to be safe or effective for any use. The drugmaker plans to conduct a randomized, controlled trial in China as part of those plans, saying that remdesivir has shown “ in vitro and in vivo activity in animal models against the viral pathogens ” Middle East respiratory syndrome ( MERS) and SARS, both of which are also coronaviruses. SVB Leerink Research’ s Geoffrey Porges wrote in a note on Monday that “ while remdesivir is believed to be a potentially effective agent in coronavirus infections, the utility of this agent against the 2019 novel coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV) has yet to be rigorously demonstrated. ” The trial is understood to have 270 patients.
Separately, shares of NanoViricides Inc.
NNVC,
+0.20%
,
a preclinical company that has also said it is working on a coronavirus treatment, tumbled 32% in premarket trading after rocketing 99.5% the past three days amid a coronavirus rally for some vaccine and drug makers.
SARS benefited Ryanair. Will this coronavirus?
Ryanair Holdings PLC
RY4C,
+1.63%
CEO Michael O’ Leary told investors Monday that European travelers tended to travel locally after outbreaks of SARS in 2003 and avian bird flu in 2009. “ It was mildly good for the short-haul business here in Europe, ” he said, according to a FactSet transcript of the call. “ More people were likely to holiday in Europe rather than traveling long-haul to Asia, etc. And we would think that will play out again. But we should be wary on the short-term impact. ”
Lufthansa Group
LHA,
-0.84%
said it was extending the travel ban, on flights to and from Beijing and Shanghai on its Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines flights, to Feb. 29. The ban was previously until Feb. 9.
Don’ t miss:
Delta and American Airlines halt flights as U.S. warns travelers to avoid China — how airlines are responding to coronavirus
“ The safety of the passengers and employees is a top priority for the Lufthansa Group, ” the company said in a statement. “ The Lufthansa Group will continuously monitory the situation of the coronavirus and is in contact with the responsible authorities. ”
Read more about the coronavirus:
Why the coronavirus ‘ poses a more significant threat’ to markets, economy than past epidemics
Coronavirus will ‘ shake markets out of their buy-the-dip’ mentality, says El-Erian
Coronavirus spreads damage to Wall Street. Could the U.S. economy be next?
As coronavirus infections exceed 17,000, here’ s why it spread so rapidly | business |
The Trump administration has made the US less ready for infectious disease outbreaks like coronavirus | As coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump administration has declared a public health emergency and imposed quarantines and travel restrictions. However, over the past three years the administration has weakened the offices in charge of preparing for and preventing this kind of outbreak.
Two years ago, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that the world should be “ preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war ”. Gates, whose foundation has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response.
The Trump administration has done exactly the opposite: It has slashed funding for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its infectious disease research. For fiscal year 2020, Trump proposed cutting the CDC budget by US $ 1.3 billion, nearly 20% below the 2019 level.
As a specialist in budgeting, I recognize that there are many claims on public resources. But when it comes to public health, I believe it is vital to invest early in prevention. Starving the CDC of critical funding will make it far harder for the government to react quickly to a public health emergency.
Every year since taking office, Trump has asked for deep cuts into research on emerging diseases – including the CDC’ s small center on emerging and “ zoonotic ” infectious diseases that jump the species barrier from animals to humans. The new coronavirus is just the latest example of these threats.
The CDC’ s program focuses on infectious diseases ranging from foodborne illnesses to anthrax and Ebola. It manages laboratory, epidemiologic, analytic and prevention programs, and collaborates with state and local health departments, other federal government agencies, industry and foreign ministries of health.
In 2018, Trump tried to cut $ 65 million from this budget – a 10% reduction. In 2019, he sought a 19% reduction. For 2020, he proposed to cut federal spending on emerging infectious and zoonotic diseases by 20%. This would mean spending $ 100 million less in 2020 to study how such diseases infect humans than the U.S. did just two years ago.
Congress reinstated most of this funding, with bipartisan support. But the overall level of appropriations for relevant CDC programs is still 10% below what the U.S. spent in 2016, adjusting for inflation.
Even worse, in 2018 the administration disbanded its own global health security team, which was supposed to make the U.S. more resilient to the threat of epidemics. This unfortunate decision was part of a reorganization that former national security adviser John Bolton carried out shortly after arriving at the White House.
Bolton eliminated the National Security Council’ s global health security and biodefense directorate, and reshuffled its team of world-class infectious disease experts. In response, two highly respected leaders in the field – Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, the NSC’ s senior director for global health security and biodefense, and Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert – left the White House.
Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Ziemer had served as the U.S. point person for a coordinated global anti-malaria campaign that helped reduce deaths from the disease by 60% over 15 years. In 2016 he estimated that funding initiatives to reduce malaria generated a 36 to 1 return on investment because it averted so many deaths and debilitating illnesses.
In 2018 Ziemer was instrumental in fighting the reemergence of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, traveling there and working with public health officials to reduce the spread of the dreaded disease.
There is no wall high enough to keep virulent pathogens from crossing national borders, and when they emerge there is a potential for widespread illness and death. Containing the first major Ebola epidemic in 2014-2016, which killed 11,000 people in West Africa, required an enormous global effort. Only 11 patients were treated for Ebola in the U.S., but that was because President Obama took the threat seriously, appointing an “ Ebola czar ” to coordinate U.S. preparedness and assistance.
Now that the White House has evicted the NSC’ s global health security experts, it is not clear who in the Trump administration will be responsible for coordinating U.S. efforts in the event of a global pandemic.
The new coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, has already spread to 25 countries. The CDC has confirmed that person-to-person transmission has occurred in the U.S. It will take a large-scale effort to contain this outbreak, and battling the virus requires money.
Although the Gates Foundation and other charities give away billions of dollars to promote public health, such gifts are no substitute for the kind of specific, targeted scientific research into emerging diseases that the CDC and other federal agencies are uniquely designed to conduct. Fighting epidemics also requires planning to prepare and coordinate with hospitals, medical professionals, pharmacies, airlines, local government and the general public, which also requires funding.
President Trump recently signed a $ 738 billion dollar defense budget – the highest level since World War II. It creates a new Space Force and funds research into dozens of remotely possible military threats. Relative to defense spending, the $ 6.5 billion CDC budget is tiny. But as I see it, deadly global pandemics and emerging biological and viral threats pose an equal or greater threat to our national security.
As climate change warms the Earth, thousands of long-frozen dormant diseases are defrosting. And the World Health Organization reports that 75% of all emerging pathogens over the past decade are zoonotic diseases, most of which are understudied. As Bill Gates warned in 2018, “ If history has taught us anything, it’ s that there will be another deadly global pandemic. ” I believe the U.S. must allocate more resources to research, detection and global prevention and communication efforts, not less.
[ Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’ s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’ s news, every day. ] | business |
Coronavirus increases demand for Zoom remote work tools, says CEO | Zoom Video Communications CEO Eric Yuan told CNBC his phone was off the hook on Monday as the company's stock popped double digits.
Shares of the cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration provider surged nearly 15% during the trading day as the coronavirus outbreak continued to impact U.S. business operations in and travel to China, forcing affected employees to work remotely. It was the biggest one-day gain for the stock since June, according to FactSet.
`` I had to shut down my phone, because, actually, almost everyone is calling us, '' given the coronavirus, Yuan said in an interview with `` Mad Money '' host Jim Cramer.
Many American businesses have shutdown their offices in China, where the pneumonia-like disease originated, as officials try to contain it from spreading. More than 17,000 cases have been found in that country and more than 360 there have reportedly died since it was first discovered in the city of Wuhan in December. The outbreak has spread across the globe and 11 people have been diagnosed in the U.S.
Alphabet's Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Ford Motor are a handful of companies that have instructed its China workforce to work remote, which helped spark more demand for Zoom Video stock. The company offers videoconferencing, online meetings, chat and mobile collaboration services.
`` If you can not travel... you need to have a very reliable secure tool like Zoom, '' Yuan said. `` That's why our usage is very, very high since the last of the month, last week. Almost everyday, that's a record usage. ''
Yuan, however, suggested that the increased demand is just a boost in a wave that was already in motion.
Zoom's stock was also buoyed by news of a multi-hour outage of Microsoft Teams, the software giant's competing collaboration platform. Microsoft blamed the service disruption on an expired authentication certificate in the morning and almost 30 minutes after the stock market closed.
`` The trend is more and more people are willing to work at home and also almost every business has this [ type of ] workforce, '' the founder said. `` You need to have a tool like Zoom, very reliable secure service, to have a very deeper engagement across your company's employees, customers and partners. ''
Zoom Video, which came public last April, has a $ 24.2 billion market value as of Monday's close. Yuan is bullish of the company's growth prospects beyond the impact of the coronavirus on work forces.
He is expecting that video conferencing will become a $ 43 billion total addressable market in the coming years.
`` Ultimately, almost every company, they need to have a tool like this. I think that based on IDC estimates by 2023 that's a $ 43 billion market, '' the chief executive said. `` Look at our revenue last quarter. I think we're just starting. ''
Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust owns shares of Alphabet, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.
Questions for Cramer? Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC
Want to take a deep dive into Cramer's world? Hit him up! Mad Money Twitter - Jim Cramer Twitter - Facebook - Instagram
Questions, comments, suggestions for the `` Mad Money '' website? madcap @ cnbc.com | business |
Coronavirus updates: Oil falls, WHO says world is unprepared for pandemic | The coverage on this live blog has ended — but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team.
All times below are in Eastern time.
The coronavirus patient in Washington State has been treated and discharged from Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, a spokeswoman from the Snohomish County Health District said. The patient is recovering in isolation at home, the spokeswoman said. `` I am at home and continuing to get better, '' the patient, whose identity remains unknown, said in a statement. `` I appreciate all of the concern expressed by members of the public, and I look forward to returning to my normal life. ''
Goldman Sachs canceled its annual partners meeting scheduled for this week because travel restrictions resulting from the coronavirus outbreak prevented some Asia-based employees from making it to the bank's New York headquarters, according to two people familiar with the plans. Chief Executive Officer David Solomon will instead host a townhall meeting for about 250 of the partners able to attend in New York, one of the people said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now working with state and local health authorities to prepare facilities for quarantine. The Trump administration announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine on Friday for any American who has traveled to Hubei province in the two weeks prior to the announcement.
`` The discussions about where those patients will go is a conversation the CDC has been having actively with the state and local health departments, '' Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Monday. `` We are working through an operational plan that might be slightly different at each of those locations depending on how much preparation they 've done. ''
There are currently 195 Americans in mandatory quarantine, according to health officials. But that number could grow.
The Department of Health and Human Services notified Congress Sunday that it may transfer about $ 136 million to combat the outbreak. The CDC would receive up to $ 75 million, while $ 52 million would go toward public health and social services and $ 8.5 million would go towards management expenses, a person familiar with the situation told CNBC. Typically, HHS would have to wait at least 15 days to access the requested funds, so they are asking for that authority now. The Washington Post first reported the news.
Oil fell to its lowest level in more than a year in midday trading as fears of slowing demand hammered crude prices. `` The oil market has been subject to many supply shocks over recent years, but an acute demand shock has not been felt since the 2008 financial crisis, '' RBC's Michael Tran said in a note to clients, adding that the coronavirus has `` roiled the oil market. '' China is the world's largest oil importer and the second-largest oil consumer, so a demand slowdown could have a big impact on prices.
Princess Cruises said it is holding a ship for 24 hours while Japanese health authorities assess the 3,700 passengers and crew on board. A previous guest, who didn't have any symptoms while aboard the ship, tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday — six days after leaving the ship. `` Princess Cruises has confirmed the turnaround of Diamond Princess has been delayed for approximately 24 hours to allow Japan public health authorities the opportunity to review the health status of all guests and crew on board, '' the company said in a statement. It's unclear where the ship is being held.
Correction: The Princess Cruise ship's `` turnaround '' at port to travel to a new destination has been delayed. An earlier version of this report mischaracterized the action taken by ship.
CDC officials confirmed on a conference call with reporters that there are now 11 cases in the U.S., two of which were spread through human contact within the country. The officials also said the U.S. will send more flights to evacuate Americans from Wuhan. Upon arrival in the U.S., Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said those passengers will be quarantined for 14 days.
While the new coronavirus ravages much of China and world leaders rush to close their borders to protect citizens from the outbreak, the flu has quietly killed 10,000 in the U.S. so far this influenza season. `` In the U.S., it's really a fear based on media and this being something new, '' Dr. Jennifer Lighter, hospital epidemiologist at NYU Langone Health, said of the new coronavirus. `` When in reality, people can take measures to protect themselves against the flu, which is here and prevalent and has already killed 10,000 people. ''
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has scheduled a call for 11:30 a.m. to update the public on the new coronavirus. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, will speak.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world may be `` dangerously '' unprepared for the next pandemic. At a World Health Organization executive board meeting in Geneva, Tedros urged the 196 member countries to `` invest in preparedness, '' not `` panic. '' He said funding for outbreak preparedness in surrounding countries `` has remained grossly inadequate '' in the past.
Apple stock has been knocked off its all-time high of $ 324.34 per share amid concerns that the coronavirus outbreak will disrupt company operations in China. Apple shares shot up to the record high after a strong earnings report last week, but investors have cooled. The company previously announced that it had shut all its stores and offices in mainland China through next Sunday.
The United Arab Emirates announced it will suspend all flights to and from China starting on Wednesday, a state news agency reported. Flights from Beijing were exempted from the ban. The UAE is home to Dubai, which has the world's third-busiest airport.
China told the WHO that channels of communication with Taiwan had been '' unblocked, '' with Beijing sharing full information on the coronavirus with authorities across the strait. Taiwan, which is not a WHO member due to China's objections, has 10 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. China considers self-governing Taiwan a wayward province to be brought under its control.
Saudi Arabia is debating a short-term oil product cut as the deadly coronavirus continues to spread, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing OPEC officials. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies are expected to meet Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the possible actions, according to the Journal.
China's Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. of setting a `` very bad example '' when it comes to tackling the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak, saying President Donald Trump's administration is spreading fear instead of providing much-needed assistance. China's National Health Commission earlier confirmed 17,205 cases of the coronavirus in the country and 361 deaths.
Read CNBC's coverage from our Asia-Pacific team overnight: Hong Kong closes most border crossings with mainland China, death toll at 362
—CNBC's Sam Meredith and Reuters contributed to this report. | business |
Apple, Intel, and Other China-Exposed Stocks to Buy on the Dip | Chinese women and a child all wear protective masks as they walk under decorations in a park ( Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Getty Images
The Wuhan coronavirus has infected nearly 10,000 people in China and killed 213. To contain the outbreak, national holidays were extended, stores were closed, public events were canceled, and travel plans and movie screenings were delayed.
The economic repercussions can’ t be ignored,
and are reflected in the falling stock prices around global markets.
Stock markets in China were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, but trading in exchange-traded funds continued.
iShares MSCI China
( ticker: MCHI) has declined 11% since Jan. 17, while
iShares MSCI World
( URTH) and
iShares MSCI USA Equal Weighted
( EUSA) have both lost more than 3%.
During the SARS epidemic in 2003, China’ s gross-domestic-product growth fell to 0.8% in the second quarter of 2003 from 2.9% in the first quarter, before bouncing back to 3.7% in the third quarter. Retail sales fell 4%, and air-passenger traffic plunged by 70% -80% for tourist-heavy economies such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, according to Robert Buckland, an equity strategist at Citigroup.
Read Next:
Sports Gambling Will Be a Huge Opportunity. Bet on These Stocks.
Asian stocks were hit the hardest and continued to sell off in March 2003, even as markets elsewhere recovered. Indeed, Asian equities didn’ t bottom out until new cases of infection peaked in late April. Cyclical sectors sold off the most, while defensives held up better. Some of the hardest-hit industries included airlines, hotels, restaurants, and banks.
We should see a similar pattern this time. Citigroup economist Li-Gang Liu expects China’ s GDP growth to slow down to 4.8% in the first quarter of 2020, and has cut his forecast for the full year to 5.5% from 5.8%. The outbreak is expected to peak in March, Citi strategists estimate, and Asian equity markets are likely to keep falling until there are
signs infections are leveling out.
Yet a China slowdown this time around will have a much bigger impact on the world economy than during the SARS outbreak in 2003. The Chinese economy made up only 4% of global GDP back then. Now, it is 17%.
In the U.S., the coronavirus outbreak comes when stocks have been rallying for most of the past year and hitting new highs. According to a market sentiment indicator from Citigroup chief U.S. equity strategist Tobias Levkovich, the U.S. market has entered euphoric territory and investors should exercise some short-term caution.
The stock market
was already due for a pause
, and the coronavirus has proven to be the catalyst. Some might worry that the latest dip could mark the beginning of the next major bear market, but Citi’ s economists think it’ s still too early to make the call. Out of the bank’ s 18 economic indicators, only five have turned red—the most for the current cycle, but still not enough to make a bearish call.
Instead, the coronavirus-triggered selloff might present a good opportunity to buy the dip. Global equities will likely track the growth of earnings to post about a 4% gain in 2020, according to Buckland, and that means any further drop in prices would make expected returns more attractive.
Buckland argues that it might be time to hunt for some bargains. His team has put together a list of large-cap developed-markets stocks that generate at least 15% of their sales from China. Stocks in the list, including 25 U.S., 19 European, and 16 Japanese companies, performed strongly in 2019, rallying 36.6% for the year as the MSCI World benchmark gained 25.2%. They have recently underperformed, falling 4.6% since Jan. 17.
These stocks could be
vulnerable if worries around the coronavirus and Chinese economy escalate
, and should remain under pressure until the outbreak is brought under control. That makes them a good buy. Many of the listed names are in the semiconductors, autos, and tech hardware sector, including
Apple
( ticker: AAPL),
Intel
( INTC),
Nvidia
( NVDA),
TE Connectivity
( TEL), and
Western Digital
( WDC).
Write to
Evie Liu at
evie.liu @ barrons.com | business |
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