China cashes in off coronavirus, selling Spain $467 million in supplies, some of them substandard - Fox News

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As the novel coronavirus sweeps across the world, some countries are finding themselves in a difficult situation.

Low on supplies or money, traditional American allies like Spain, Italy, France and Japan have had to turn to China for help.

China has used its money, medical equipment and teams of doctors and nurses in a high-stakes campaign to show the world that while the United States scrambles to contain the novel coronavirus within its borders, China is busy moving in on some of America's closest allies.

"Never let a good crisis go to waste," Dimitar Bechev, a senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, wrote. "There is no better illustration that the medical supplies and crews of doctors China has been supplying to Italy and other European countries battling COVID-19. Beijing does carry a large share of the blame for the global pandemic... but now it seeks to shape the narrative of the crisis unfolding before our eyes."

DOCTORS IN DISTRESS, QUARANTINE SEND SOS FOR MORE PROTECTIVE GEAR, TESTS: 'IT'S A COMPLETE MESS'

China has come through for several countries but, in some, it has fallen short of expectations.

In Spain, for example, Health Minister Salvador Illa announced Wednesday that the country had bought $467 million in medical supplies from China, including 950 ventilators, 5.5 million testing kits, 11 million gloves and more than half a billion protective face masks.

Soon after receiving the supplies, the Spanish government announced plans to return 9,000 "quick result" test kits to China, El Pais reported, because they were deemed substandard, specifically the sensibility of the test was around 30 percent, when it should be higher than 80 percent.

China admitted that the kits they sold to Spain were bought from Bioeasy, a Chinese company not licensed to make them.

The time and money Spain wasted on faulty supplies could have devastating effects on a country that is now in its second week of a national lockdown after cases of COVID-19 spiked.

CORONAVIRUS IN THE US: A STATE BY STATE BREAKDOWN

Spain now has at least 49,515 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to its Ministry of Health. Of that number, 8,000 people were confirmed to have the virus in the past 24 hours. Nearly 27,000 people remain hospitalized as Spain scrambles to contain the virus.

In Italy, Beijing sent more than 300 Chinese intensive-care doctors to help the country, which has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases behind China. As of Thursday, Italy has 74,386 cases of the coronavirus compared to China's 81,782 cases.

ITALY CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL PASSES CHINA'S FOR FIRST TIME 

Though the country has close ties with the United States, Italy has turned to China, Russia and Cuba for help.

Chinese teams arrived in mid-March with medical equipment and experts who told the Italian government that its lockdown was too weak. Italy took China's advice and tightened the screws, making sure people had protective masks and practiced social distancing. China also sent over shipments of medical supplies with a gigantic Chinese flag displayed on the supplies that read, "The friendship road knows no borders."

A few days after the supplies started arriving, China's President Xi Jinping called Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and told him that China wants to help Italy in its times of crisis and build a "Health Silk Road," NPR reported, adding that Italy was the first G7 country to endorse China's Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative.

Then came the Russians.

PUTIN POSTPONES VOTE ON AMENDMENT THAT COULD KEEP HIM IN POWER AMID CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

Nine Ilyushin 76 planes from Russia arrived in Italy crammed with epidemiologists, virologists, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. The Italian media dubbed the help from Moscow as "From Russia With Love," a nod to the 1963 James Bond movie.

"Never had so many Russian planes and personnel landed before in a NATO country," La Repubblica wrote.

Giulio Gallera, the Lombardy regional councilor for health services, purportedly smiled widely when he announced the arrival of Russian doctors at Papa Giovanni Hospital in Bergamo, Italy's coronavirus epicenter.

Then it was Cuba's turn.

Thirty-seven Cuban doctors and 15 nurses, who had previously battled Ebola in Africa, showed up in Italy ready to help the country.

Pictures taken of Cuba's medical posse was posted on Italy's Civil Protection Agency Facebook page. While some of the comments thanked China, Russia and Cuba for their help, others slammed the United States, a longtime Italy ally,  for not showing up in any meaningful way, NPR reported.

China also sent France some much needed medical supplies. A March 18 tweet from the Chinese Embassy confirmed the supplies -- which included face masks, medical gloves and protective suits -- had arrived. The tweet concluded with "United we will vanquish."

Beijing has also come to Japan's rescue.

When the Princess Diamond cruise ship docked in Japan, China donated testing kits to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Japan.

CORONAVIRUS LIVED ON DIAMOND PRINCESS CRUISE SHIP FOR UP TO 17 DAYS, CDC SAYS

A team of seven specialists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed up in Iraq on March 7 and have pledged to stay a month to help Baghdad help with testing, treatment and follow-up care of sick patients, China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

In neighboring Iran, China had sent over a team of experts on February 29.  When the United States tried to offer aid to their longtime adversary, the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei refused it. Instead, the ayatollah questioned America's motives and then began pushing one bizarre lie after another. He alleged without any evidence that COVID-19 "is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranian which they have obtained through different means."

POMPEO AND IRAN'S AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI TRADE JABS OVER COVID-19, RUMORS AND AID

His comments prompted U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to tweet: "The U.S. has offered $100M+ in medical aid to other nations - including Iran - and our scientists are working 24/7 to develop a vaccine. @khamenei_ir has rejected American offers and spends 24/7 concocting conspiracy theories. How does that help the Iranian people."

Other countries China has helped during the pandemic include the Philippines, where Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian handed over 100,000 test kits, 10,000 personal protective equipment, 100,000 surgical masks and 10,000 N95 masks.

China's presence was also felt in the Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Liberia and Serbia.

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Earlier this month, Serbian President  Aleksandar Vucic pleaded for China's help during a televised address.

"European solidarity does not exist," Vucic said. "That was a fairy tale on paper. I believe in my brother and friend Xi Jinping, and I believe in Chinese help."

Peter Navarro, a senior Trump administration trade official has signaled that the United States wasn't too proud to say yes to Chinese masks, gown goggles and other equipment but told The New York Times that the administration "will object to any Chinese effort to turn deliveries into fodder for propaganda that could bolster China's image at home and abroad."

China now produces 116 million masks a day, 12 times more than it used to.

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2020-03-26 15:59:41Z
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The Kremlin sends mixed messages on coronavirus as Russian cases spiral - CNN

In a nationwide address Wednesday, Putin conceded that it was "objectively impossible to stop [coronavirus] from spilling over" into a country of Russia's size. He urged Russians to "understand the complexity of the situation" and stay home, declaring next week to be a paid stay-at-home holiday.

It was a classic presidential performance, but Putin stopped short of delivering a bitter pill to the public. While he announced a number of measures to bolster the country's economy and encouraged citizens to stay home, he left it to other officials to announce more sweeping lockdown measures

On the morning following his speech, the Russian government announced it would seal its borders and cancel all international flights, with the exception of repatriation planes that are expected to bring thousands more Russians home from hard-hit areas.

Other officials are taking the coronavirus effort a step further. For days, the Kremlin had insisted that plans to quarantine residents of the capital were not on the table. But on Thursday, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin effectively moved to hit the pause button for the country's most vibrant economy, closing all restaurants, cafes, bars, shops and parks in the capital for a week starting Saturday.

Those measures are the strictest Russia has seen so far, as its official coronavirus toll began to increase rapidly. On Thursday, health officials reported the largest one-day increase to date with 182 new cases, bringing the total number to 840. Three people have died of Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The official narrative around the dangers the virus poses to Russia has also begun a subtle shift. Here, again, Moscow has taken the lead. Top Russian officials originally said preventive measures, such as closing the borders with China and testing people coming back from badly affected areas like Iran, helped delay the outbreak.

But the country did not immediately move to take samples from people coming elsewhere, especially Europe. The majority of early cases in Russia were reported to have been brought from Italy. And on Tuesday, Mayor Sobyanin took the unusual public step of telling Putin in a meeting that previous official figures had likely been underestimated, as many Russians returning from trips abroad did not get tested.

"Half of all people who came from abroad passed through Moscow, and the Muscovites themselves love to travel as well," Sobyanin said late Wednesday after Putin's address, referring to well-heeled Russians who often like to spend spring breaks at French ski resorts. "Many people have also visited Courchevel and brought a suitcase of viruses from there."

The messages, however, remain mixed. Despite the alarming trajectory of cases, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a conference call Thursday that there was no need to panic in Russia.

"There is no de facto epidemic [here]," Peskov said. "And de facto our situation is much better than in many countries, that is definitely due to the measures that our government began to take in advance in advance."

The numbers are likely to continue to grow quickly, now that private testing is available locally and the government has issued a directive to test everyone arriving in Russia.

Meanwhile, the medical professionals are preparing in case things get much worse, with local governments rushing to buy ventilators and expand ICU capacities.

Nikolai Malyshev, the chief infectious diseases specialist with the Moscow branch of the health ministry, warned that an "explosive development like a nuclear reaction" is not out of the question, suggesting that "a huge number of people will be infected."

"At first, we saw a linear increase of patients," Malyshev said in an interview aired late Wednesday on the state-run Russia 1 channel. "But now it is exponential."

It remains to be seen, then, if the Kremlin's messaging will fall in line with that reality.

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2020-03-26 16:53:20Z
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Venezuela president Maduro wanted by DOJ for drug trafficking, Barr announces - Fox News

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday unsealed a searing criminal indictment against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and several "co-conspirators," accusing them of an array of narcotics and trafficking-related crimes, including efforts to smuggle drugs into the United States.

At a press conference on Thursday morning, Department of Justice officials announced a slew of charges pertaining to Maduro's conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism – which carries a minimum of 50 years behind bars. The DOJ underscored that while he is currently in Venezuela, he is known to travel outside and is now offering a $15 million reward for information that will lead to his capture.

The DOJ, emphasizing that the latest round of indictments are the result of many years of investigation, charged a number of high-ranking "co-conspirators" and offered $10 million rewards for information leading to their capture.

CORONAVIRUS HITS DESPERATE VENEZUELA'S ALREADY BROKEN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

The Department also accused the country's Chief Justice of money laundering and bribery, which resulted in thousands of Venezuelans to lose their jobs and livelihoods, and Venezuela's military head of further drug-trafficking violations.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, center, and first lady Cilia Flores, wave to supporters as they leave the National Pantheon after attending a ceremony to commemorate an 1800's independence battle, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019.  (AP)

According to U.S. officials, Venezuela has long allowed Colombians connected with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army — known by its Spanish initials, "FARC" — to utilize its airspace to fly cocaine north through Central America to and into North America.

Moreover, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman claimed that the illicit cooperation between the Colombians and Venezuelans had been in place for over twenty years, and represented a deliberate endeavor by Maduro and his regime to "flood the United States with cocaine."

VENEZUELA, IRAN AND HEZBOLLAH - ALL HOSTILE TO THE US - FORGE CLOSER TIES

The announcement of the charges followed months of pressure by President Trump's administration on Maduro's regime, which the United States considers illegitimate following an election not deemed copacetic by many world powers.

While the United States, and more than a hundred other countries, no longer recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela – instead throwing their support behind opposition figure Juan Guiado – coupled with a laundry list of economic sanctions, Maduro has maintained his position at the helm in the capital Caracas, overseeing the socialist regime and commanding the security forces.

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The indictment of a functioning head of state is highly unusual and is bound to ratchet up tensions between Washington and Caracas. However, the U.S. has long accused Maduro and his government of human rights abuses, torture, corruption, and paving the way for cartels, terrorist groups and traffickers to exploit the oil-swathed nation, once the wealthiest in Latin America.

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2020-03-26 15:26:16Z
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Venezuelan President Is Charged in the U.S. With Drug Trafficking - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was indicted in the United States on Thursday in a narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking conspiracy in which prosecutors said he led a violent drug cartel even as he amassed power.

The indictment of a head of state was highly unusual and served as an escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure Mr. Maduro to leave office after his widely disputed re-election in 2018. Mr. Maduro has led Venezuela’s economy into shambles and prompted an exodus of millions of people into neighboring countries.

Attorney General William P. Barr announced the charges on Thursday at a news briefing along with the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the top federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Miami.

In addition to Mr. Maduro, more than a dozen others were charged, including Venezuelan government and intelligence officials and members of the largest rebel group in Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, known as FARC, which has long drawn its financing from the cocaine trade.

The chief justice of Venezuela was also charged with money laundering and the country’s minister of defense with drug trafficking, Mr. Barr said. The charges were contained in four separate indictments, two filed in New York and one each in Miami and Washington, Mr. Barr said.

The State Department is offering rewards of up to $15 million for information leading to the capture or conviction of Mr. Maduro, who remains in Venezuela, said Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

One of the indictments unsealed in federal court in Manhattan included four counts, accusing the defendants of possessing machine guns and conspiring to possess machine guns in addition to the narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges.

The charges come a month after President Trump, in his state of the union address, called the Venezuelan head of state “an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people,” and vowed that “Maduro’s grip on tyranny will be smashed and broken.”

Mr. Maduro helped run and ultimately led a drug trafficking organization called Cartel de Los Sols as he gained power in Venezuela, according to court papers. Under his and others’ leadership, the cartel sought to enrich its members, enhance their power and to “‘flood’ the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in this country,” an indictment said.

The cartel, under the leadership of Mr. Maduro and others, “prioritized using cocaine as a weapon against America and importing as much cocaine as possible into the United States,” the indictment charged.

Mr. Maduro negotiated multi-ton shipments of cocaine produced by the FARC, directed his cartel to provide military-grade weapons to the group and coordinated foreign affairs with Honduras and other countries to “facilitate large-scale drug trafficking,” according to the indictment.

For years, watchdog groups have accused Mr. Maduro’s close aides of working with drug lords to line their pockets and prop up the crumbling state. As the Venezuelan oil industry has collapsed, Mr. Maduro’s critics have said that the drug trade is playing an increasingly important role in keeping him in power.

Last year, Mr. Maduro’s former vice president, Tareck El Aissami, was indicted in federal court in Manhattan, accused of using his position of power to engage in international drug trafficking. He had been sanctioned by the United States following similar accusations two years before.

The Treasury Department has also accused Diosdado Cabello, the former president of the National Assembly and one of Mr. Maduro’s closest allies, of narcotics trafficking “and other corrupt activities.”

And two of Mr. Maduro’s nephews are serving prison sentences in the United States following convictions on drug charges. In that case, prosecutors said the nephews — sometimes called the “narcosobrinos” in Venezuela — attempted to bring in $20 million in drug money to assist their family in staying in power.

Katie Benner reported from Washington and William K. Rashbaum and Benjamin Weiser from New York. Julie Turkewitz contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia.

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2020-03-26 15:15:05Z
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Japan’s Virus Success Has Puzzled the World. Is Its Luck Running Out? - The New York Times

TOKYO — Japan had only a few dozen confirmed coronavirus infections when the 30-something nurse with a slight sore throat boarded a bus to Osaka, the country’s third-largest city, to attend a Valentine’s weekend performance by pop bands at a music club.

Less than two weeks later, she tested positive for the virus, and the authorities swiftly alerted others who had been at the club. As more infections soon emerged from three other music venues in the city, officials tested concertgoers and their close contacts, and urged others to stay home. All told, 106 cases were linked to the clubs, and nine people are still hospitalized.

But less than a month after the nurse tested positive, the governor of Osaka declared the outbreak over.

Ever since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Japan in mid-January, health officials have reassured the public that they have moved quickly to prevent the virus from raging out of control. At the same time, though, Japan has puzzled epidemiologists as it has avoided the grim situations in places like Italy and New York without draconian restrictions on movement, economically devastating lockdowns or even widespread testing.

The puzzle may be about to gain some clarity. On Thursday, Katsunobu Kato, Japan’s health minister, said he had informed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that there was evidence that Japan was now at a high risk of rampant infection.

On Wednesday night, just a day after Japan and the International Olympic Committee agreed to delay the Tokyo Summer Games for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, warned citizens that the sprawling city of close to 14 million people was in a “critical phase before a possible infection explosion.”

Cases in Tokyo spiked this week, setting records for four days running — including an announcement of 47 cases on Thursday — as travelers returned from overseas. The limited testing for the virus has raised fears that many more are going undetected.

Ms. Koike implored the people of Tokyo to work from home, avoid unnecessary outings and stay inside over the weekend. On Thursday, governors from four neighboring prefectures also requested that residents refrain over the weekend from going outside for anything other than urgent needs.

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“If we go without doing anything now,” Ms. Koike said, “the situation will worsen. I ask for everyone’s cooperation.”

The public so far has not taken such warnings seriously. Although schools have been closed for a month and the government has requested that large sports and cultural events be canceled or delayed, the rest of life has returned to normal. People have been riding crowded subways, congregating in parks to view the cherry blossoms, shopping, drinking and dining, comforted by Japan’s relatively low number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths.

Even at one of the Osaka clubs where the outbreak occurred earlier this month, a group of 40 young women attended a performance by a boy band on Wednesday, jumping and waving their hands in a small, unventilated space for close to two hours.

As other parts of the world fall into a spiral of infections, hospital overflows and deaths, Japan, a country of almost 127 million people, has reported only 1,300 cases and 45 deaths, with one of the slowest-progressing death rates in the world despite its aging population.

“It’s either they did something right,” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security, “or they didn’t, and we just don’t know about it yet.”

As Japan has seemed to pull off a feat of infection containment, it has presented an intriguing contrast to other countries in Asia, where the pandemic began. It did not put cities on lockdown, as China did. It has not deployed modern surveillance technology like a growing number of countries, including Singapore. Nor did it adopt the kind of wholesale testing that helped South Korea isolate and treat people before they could spread the disease.

While South Korea, with a population less than half the size of Japan’s, has conducted tests on close to 365,000 people, Japan has tested only about 25,000. Japan now has the capacity to conduct about 7,500 tests a day, but its daily average is closer to 1,200 or 1,300.

Dr. Tomoya Saito, director of the department of health crisis management at the National Institute of Public Health, said the limited testing was intentional. Those who are tested are referred by doctors, usually after patients have had fevers and other symptoms for two to four days. Japan’s current policy is to admit anyone who tests positive to a hospital, so officials want to avoid draining health care resources with less severe cases.

Dr. Saito said that part of Japan’s seeming resistance to infection may result from measures common in the culture, including frequent hand-washing and bowing instead of shaking hands. People are also much more likely to wear masks on trains and in public spaces. “It’s a kind of social distancing,” Dr. Saito said.

But Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and the senior author of a report that projected five to 10 undetected cases for every confirmed infection of the coronavirus based on data from China, said Japan’s approach was a “gamble.”

“The risk is that things may be brewing underneath the surface that you don’t recognize until it’s also a little bit too late,” Dr. Shaman said.

In Osaka, a report prepared for the health ministry this month projected that by early April, the city could have close to 3,400 infections, 227 of them serious. “It’s possible that provision of medical treatment to seriously ill patients may become difficult,” the report said.

On Wednesday, Osaka’s governor, Hirofumi Yoshimura, said he was working to secure an additional 600 beds in hospital isolation wards that could accommodate patients with the most severe infections.

Dr. Masaya Yamato, chief of infectious diseases at Rinku General Medical Center in Osaka, said the region was moving toward a model where coronavirus patients with mild symptoms could stay at home in order to save hospital beds for the seriously ill.

In Tokyo, there are only 100 beds designated to handle those with serious infectious diseases. On Wednesday, the city government pledged to secure 600 more.

The request by Tokyo’s governor to stay inside this weekend, Dr. Yamato said, may be too weak to defer a crisis.

“It’s better that Prime Minister Abe decisively declare a lockdown in Tokyo,” Dr. Yamato said. “The economic impact should not be a top priority. Tokyo should lock down for two to three weeks. Otherwise, Tokyo’s medical system could collapse.”

Mr. Abe’s administration has appointed a task force to determine whether he should declare a state of emergency, a measure that he said was unnecessary earlier this month.

For now, the public is largely unmoved. Although some grocery store shelves in Tokyo were cleared out on Wednesday night after the governor’s request, it was business as usual on Thursday.

Near Shinbashi Station in central Tokyo, men in black suits sat elbow to elbow at a counter in a restaurant offering a fried noodle lunch special for 500 yen, about $4.50. A long line formed outside a McDonald’s, and smokers crowded a small pen near the station entrance.

In Shinjuku Gyoen park in western Tokyo, where cherry blossoms were near peak bloom, a sign at the entrance informed visitors that, as part of antivirus efforts, picnic blankets and alcohol were banned. Security guards with megaphones wandered through groups of people who were taking photos with the flowers, warning them to wash their hands.

At a store not far from the park, Kazuhisa Haraguchi, 36, stood in a long line for a chance to buy a limited-edition pair of Nike Air Max sneakers.

Mr. Haraguchi said that he was worried about how the virus was spreading in the United States and Europe, but that he wasn’t too concerned about the situation in Japan.

“It’s scary, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much of it here right now,” he said. “If I die, at least I’ll die with my sneakers.”

Ben Dooley and Makiko Inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo, and Hiroko Masuike from Osaka, Japan.

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2020-03-26 14:18:24Z
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China, U.S. to set aside differences in G20 coronavirus summit: SCMP - Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States are expected to call a timeout on their coronavirus blame game and focus on the challenges of the pandemic when leaders of the G20 nations hold talks via video conference on Thursday, the South China Morning Post said.

The virus has spread around the globe, infecting more than 470,000 people and killing more than 20,000, since it emerged in central China late last year.

The leaders are expected to agree that the outbreak is a threat to humanity and will set up a mechanism to share information and experiences in fighting the disease, the paper said, citing a draft statement to be discussed at the summit.

“As the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges to healthcare systems and the global economy, we convene this extraordinary G20 summit to unite efforts towards a global response,” Saudi Arabia’s King Salman said on Twitter.

The kingdom, which holds the G20 presidency this year, will host its leaders by video conference on Thursday amid criticism that the group has been slow to respond to the crisis.

The focus will be on China and the United States, which have been engaged in a war of words over the outbreak, against the backdrop of a bitter trade dispute.

In preparatory talks for the G20 summit, the two countries agreed to set aside their differences, the newspaper said, citing a diplomatic source familiar with the talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s reference to the “Chinese virus” - a term President Donald Trump has also used repeatedly - has greatly angered Beijing.

FILE PHOTO: A Chinese government worker adjusts the U.S. and Chinese national flags before a news conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Lee

He has also accused China of delaying the sharing of information about the virus and creating risks to people worldwide.

Some U.S. politicians were using the pandemic as a weapon to smear China, Beijing has said, adding that its actions, including quarantining millions of people, had earned the world “precious time” to prepare.

It has also disputed the widely held belief that the virus originated in China, and comments by a foreign ministry spokesman that it could have been brought to the country by the U.S. military have further heightened tension between the two.

Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-03-26 14:03:18Z
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Japan, spared mass outbreak so far, now sees 'national crisis' after Tokyo surge - Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, so far spared the mass spread of coronavirus that has hit Europe and North America, took urgent new steps on Thursday to respond to what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described as a “national crisis” following a surge of cases in Tokyo.

Passersby wearing protective face masks, following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), are reflected in mirrors at a shopping center in Tokyo, Japan March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Issei Kato

With 47 new cases reported in the capital, Abe banned entry from 21 European countries and Iran, and set up a new crisis task force - a preliminary step toward declaring a state of emergency, although his government said none was planned.

“In order to overcome what can be described as a national crisis, it is necessary for the state, local governments, medical community, and the people to act as one and press ahead with measures against coronavirus infections,” Abe said at a task force meeting.

He said he had launched the task force under a recently revised law, after receiving a report of a high chance the chance the virus would spread widely.

The daily total of new cases in Tokyo has nearly tripled over the past four days. After meeting Abe on Thursday evening, governor Yuriko Koike told reporters that she had requested strong support and that Tokyo would work with the central government on a possible declaration of emergency.

Japan was an early focus of the coronavirus outbreak, and for a time last month a cruise ship docked offshore near Tokyo was the biggest source of infections outside China. But since then Japan has averted the widespread transmission that has seen Europe and North America hit by thousands of new cases per day.

Japanese authorities fear a rise in cases with no known source of infection could signal a bigger new wave.

“I told Prime Minister Abe there is a high risk of coronavirus spreading widely,” Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told reporters after meeting Abe and Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura.

As of Thursday evening, Japan had 1,369 domestic cases of coronavirus, as well as 712 from the cruise ship, according to tallies from broadcaster NHK. There have been 46 domestic deaths and 10 from the cruise ship.

Under a law revised this month to cover the coronavirus, the prime minister can declare a state of emergency if the disease poses a “grave danger” to lives and if its rapid spread threatens serious economic damage.

That would give local authorities legal basis to ask residents and businesses to restrict movement and work. Nishimura, the economy minister, said no such declaration is planned for now.

Japan was already teetering on the brink of recession before the virus struck. On Thursday, the government offered its bleakest assessment on the economy in nearly seven years, saying conditions in March were “severe”.

Japanese shares tumbled on Thursday following three days of big gains, after the rise in domestic coronavirus cases stoked worries of tougher restrictions for social distancing.

Hitachi Ltd instructed 50,000 employees at its group companies in Tokyo to work from home and avoid unnecessary outings.

A landmark department store in Tokyo’s Shibuya district - popular with young people, many of whom have continued to go out to play and shop - said it would close on the weekend. Toho Cinemas also said it would close its movie theaters in Tokyo and nearby Kanagawa prefecture on Saturday and Sunday.

WORRIES OF SURGE

On Wednesday, Koike warned of the risk of an explosive rise in infections in the capital and asked residents to avoid non-essential outings through April 12, especially over the weekend. She repeated her call on Thursday.

Koike has requested the neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa ask their residents to refrain from non-urgent, non-essential travel to Tokyo, the Nikkei business daily reported. The governor of Kanagawa later asked residents to stay at home this weekend.

“The government and local authorities will cooperate based on the awareness that this is a very critical time to prevent the spread of the virus,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yosihide Suga told a news conference.

Suga later said the risk of the infection spreading was high, but there was no need to change a plan to reopen schools in early April. Many closed earlier this month at Abe’s request.

The International Olympic Committee and the government on Tuesday agreed to put back the Tokyo 2020 Olympics by a year.

If an emergency is declared, local governments will be able to halt gatherings and restrict movement, although there will be few powers to enforce such decrees. “For better or worse, no police at our doors,” said Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute of Population Health at King’s College, London.

People wearing protective face masks following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) queue to buy masks at a drugstore in Tokyo, Japan March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Issei Kato

On a sunny three-day break last weekend, crowds of people were out in Tokyo despite bans in some areas on picnics for the traditional spring “hanami” cherry-blossom viewing. On Thursday, tabloids blared “Tokyo Lockdown Panic” and “Tokyo Destruction”.

But a long line of people waited at a chocolate croissant cafe in Tokyo for lunch, while subways were packed and people lined up before drug stores opened to buy masks and sanitary products that are in short supply. Pictures on social media showed grocery store shelves picked clean by shoppers.

Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki, Linda Sieg, Elaine Lies, Ju-min Park and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Robert Birsel and Peter Graff

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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiogFodHRwczovL3d3dy5yZXV0ZXJzLmNvbS9hcnRpY2xlL3VzLWhlYWx0aC1jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1qYXBhbi1oZWFkcXVhcnRlcnMvamFwYW4tdG8tc2V0LXVwLWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWhxLXBvc3NpYmxlLXN0ZXAtdG8tZW1lcmdlbmN5LWRlY2xhcmF0aW9uLW1lZGlhLWlkVVNLQk4yMUQwQTHSATRodHRwczovL21vYmlsZS5yZXV0ZXJzLmNvbS9hcnRpY2xlL2FtcC9pZFVTS0JOMjFEMEEx?oc=5

2020-03-26 13:57:36Z
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