Covid-19 has impacted corners of our world, but not all countries have faced it the same way. The Republic of Korea (ROK) — with its unique economic situation and history — took strong steps to stop the spread of the coronavirus and control the pandemic in its country. Watch the full report here

L'articolo How Korea fights against COVID-19 proviene da InsideOver.

We have been into an intensive care hospital in Lombardy, the mostly hit region by COVID-19 in Italy. Here doctors are fighting every day to save lives. Read the full report here

L'articolo Italy: in the Trench Hospital against COVID-19 proviene da InsideOver.

Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest illegal industry in the world, generating $26 billion a year – and it is growing. The biggest market? China. Watch the full report here: Big Cats, Big Business

L'articolo Big Cats, Big Business proviene da InsideOver.

In the United States the State of New York surpassed Washington State’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases, reaching 524 cases as of the morning of Saturday, March 14. New York City, which has the highest population density among the country’s major cities with a population of over 8 million people, confirmed its 213^th case, with one death Friday night.

NY Governor Cuomo: ‘The Infection Rate Will Be Massive’

The Governor of New York State Andrew Cuomo said only 20 percent of those cases are hospitalized, as he said he expected thousands of additional cases statewide. “The infection rate will be massive,” he said. From Wednesday, March 11, to Friday, 13, the number of cases there had tripled. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted that there would be over 1,000 cases in the city only by next week.

The state of New York has approximately 3,000 intensive care unit (ICU) beds only, and Governor Cuomo said about 80% of them are already occupied. Those numbers may look relatively small compared to the swelling numbers in countries outside of China, such as Italy and South Korea. But a number of cases are yet to be confirmed — even yet to be tested. Numerous people who said they have the coronavirus symptoms are complaining of being rejected tests throughout the country.

The Nation Faces the Same Problem as NYC: Overwhelmed Facilities

New York City hospitals are considered as some of the world’s best, but their impotence in the face of an imminent outbreak reflects a nationwide challenge. Hospitals and other facilities are widely expected to be overwhelmed as infections are on the rise.

Various analysts say the whole American healthcare system is unprepared to deal with the abrupt surge of infections expected to occur within weeks, in a country that is home to over 327 million people. The outbreak has taken the lives of 50 Americans as of Saturday morning, with 2,443 confirmed cases nationwide. But officials still cite the unavailability of widespread tests.

The number of infected people, who are still likely to spread the virus as there has been no major lockdown or containment yet, remains unclear. Many fear the fate of the United States will be the same as that of Italy, where in a span of three weeks only the spread of the virus overloaded the health care system.

“This is where Italy got into trouble,” Governor Cuomo said on Friday. “They didn’t have enough ICU beds to handle the number of patients who needed intensive care. That is going to be a problem in this state and in this country.”

A Potential Nightmare Scenario for America

By late February, the lack of testing still posed a problem. The United States was testing very few people per capita compared to any developed country. Under federal rules, only the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a small government agency, could conduct approved tests. Private laboratories were in discussions with CDC about developing their own tests, but the CDC turned them down because of a lack in demand.

Although the outbreak occurred relatively late in the United States, US officials and particularly President Trump are accused of delaying their reaction to the virus and downplaying its perils. Critics said the White House should have taken action weeks earlier to secure emergency funding for public health agencies to manage the epidemic.

But it wasn’t until last Friday that President Donald Trump announced a national emergency. To him, the virus had been a far and overseas problem, not worthy of immediate action, whereas many people had already contracted the virus amid unavailable tests.

“We only have five people. Hopefully, everything’s going to be great,” he said on January 30.

Trump’s Statements About Coronavirus

Trump also made a series of statements that experts say highly affected public understanding in the United States, having even suggested using flu vaccine to counter the virus. Following the outbreak in Washington State that ensued a confirmed first case on January 21, Trump said the number of cases was declining in the country and, later in early March, that “anybody who needs a test gets a test.”

Yet none of these statements is true, not even the latest statement. Many people who are not able to prove that they had been in close contact with a confirmed case are still being denied the coronavirus test. Many have put themselves in isolation as they have noticed evident symptoms of the virus but were still denied access to hospitals and facilities for tests. Others still roam free and are expected to work and conduct their lives as per usual.

Following a meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, President Trump still painted a positive picture on Saturday, saying the United States was “doing very good, when you compare this to what’s happening around the world.” He added that the national emergency had “opened up avenues we would never be able to open up without it.”

Congress Responds to Coronavirus

A bill that had been voted for after declaring the national emergency is set to provide paid sick leaves for workers affected by the virus and free tests for those who need it. Critics still say it is unclear how authorities will determine who qualify for free leaves and free tests.

Previously on Friday, the New York Times reported that the CDC was “considering some grim scenarios, including the possibility that some 2.4 million to 21 million people across the United States could require hospitalization.” This would potentially “crush the nation’s medical system, which has only about 925,000 staffed hospital beds.”

The CDC’s assumptions dated from last month and were yet to be made public, the New York Times also reported.

Worst-Case Scenario in the USA

The worst-case scenario, one of the governmental agency’s four projections, predicts that between 160 million and 214 million people in the United States could be infected during the contagion that could last months or even over a year. 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die. But experts also say those projections date too far ahead and that many developments could drastically change those numbers. Other commentators said the CDC’s assumptions remain accurate for the most part, blaming current officials and the Trump Administrations’ incompetence in dealing with the epidemic.

So far, 49 states and the District of Columbia have confirmed cases.

L'articolo The U.S. Is Unprepared for the Coronavirus proviene da InsideOver.

Italy has just quarantined the north of the country in Milan, Venice, Lombardy and dozens of adjoining provinces in order to contain the coronavirus. The quarantine and lockdown will last until April 3 and went into effect Sunday, March 8. According to Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte the situation is a “national emergency.”

The northern provinces of Venice, Parma and Modena — which generate almost half of all of Italy’s economy — will be quarantined in addition to numerous others in the northern industrial heartland, likely to deal a significant blow to Italy’s already struggling economy. Italy has the most coronavirus cases other than China with over 5,800 confirmed cases and 233 deaths. Over 100,000 have gotten coronavirus globally with more than 3,000 deaths.

Who Will the Italian Quarantine Impact?

As Eric Sylvers reported for Wall Street Journal, this quarantine will apply to over 17 million people, which is almost a third of Italy’s 60.4 million people. These are the most dramatic measures any European nation has taken to stop the spread of coronavirus. All travel in or out of the quarantine zone will be strictly prohibited and enforced by police and military, with time in prison and hefty penalties and fines for anyone who breaks the quarantine. Although this move still pales in comparison to China quarantining 60 million people, it is a major step for a Western nation and shows just how seriously Italy—with its significant elderly population—is taking the coronavirus.

The quarantine will also include strict regulations about mass gatherings, travel even inside the restricted zones and postponement of daily work. Recreation will be shut down, as will museums. Churches will be closed for funerals and weddings and all schools and universities are already closed down to deal with the virus. Mass was held outdoors in some parts of Rome today.

As reported by Il Giornale on March 8, many Italians rushed to the train station in Milan at night to catch the night train south before today’s quarantine hit. The overcrowded train left the station with people sitting on the floor who will be quarantined when they reach the south for a mandatory 14 days and were checked along the way for any symptoms.

Others in northern cities such as Padua rushed to catch the last train south, including university students frantic about getting home before being stuck away from home in the quarantine zone. However not everyone was enthused about this development with, for example, the governor of the southern city of Puglia Michele Emiliano demanded people stop trying to come south and told them “get off at the first railway station, don’t take planes to Bari and Brindisi.”

The quarantine will block all movement into and out of the locked down northern regions, although Conte did say: “exceptions will be allowed only for proven professional needs, exceptional cases and health issues.”

L'articolo Italy Quarantines 17 Million People in Response to Coronavirus proviene da InsideOver.

Northern China. Empty roads, a lunar panorama, a ghost city. A woman, behind the window of her apartment in a ten-floor building in the centre of Xi’an, the capital of the province of Shaanxi on the border with Hubei, the province at the heart of the outbreak, says: “Finally I can think”. She says that she now has the time to do it. She continues: “I am not lacking in anything that I had in my life before”. Somebody has managed not to succumb to despair yet. It is the only calm testimony we gathered among the others dictated by fear of contagion from Covid-19. A voice that comes from the obligatory domestic quarantine that all citizens of the People’s Republic are facing because of Coronavirus, which has begun to take its lethal course through their streets and turned them into a desert. In the sad chorus of shared anguish Amanda Wang — which is how the 40 year-old entrepreneur likes to present herself to foreigners — utters words that we have not heard before:

Everybody is experiencing stress because of this situation, it’s wrong.

China is Embroiled in a Medical, Social and Psychological Emergency

At war. China is officially engaged on all fronts not only with a medical but also a social and psychological emergency. They are a people in a surgical face mask with a thermometer in their hand to stop their body temperature from rising. Being in quarantine every day makes every day the same even if the date on the calendar is different. In self-isolation there are men and monitors. The dragon is locked up in the house and has closed in on itself, like the residents of provinces and cities, illuminated by the LEDs of millions of screens displaying data on the number of deaths that is constantly rising. According to Wang there is a subtle line that must not be crossed if you do not want to drown in the viral phobias on social media, in the grey visions like the streets where there are so few people that they can be counted in lines at the medical check points scattered across a city normally crowded with its tens of millions of inhabitants.

“Since everything started you get tired later and wake up later”. Everything is new compared to the old habits: “The pace of things has slowed down, you can take everything easy”. Wang, who used to like going out to eat and does not like cooking, is somebody who seeks out the light that can exist in desperate situations. She takes photos when she is allowed to take her dog for a walk by the administrators of her building who are responsible for checking and verifying her route in order to monitor any point from which the virus could spread. A surveillance network and curfew managed by the branches of the Communist Party, a hierarchical structure that is present in every residential compound and operates as a service center. After the order issued by the central authorities in Beijing, “only one person in every nuclear family can go shopping every two days but the important thing is to register your movements”, she told InsideOver.

SARS Outbreak Different Than Coronavirus: ‘There Was Not the Widespread Fear’

Wang recalls SARS and says its seriousness “was not as obvious as this time”. There were days on which “nobody got on the bus” in a city where not everybody has a car. There was less media attention, there was less information and there were fewer channels on which the news items multiplied in real time. That is probably why she remembers the crisis having a shorter duration but which lasted from November, 2002 to May, 2003, but “there was not the widespread fear, people were less frightened, people followed the safety rules that were less strict than the recent ones simply because they were following the rules imposed from outside without any conviction. But now people perceive the seriousness of the reaction of the authorities, they have sensitized the population who have much greater awareness”.

Now it is difficult to give a name to what is happening. “I will mention one consideration that often escapes attention in the West. One of the positive sides of a political and social system like China under Communist leadership is that there is efficiency in the decision-making and coordination chain. Once measures have been decided they are rapidly implemented on a vast scale. Efficiency increases when they are correct”. But Wang continues: “Obviously the opposite applies as well. If the decisions prove inadequate, the consequences will have the same danger, speed and magnitude”. She cites the example of Hubei, the province at the heart of the outbreak that borders her region, “where everything was managed badly from the beginning and the consequences were visible”.

There is no sadness, no fear, no psychosis on the list of feelings that she says she experiences. But she knows that “the lives of many people are changing” whilst she shifts the questions towards the paradoxical side of the current state of affairs. “This out of the ordinary situation offers us new starting points. In day to day life, in Chinese society, the pressure to be successful at work is very high”. It is two sides of the same coin: the opportunity for a solution.

As in ancient Greek, Wang explains that Chinese for “crisis” is weiji (危机) the symbol comprised of two ideogrammes. The first is 危 and means danger, the second is 机 and means opportunity. She counts the minutes that pass in silence, free moments never possessed before: it is the first time that the citizens of the factory of the world are still and that the categorical imperative of production and profit has been overcome by something more important which requires collective solidarity.

Now in China for the first time “we have the chance to develop a different more balanced conception of life, she says.” The entrepreneur sees hopes for the future arising out of the tragedy of the epidemic that the world’s second economy is facing. “We Chinese are all experiencing an unprecedented situation: without the pressure at work, we have the possibility to face the day at a slower pace. Life. Rich and poor: we are all temporarily exempted from chasing around after ourselves. For the first time. It is an unusual situation that has cancelled economic competition and perhaps the Chinese, as a people, can learn something from all this”.

This interview was conducted thanks to the assistance and translation of Jonathan Marano, an Italian manager resident in China.

Translation by Dale Owens

L'articolo Coronavirus: We Can Learn Something from All This proviene da InsideOver.

Reportage / Environment 27.02.2020

Big Cats, Big Business

The luxurious resort island of Gaya in Malaysian Borneo is the epitome of a tropical paradise. Just a 15-minute boat ride from Kota Kinabalu – the capital of Malaysia’s eastern State of Sabah – here the region’s famous wildlife has…

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L'articolo Big Cats, Big Business proviene da InsideOver.

As Chinese leaders quarantine cities across the country to contain the coronavirus, they have another storm brewing: China’s economic outlook is becoming bleaker with every passing week.

The Coronavirus Is Hurting Sectors Of China’s Economy

The multiplier effect from the shutdown of Hubei province—the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak—is being felt across the country’s economy and even across the globe in some sectors. As Chinese residents avoid catching coronavirus, they are also growing reluctant to go outdoors which has dampened overall consumer sentiment. China’s economic engine is grinding its gears.

Coronavirus Hit Right Around Chinese Lunar New Year

With the Chinese lunar New Year vacations coinciding with the virus outbreak, the shutdown has prolonged after some provincial officials extended the length of vacations. New Year breaks usually accompany a seasonal spending spree making up for a significant chunk of the annual retail production and expenditure.

The hardest hit sector in China is expected on the services sector especially transportation, which has morphed into an important driver of economic growth in China over the past decade. With these projections, China is unlikely to meet growth targets and a major dent is expected in its first quarter GDP numbers.

China’s Economy Before Coronavirus

The slump comes after China posted a three-decade low growth rate of 6.1 per cent in 2019. A range of domestic factors from slowing infrastructure growth to aging population affected Chinese output last year. In addition to domestic shocks, China’s exports were infamously under spotlight after its brawl with the United States leading to a deal with Trump forcing Beijing to import more of US produce in various sectors.

Recovery?

Market experts expect the government stimulus to negate any dip from the loss of activity due to the virus outbreak. And with the outbreak right at the beginning of the year, the Chinese government is likely to roll out stimulus measures to ramp up consumption and offset any activity slowdown at the remaining three quarters.

Fitch Solutions reiterated a similar view as it maintained China’s “real GDP growth forecast at 5.9pc for 2020 and [held] off on a concrete revision until more data comes in and there is clarity on support measures from the government to counter the negative shock from the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) epidemic.”

Don’t Come Near Me

But Coronovirus’ domestic repercussions aside, the battle for China to grow its exports is expected to take some time to win. With restrictions on shipments and travel, the disruption to the manufacturing sector coupled with the expected cut in services growth is likely to cut 100 basis points from the GDP growth target, according to estimates from some analysts.

The global reaction to the virus has been almost unified: block all movement to and from China. At least 73 airlines have already canceled flights into mainland China.

The subsequent decline in economic activity hit at the heart of small and medium enterprises. These SMEs are expected to fare worst of all as it will lead to significant cash flow constraints and increase unemployment in the medium term.

Fiscal Stimulus

With analysts quoting the post-SARS reaction as the baseline for gauging China’s reaction to the coronavirus, the stimulus is likely to come from the fiscal side. Given the central government’s prominent role in the economic activity, it can afford a higher debt load and support the economy. The additional push is expected to come from monetary easing to help facilitate credit off take in the post-coronavirus period.

L'articolo The Multiplier Effect Of The Coronavirus Epidemic proviene da InsideOver.

For weeks now, information on the Coronavirus has appeared in every newspaper and headlined almost every news programme. The 2019 nCoV virus, traced back to a seafood market in Wuhan, China, has spread worldwide. The ever-changing figures currently suggest nearly 10,000 people are infected with a death toll of 213, all in China.

The World Health Organization has declared it a global health emergency and preventive measures are being taken worldwide to try and curb the infection and contain the epidemic.

Flights connecting Italy to the Celestial Empire have been suspended, while the increasingly aggressive and insidious disease becomes an obsessive fear and nightmare for its population. Events and gatherings have been cancelled, with medical personnel and civil protection on alert at airports. It is now commonplace to see people with their faces covered by masks on public transport. In Italy, there are currently only two cases of Coronavirus registered and these were two Chinese tourists in Rome. S0, while there is not much to say about the spread of infection in the Bel Paese, there is plenty to say about pandemic paranoia and mass hysteria.

However, the question now arises as to why there is so much scaremongering and media interest in the Chinese virus, yet no global coverage or attention for the more lethal viruses silently wiping out the population of sub-Saharan Africa? The most obvious, almost rhetorical, and cynically realistic answer is that epidemics sweeping the African continent do not currently represent a global threat, and are, therefore, of no interest. Axiom aside, the statistics need to be reviewed to recognise that even infections are treated hierarchically: category A diseases and category B diseases. And the selection is not down to either the mortality rate or the virus’s ability to replicate.

Deciding if a disease is of interest or not rests solely on whether the affected citizens reside in the planet’s north or south.

To better understand this observation, we need to address three viruses each currently causing a global epidemic. First is the Coronavirus, which is the subject of ongoing discussion. Next we have Ebola which, over the course of 18 months, has been wiping out the eastern regions of the DRC. lastly is measles which, in the very same country, has already caused the death of 4,000 people.

Beyond what has already been said about the Coronavirus, we need to add that contagiousness in the healthy population is between 1.5 and 2.5, that is, a person with symptoms can statistically infect another one and a half people, similar to seasonal flu. In addition, the disease does not affect children, or at least only mildly. Of the first 425 infections in Wuhan, nobody was in fact less than 15 years old and the New England Journal of Medicine has clarified as such.

Children might be less likely to become infected or, if infected, may show milder symptoms.

Additionally, the mortality rate was below 3% and the people who died from the virus were mainly the elderly or patients already suffering from chronic illnesses.

By contrast in Africa where, Ebola is historically the first epidemic in a war context, spreading since August 2018, the second for the number of people infected and the most ruthless for the number of stricken children. The infection, the most lethal virus in the world, has already affected over 3,400 people. With deaths of over 2,200, the mortality rate is around 70%, with 30% of the victims being children. These are chilling numbers and make for frightening reading, yet, the Ebola epidemic that is overwhelming people in the DRC does not seem to cause concern. The last time the media spoke about it, on a major scale, was in July when the first case of Ebola occurred in the city of Goma. Rwanda closed their border with the Congo and the World Health Organization proclaimed an international emergency. The measles infection in this same Great Lakes country seemed to raise even less interest, despite having caused 200,000 infections and 4,000 deaths from 2018 to the present day, with 90% being children.

This information shows a clear discrepancy in media coverage and attention towards the three epidemics, and the “two viruses, two standards” tagline is telling in how the world increasingly looks through a prism of “us and them” and “one side or the other”; a mindset of analysing and viewing our contingent that, in 2020, has the characteristics of a silent disease with no effective vaccine against it.

Translation by Natalie Payne

L'articolo Two Viruses And Two Standards proviene da InsideOver.

L'articolo Ebola Nightmare proviene da InsideOver.