Cincunri Sakia

Minggu, 12 April 2020

China steps up scrutiny of inbound travelers as imported coronavirus cases hit record - Reuters

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is stepping up scrutiny of inbound foreigners and tightening border control after the number of single-day imported coronavirus cases set a record, helping double the daily number of newly detected infections.

Workers in protective suits are seen at a registration point for passengers at an airport in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province bordering Russia, following the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in the country, China April 11, 2020. REUTERS/Huizhong Wu

New confirmed cases in mainland China reached 99 on April 11 from 46 the previous day, with all but two involving travelers from abroad. In commercial hub Shanghai, 51 Chinese nationals flying in on the same flight from Russia tested positive.

“The risk of imported cases has increased dramatically,” Wen Guohui, mayor of Guangzhou, an economic hub in Southern China, told a news conference on Sunday.

Guangzhou is enforcing anti-virus measures on anyone who enters the city from across the national border, regardless of nationality, race or gender, foreign affairs official Liu Baochun said at the same event.

“We hope foreigners can strictly abide by anti-virus rules as Chinese do,” he said.

In the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, which reported 21 new, Russia-imported cases on April 11, the local government said its Suifenhe border with Russia will remain closed after April 13. The border was temporarily closed on April 9 to contain the epidemic, and was scheduled to open next week.

Even Wuhan, the first virus epicenter which this month emerged from lockdown after containing the virus, is vulnerable to imported infection, China’s senior medical advisor Zhong Nanshan said.

“At the moment, the epidemic is still spreading rapidly overseas, so China’s coastal, major cities with close international contact are highly vulnerable, and could see the epidemic come back again,” Zhong told the official People’s Daily newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Zhong cautioned with the world’s virus epicenter shifting from Europe to the United States, it is too early to judge whether the pandemic’s peak is imminent.

“It’s not yet time to take off masks,” he said, adding China’s enforcement of anti-virus measures offers experience to other countries seeking to contain the disease.

IMPORTED FROM RUSSIA

Mainland China reported 99 new coronavirus cases on April 11, more than doubling from the previous day to reach a one-month high, showed data from China’s National Health Commission. Just two out of the 99 cases were locally transmitted.

Shanghai contributed more than half of the imported cases. Of the city’s new cases, 51 flew in on the same flight from Russia on April 10. The 52nd case involved a Chinese national arriving from a trip to Canada.

Shanghai authorities have quarantined 92 other passengers who were in close contact with the infected, the city’s health commission said on Sunday.

The 21 imported cases confirmed on April 11 in China’s Heilongjiang province all involved Chinese nationals traveling from Russia.

To help Russia combat the virus, a group of Chinese medical experts arrived in Moscow on Saturday along with a batch of anti-virus equipment, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.

In addition, highlighting another major source of risk, newly reported asymptomatic coronavirus cases nearly doubled to 63 on April 11, from 34 the previous day.

The country’s tally of infections now stands at 82,052, with 3,339 deaths.

MISTREATMENT

In an apparent response to criticism of mistreatment of foreigners, officials in Guangzhou said it treats foreigners and Chinese nationals equally in enforcing anti-virus measures.

Several African countries have demanded that China tackle concerns that Africans in Guangzhou are being mistreated and harassed amid fear the virus could spread from imported cases.

“The anti-virus curbs apply to all Chinese citizens and foreigners, with no discrimination in enforcement”, Cai Wei, an officer of the city’s public security bureau, told a news conference.

Police officers in protective suits are seen at an airport in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province bordering Russia, following the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in the country, China April 11, 2020. REUTERS/Huizhong Wu

He said foreigners and nationals alike must abide by rules or else face punishment.

Last week, Guangzhou’s U.S. consulate said local government officials had ordered bars and restaurants not to serve clients who appeared to be of African origin.

Those in contact with anyone from Africa faced mandatory virus tests followed by quarantine, regardless of recent travel history or previous isolation, the U.S. consulate said in a statement, advising African-Americans or those who feared being targeted to stay away.

Reporting by Samuel Shen, Winni Zhou and Brenda Goh; Editing by Leslie Adler and Christopher Cushing

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-04-12 08:48:44Z
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In Jerusalem, coronavirus gives Israelis and Palestinans something else to argue about - The - The Washington Post

JERUSALEM — The arrival of coronavirus has brought no pause in tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the eastern neighborhoods of this contested city, where both sides of the conflict accuse the other of using the pandemic to advance their political purposes.

Some Palestinians complain that Israeli officials, who provide health and police services in East Jerusalem, have been slow to offer virus testing and Arabic-language information in this part of the city and, in some cases, have thwarted the Arabs’ own efforts to respond to the outbreak.

Israeli officials, in turn, contend that the Palestinian Authority, which governs the adjacent West Bank, is exploiting the outbreak to meddle in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods.

The acrimony belies corona-cooperation in other areas, where Israeli and Palestinian agencies have worked together to distribute testing kits and control movement of people in the West Bank and facilitated the passage of critical supplies into Gaza.

But tensions in Jerusalem threaten to mar what both Israel and the Palestinian Authority increasingly see as successful efforts to prevent the high death counts suffered by some countries.

Beleaguered residents of East Jerusalem neighborhoods say they are caught in the war of words between the two sides, and not for the first time.

“Everybody wants to control us but nobody wants to help us,” said a young Palestinian man sitting on a car hood in the impoverished ridge-top neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber on a recent afternoon. He would only give his first name, Abdel, because he feared reprisals from both governments. “We fall in the middle.”

The most recent flare-up of tensions began early in the outbreak, when Israeli and Palestinian activists criticized the Israeli Ministry of Health for failing to provide covid-19 information in Arabic, the first language of Palestinians who make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population.

The ministry increased its Arabic updates soon after a legal advocacy group documented the lack of timely Arabic updates on its website in early March, and it has since instituted dedicated Arabic briefings on social media and television.

There is little indication that East Jerusalem is harboring a significant outbreak. The health ministry’s official map of coronavirus cases showed only two incidents of infection last week in the city’s Arab sections. But health experts warn the low count could reflect a lack of testing.

Israel has established a number of drive-through testing centers around the country, including one in West Jerusalem. While Palestinian residents are free to travel about the city, many are reluctant to venture into Jewish sections, and local leaders called for a center to be added in East Jerusalem.

“I ask the residents of East Jerusalem to be patient, be understanding,” Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said to local media in early April, announcing that the Health Ministry was looking for a testing location in their part of the city.

A center opened adjacent to a United Nations compound in Jabal Mukaber on April 3. But two other Palestinian neighborhoods, located on the West Bank side of the concrete security barrier that winds through Jerusalem, remain cut off, leaving some 150,000 Jerusalem residents without practical access to testing.

“There are many elderly people, women and children who need to pass through a checkpoint to reach Jerusalem and the existing test center,” said Suhad Bishara, an attorney with Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, which in the past week petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to make testing available to those city residents.

Israeli officials said they were committed to delivering coronavirus services equitably to all parts of Jerusalem. Any lag in the Arab parts of the city, they contend, was only due to the frantic pace of mounting an unprecedented emergency response.

“Israel looks at the entire area as one epidemiological territory,” said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. “The virus does not distinguish between Jews and others.”

Jerusalem’s deputy mayor, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, said coronavirus initiatives were now operating in all quarters of the city, including Arab neighborhoods, delivering food and essential items to those in need. She said the city, together with the Health Ministry and the army, have set up five quarantine hotels, including one in Jabal Mukaber.

“We are trying to identify the sick,” Hassan-Nahoum said. “A test center was set up last Thursday, and we have been testing around 300 people a day. We want to get the number of people being tested each day up to 1,000.”

In Jerusalem, rising pandemic tensions reflect the broader, decades-long tug of war between Israel and the Palestinian Authority for influence and control over the Palestinian communities of the city.

Israel views Jerusalem as its “eternal, undivided capital” and sees any challenge to Israeli authority — in any part of the city — as illegal. Palestinians likewise view the city’s eastern section, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Even as some Arab residents have sought to engage more closely with Israel’s economic and political systems, learning Hebrew and seeking more funding for their neighborhoods, Palestinian officials work to draw them closer to the West Bank.

“Both sides are accusing the other trying to use the crisis to change the status quo in Jerusalem,” said Michael Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

In recent days, Israeli police arrested two Palestinian Authority officials on charges of promoting their government’s interests in Jerusalem, an act banned by Israel within the city itself. Police said the two officials — Fadi al-Hadami, the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs, and Adnan Ghaith, the Palestinian shadow governor of Jerusalem — were detained for carrying out political activities on behalf of a foreign entity.

“The Palestinian Authority wants to take over in parts of Jerusalem, but the law in Israel says it is illegal for any foreign entity to act under Israeli sovereignty without permission,” Erdan said.

Al-Hadami said he was detained for appearing on Palestinian television to advise East Jerusalemites to stay home and take precautions.

“They wanted me to put on a face mask, but I could tell it was used,” he said of his arrest. “There were drops of blood on it.”

Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld denied that al-Hadami was given a dirty face mask.

Fouad Hallak, a policy adviser to the Palestinian Fatah party who lives in East Jerusalem, said groups he helped organize were blocked by police when they tried to disinfect areas around mosques and churches in Jerusalem’s Old City on April 3.

“Israel is preventing all of our activities related to the coronavirus,” Hallak said.

Not since the Black Plague have Jerusalem’s holy alleys fallen so still

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-04-12 06:39:18Z
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Sabtu, 11 April 2020

Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Surpasses Italy in Total Deaths as Christians Prepare to Celebrate Easter at Home - The New York Times

新冠病毒疫情最新消息

Here’s what you need to know:

An empty Tehran street beneath a mural depicting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last month. — Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Countries around the world are weighing the costs and benefits of reopening society.

The coronavirus pandemic continued its global assault on Sunday, with more than 1.7 million known cases recorded worldwide and at least 108,000 deaths.

But even as some countries join the list of those with broad lockdown orders and others maintain or extend sweeping shutdowns, others have begun eyeing the benefits of reopening at least some parts of society.

In Iran, the hardest-hit country so far in its region, some government offices and shops, factories and other businesses began reopening on Saturday as the national lockdown is lifted in phases. President Hassan Rouhani had said last week that economic and government activity must continue. On Saturday, he said that people should still observe social distancing.

The lifting of restrictions came despite warnings from the country’s health ministry that the reopening could cause a new spike in cases and tens of thousands of additional deaths.

Some of the most grievously hit countries in Europe, while still recording hundreds of new deaths every day, say that the worst appears to be past. Their plans to ease some restrictions, they caution, will not bring normalcy, but instead a new phase of learning how to safely live with the pandemic.

Spain, with the world’s highest caseload after the United States, is preparing to allow some nonessential employees to return to work on Monday. The country has reported a falling death rate and a daily growth in new cases of about 3 percent, compared with 20 percent in mid-March.

Italy, which follows Spain in cases but has the highest death toll after the United States, will allow some bookstores, children’s clothing shops and some forestry-related occupations to resume operations after the current restrictions expire on Tuesday.

Austria plans to reopen smaller shops after this weekend. The Czech Republic is opening small stores, and people can play tennis and go swimming. Denmark may reopen kindergartens and schools starting next week, Norway will allow pupils to attend kindergarten.

And China has ended its lockdown of Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged.

For many countries, the question of whether to ease restrictions does not have a clear answer yet. In the United States, President Trump — and governors of each state — are balancing calls from medical experts to keep restrictions in place with pleas from bankers, corporate executives and industrialists to ease them.

India, on the other hand, appears set to extend a 21-day lockdown for all 1.3 billion citizens for two more weeks, carrying it to the end of April.

Some countries put in place new measures. Turkey on Friday ordered a two-day curfew for 31 provinces. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has ordered air traffic to the country halted after more than 70 people who arrived from Newark, N.J., on Saturday morning left Ben Gurion Airport without official verifications of their mandatory quarantine plans and checks of their temperatures.

A Times examination reveals the extent of President Trump’s slow response to the virus, which has now claimed more than 20,000 lives in the U.S.

Throughout January, as President Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.

Dozens of interviews and a review of emails and other records by The New York Times revealed many previously unreported details of the roots and extent of Mr. Trump’s halting response. Read the full investigation.

The country now has more than 515,000 confirmed cases, by far the world’s largest count, and more than 20,000 deaths, surpassing Italy’s as the world’s heaviest toll. More than 16 million Americans have lost their jobs.

Here’s what else is happening in the United States:

On Saturday, the U.S. surpassed Italy in the total number of confirmed deaths from the coronavirus with 20,109. Government projections obtained by The New York Times found that without any mitigation, the death toll from the virus could have reached 300,000 — and that it could reach 200,000 if the Trump administration lifts 30-day stay-at-home orders. Read the latest updates for the United States.
Christians across the United States prepared to celebrate Easter by gathering virtually on Sunday, largely following stay-at-home orders and guidance from health officials. A handful of lone pastors in states like Louisiana and Mississippi plan to hold in-person services in defiance of restrictions on mass gatherings, citing their religious freedoms. President Trump said in a tweet that he will watch the online service of First Baptist Dallas, led by Robert Jeffress, one of his prominent supporters.

The largest states are split on when and how to reopen. The governors of Texas and Florida, both Republicans, have started talking about reopening businesses and schools, echoing signals from Mr. Trump. But the leaders of California and New York, both Democrats, are sounding more cautious notes.

Top officials in New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak with more than 180,000 cases, appear to disagree over whether New York City schools will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. Read the latest updates for the New York region.
Citing the virus, the Trump administration announced that it would issue visa penalties on countries that refuse to accept people the U.S. aims to deport.
With so many restaurants and schools closed and other sources of demand disrupted, many of the largest farms in the country are being forced to destroy tens of millions of pounds of fresh food that they haven’t been able to sell or donate to food banks, which can only absorb so much perishable food.

Pope Francis will say Easter Mass and deliver an annual message by live-stream.

Last year, the Vatican’s police force estimated that 70,000 faithful crammed into St. Peter’s Square on Easter morning to hear the pope deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and to the World”) message after the Easter Mass.

But on Sunday, Pope Francis won’t impart his Easter message and blessing from a window in the apostolic palace, from where he greets the faithful most Sundays. Instead, Francis will live-stream the Mass, followed by the message and a blessing, on the Vatican news website, starting at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. Eastern).

People are prohibited from gathering in the square. And the Francis will celebrate Mass with just a few assistants inside the empty basilica.

The Vatican also live-streamed the Via Crucis, the traditional Good Friday procession that evokes the Stations of the Cross leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, in St. Peter’s Square instead of Rome’s Colosseum, where it is traditionally held. At the end of the procession, Francis prayed silently before a wooden crucifix that had been carried during Rome’s 16th-century plague.

Earlier Friday, Francis called an Italian state TV Good Friday special to say he felt close to the victims of the pandemic, and that he was thinking about the “doctors, nurses, nuns and priests who had died on the front lines as soldiers, giving their life for love.”

In this pandemic, many are resisting, in their communities, in hospitals, caring for the ill. “Even today people are crucified, and die for love,” Francis said.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak

The virus has infected more than 1,731,000 people in at least 177 countries.

Montreal police open a criminal investigation into deaths at a nursing home.

The police in Montreal said on Saturday night that they had launched a criminal investigation into a private residence for the elderly after 31 people had died there since March 13, at least five of them from confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Quebec’s premier, François Legault, said that the government had learned of the deaths at the 150-bed Résidence Herron, in a suburb west of Montreal, on Friday, and that he believed they amounted to “gross negligence.”

“This is terrible what happened,” Mr. Legault said on Saturday, adding that when officials from the regional health authority had arrived at the residence on March 29 to investigate, “almost all the staff was gone.”

At that point, he said, the authority dispatched a team of health workers to care for the residents, and it has now taken over the running of the residence.

An investigation by Montreal Gazette, a local newspaper, said that residents had been discovered unfed and wearing clothing covered with feces.

Mr. Legault said that it was “unacceptable” how the elderly were being cared for in Quebec, and that staff shortages and insufficient salaries had been an ongoing issue at privately run residences. “I am not proud to see what is happening,” he said.

Résidence Herron is owned by a Quebec real estate company called Katasa, which owns six other retirement residences. The company was not immediately available for comment on Saturday. But it previously said it had been doing its best under challenging circumstances.

Quebec has been hit hard by the coronavirus. As of Saturday, it had 12,292 confirmed cases and 289 deaths. More than 90 percent of those who have died were 70 or older.

Officials said Saturday that after one resident at the Herron had tested positive for the virus, regional health authorities had reached out to the residence to learn more about the status of its residents, but were rebuffed. The authorities then obtained a court order to gain access to medical files, and learned of the number of deaths on Friday.

Quebec’s minister of health, Danielle McCann, ordered checks of private residences for the elderly across the province.

Australians are eager to dress up and take out the trash.

In Australia, where coronavirus infections have risen past 6,000 and large states are on lockdown and enduring an unprecedented economic crisis, residents have found joy in simply taking out the trash.

Bin Isolation Outing, a public Facebook group, which started last month and has grown to over 600,000 members, encourages Australians to get creative with their garbage disposal.

“So basically the bin goes out more than us so let’s dress up for the occasion,” a description of the group said. “Fancy dress, makeup, tutu … be creative!”

Thousands of photos have been uploaded. There’s no shortage of Easter bunnies, dinosaurs and other recognizable faces like Snow White and Peppa Pig, all taking out the trash. Even some pets have been added to the mix.

One of the more creative posts showed a man having a spa day in his bin and another showed one family holding a mock wedding where the bride married a bin, followed by a reception.

The trend has reached Twitter and Instagram, where people are tagging their photos #BinIsolationOuting.

Modi signals that India will extend its lockdown, the world’s largest.

India appears set to extend a nationwide lockdown for all 1.3 billion citizens, government officials said on Saturday.

A statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office said the chief ministers of India’s states had reached a consensus to extend the existing 21-day lockdown for two weeks when it ends on April 15.

During a meeting with top officials, Mr. Modi said the lockdown had helped stunt the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and that “constant vigilance is paramount,” according to the statement.

The statement did not make clear Mr. Modi’s final decision, but some states have already extended the restrictions to the end of the month.

“PM has taken correct decision to extend lockdown,” Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, wrote on Twitter, without elaborating. “If it is stopped now, all gains would be lost.”

Indian officials have faced staggering challenges in enforcing the lockdown, which went into effect on March 25 with four hours’ notice. It shut down almost all businesses and transportation in a country of 1.3 billion people.

Supply chain disruptions have complicated the distribution of food to Indians who rely on subsidies. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers living hand-to-mouth found themselves trapped in big cities. Some embarked on hundred-mile journeys on foot to reach their villages.

India has a relatively low number of confirmed cases — about 7,500 — but testing is extremely limited, and large numbers of cases would be disastrous. Health care across the country is poor, and millions of people live in packed urban areas, making social distancing nearly impossible.

Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist government continues to draw criticism that it is curtailing press freedom.

Reporting was contributed by Dan Bilefsky, Kai Schultz, Derrick Taylor, Courtney Mabeus and Amie Tsang.

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2020-04-12 05:18:16Z
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