New Coronavirus News from 30 Mar 2020

Japan: how coronavirus crushed Abe’s Olympics dream [Financial Times, 30 Mar 2020]

Tokyo 2020 was supposed to reinvigorate the country yet postponement could hit economy hard Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Save Leo Lewis In Tokyo and Murad Ahmed in London MARCH 30 2020 28 Print this page On New Year’s Day, before a 58,000-strong crowd, Vissel Kobe clashed with Kashima Antlers in the 99th Emperor’s Cup.

The football was so-so, but the setting was stunning. It was the first event to be held in Japan’s just finished $1.4bn National Stadium and a test run for the spectacle it would soon host: the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.

The test was flawless and the run-up to the July 24 opening ceremony looked like a cakewalk. Among Olympic organisers, who had overseen preparations worth more than $25bn, and among Japanese and international companies, who have paid more than $3.1bn to make the 2020 games the most heavily sponsored sports event ever, there was a collective sigh of relief.

For the Tokyo Metropolitan government, which estimated that from the winning of the bid in 2013 to a decade after the games in 2030 the event would give a \32tn ($294bn) boost to the national economy, all seemed on course. And for Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, the games offered a potent symbol of national recovery from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and of his “Abenomics” policies of revitalisation and reform. Coronavirus has stopped every part of that in its tracks.

After months of watching helplessly as the disease morphed from a crisis in the Chinese city of Wuhan to a global pandemic, Japan last week accepted the inevitable and agreed with the International Olympic Committee the first ever postponement of the summer games ? a delay until July 2021. Shinzo Abe, fourth from left, and Tokyo's Governor Naoki Inose, third from left, celebrate after Tokyo heard it will host the 2020 Olympic Games during the 125th IOC session in Buenos Aires Ian Watson/AP

The key questions now revolve around how badly the economy will be hit, how debilitating will be the confusion and even whether the games will be able to go ahead next year. Japan’s hospitality industry ? already mauled by cancellations in February and March ? had hoped that the 2020 games would allow them to claw back some income this year. Shigemi Sugo, secretary-general of the Japan Hotels and Ryokans Association, told reporters his members are already reporting cash flow concerns.

More broadly, there is the sense of a great national project scuppered. “I came to this exact place as a 14-year-old for the 1964 Olympics,” says Kane Tabata, taking pictures of the National Stadium the day the postponement was announced. “I didn’t have tickets then, but I had two this time. I don’t want my money back. I just want to be alive for when they happen.”

Masamichi Adachi, UBS’ chief economist in Japan, says such displays of pessimism need to be taken seriously. The Olympics, and the chance of it going ahead at all, has become a grim gauge of how quickly the world can recover from the pandemic.

Average real economic growth in developed countries that have hosted the Olympics since 1992 show the strongest growth in the years ahead of the games as money is spent on construction. The actual year of the games itself delivers only a limited boost. Under that analysis, postponing the games is unlikely to cause serious economic harm in the short term.

IOC Announces New Tokyo Olympics Date: July 23, 2021 03/30/2020 [MediaPost Communications, 30 Mar 2020]

By by Karlene Lukovitz

The International Olympic Committee has announced that the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, which were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, have been rescheduled to take place between July 23 and August 8, 2021.

The announcement comes weeks sooner than expected, due to intensive talks with Japanese authorities, athletes' and sports organizations, and sponsors and marketing partners.
Informed about the planned new date by IOC president Thomas Bach on Thursday, sports federation representatives unanimously approved the date and plan, according to Olympic.org.
"They emphasized the importance of the fact that this had been a joint decision taken with the Japanese government in order to organize successful Olympic Games Tokyo 2020," the report adds.

"This new situation will need all our solidarity, creativity, determination and flexibility," Bach wrote in a letter to the members prior to the teleconference. "We all will need to make sacrifices and compromises. We have already created a Task Force which gave itself the symbolic name 'Here we go' and is already working in this true Olympic spirit."

The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee has also announced that it will retain for a year thousands of volunteers who had been offered positions, and that while tickets remain valid, full refunds would be given to those who could no longer attend, reports The New York Times.

In the U.S., NBCUniversal had sold 90% of its Tokyo Summer Olympic national TV advertising for its TV networks -- totaling over $1.25 billion. Comcast paid $1.45 billion in U.S. TV sports rights fees for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Last week, NBCU said it was actively working with advertisers to keep them on board for the event once it was rescheduled.

Separately, the status of about $6 billion in sponsorship revenue that would go to the IOC also needs to be worked out.

Why is Viet Nam coping so well with the coronavirus? [World Economic Forum, 30 Mar 2020]

by Sean Fleming

? To date, Viet Nam has had no fatalities as a result of the pandemic.
? The government acted swiftly to suspend flights, shut schools and quarantine new arrivals.
? More than 45 million Vietnamese have been lifted out of poverty between 2002 and 2018.

How does a nation with limited resources confront a global pandemic that has brought many developed countries’ healthcare systems to a breaking point?

That’s the challenge facing many of the world’s poorer, developing nations - including countries like Viet Nam. But while it might look like a foregone conclusion that the coronavirus outbreak would ravage such a country, Viet Nam has instead stood out as a beacon of how to do more with less.

So far, the country has 194 confirmed COVID-19 coronavirus cases, and no fatalities. Unlike other, wealthier Asian countries, Viet Nam isn’t in a position to conduct mass testing programmes. South Korea, for example, has tested 338,000 people. In Viet Nam, that number stands at just 15,637 people (figures for 20 March 2020). But by focusing on measures that are within its control, the country has won praise from the international community.

Swift action

On 1 February, Viet Nam kicked off a series of initiatives to tackle the spread of COVID-19. It suspended all flights to and from China. It also decided to keep schools closed after the lunar New Year break. Two weeks later, a 21-day quarantine was imposed in Vinh Phuc province, north of Hanoi. That decision was sparked by concerns over the health status of migrant workers returning from Wuhan, China, where the virus originated.

Viet Nam's proactive efforts come after two decades in which the country has experienced a large improvement in quality of life. Between 2002 and 2018, an economic transformation helped to lift more than 45 million Vietnamese out of poverty. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has more than doubled, to over $2,500 in 2018, when the country saw real GDP growth of 7.1%. The health of the nation has improved, too ? life expectancy rose from 71 years in 1990 to 76 years in 2015.

The country’s healthcare system is improving, too, but still has a lot of ground to cover. There are around eight doctors to every 10,000 people in Viet Nam. Italy and Spain both have 41 doctors per 10,000 people, the US has 26, and China 18.

Its anti-coronavirus measures have gone on to include mandatory 14-day quarantines for anyone arriving in Viet Nam and the cancellation of all foreign flights. It has also isolated infected people and then set about tracking down anyone they might have come into contact with.

“Neighbours know if you come from a foreign country,” said Truong Huu Khanh, head of the department of infectious diseases at Ho Chi Minh City Children’s hospital. “If an infected person is in the area, they will report this.”

Neighbourhood watch

As a single-party state, with large and well-organized military and security services, Viet Nam has been able to make decisions quickly and enact them promptly. There is also a strong culture of surveillance, with people expected to inform on their neighbours if they suspect any wrong-doing. Anyone found sharing fake news and misinformation about the coronavirus risks a visit from the police, and around 800 people have been fined so far.

It’s not the kind of approach that is likely to work in more open societies. But with limited clinical resources at its disposal, Viet Nam has seemingly managed to get the outbreak under control.

Meanwhile, nearby Thailand has so far recorded four COVID-19 deaths, but is experiencing a significant rise in infections. On 24 March, Thailand’s Public Health Ministry announced 107 new cases, bringing the total to 934. The fault, according to Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin of the ministry, lies with “partygoers (who) transmitted the disease to about 100 other people … at-risk people must obey social distancing, both at their workplaces and at home.”

Another close neighbour, Myanmar, is drawing criticism from some for what has been perceived as a lack of transparency over the outbreak. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, claimed recently the country had no cases of COVID-19, although that figure now stands at three.

The government has made claims that “lifestyle and diet”, along with people’s preference for cash instead of credit cards, was keeping Myanmar safe from the illness. These and other similar statements drew the ire of Phil Robertson, Deputy Director, Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, who said: “Such irresponsible statements clash with everything known about the coronavirus outbreak, defy reality, and only serve to give a false sense of security to the country’s people about the disease and their risks of infection.”

Can You Become Immune to Coronavirus? | Science [Smithsonian, 30 Mar2020]

By Katherine J. Wu

Though COVID-19 likely makes recovered patients immune, experts aren’t sure how long protection lasts

Resolving the COVID-19 pandemic quickly hinges on a crucial factor: how well a person’s immune system remembers SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the disease, after an infection has resolved and the patient is back in good health.

This phenomenon, called immune memory, helps our bodies avoid reinfection by a bug we’ve had before and influences the potency of life-saving treatments and vaccines. By starving pathogens of hosts to infect, immune individuals cut off the chain of transmission, bolstering the health of the entire population.

Scientists don’t yet have definitive answers about SARS-CoV-2 immunity. For now, people who have had the disease appear unlikely to get it again, at least within the bounds of the current outbreak. Small, early studies in animals suggest immune molecules may stick around for weeks (at least) after an initial exposure. Because researchers have only known about the virus for a few months, however, they can’t yet confidently forecast how long immune defenses against SARS-CoV-2 will last.

“We are so early in this disease right now,” says C. Brandon Ogbunu, a computational epidemiologist at Brown University. “In many respects, we have no idea, and we won’t until we get a longitudinal look.”

A memorable infection

When a pathogen breaches the body’s barriers, the immune system will churn out a variety of immune molecules to fight it off. One subset of these molecules, called antibodies, recognizes specific features of the bug in question and mounts repeated attacks until the invader is purged from the body. (Antibodies can also be a way for clinicians to tell if a patient has been recently infected with a given pathogen, even when the microbe itself can no longer be detected.)

Though the army of antibodies dwindles after a disease has resolved, the immune system can whip up a new batch if it sees the same pathogen again, often quashing the new infection before it has the opportunity to cause severe symptoms. Vaccines safely simulate this process by exposing the body to a harmless version or piece of a germ, teaching the immune system to identify the invader without the need to endure a potentially grueling disease.

From the immune system’s perspective, some pathogens are unforgettable. One brush with the viruses that cause chickenpox or polio, for instance, is usually enough to protect a person for life. Other microbes, however, leave less of an impression, and researchers still aren’t entirely sure why. This applies to the four coronaviruses known to cause a subset of common cold cases, says Rachel Graham, an epidemiologist and coronavirus expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Immunity against these viruses seems to wane in a matter of months or a couple of years, which is why people get colds so frequently.

Because SARS-CoV-2 was only discovered recently, scientists don’t yet know how the human immune system will treat this new virus. Reports have surfaced in recent weeks of people who have tested positive for the virus after apparently recovering from COVID-19, fueling some suspicion that their first exposure wasn’t enough to protect them from a second bout of disease. Most experts don’t think these test results represent reinfections. Rather, the virus may have never left the patients’ bodies, temporarily dipping below detectable levels and allowing symptoms to abate before surging upward again. Tests are also imperfect, and can incorrectly indicate the virus’ presence or absence at different points.

Because the COVID-19 outbreak is still underway, “if you’ve already had this strain and you’re re-exposed, you would likely be protected,” says Taia Wang, an immunologist and virologist at Stanford University and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. Even antibodies against the most forgettable coronaviruses tend to stick around for at least that long.

COVID-19 packs a stronger punch than the common cold, so antibodies capable of fending off this new coronavirus may have a shot at lingering longer. Broadly speaking, the more severe the disease, the more resources the body will dedicate to memorizing that pathogen’s features, and the stronger and longer lasting the immune response will be, says Allison Roder, a virologist at New York University. Previous studies have shown that people who survived SARS, another coronavirus disease that resulted in a 2003 epidemic, still have antibodies against the pathogen in their blood years after recovery. But this trend is not a sure thing, and scientists don’t know yet whether SARS-CoV-2 will fall in line.

Earlier this month, a team of researchers posted a study (which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal) describing two rhesus macaques that could not be reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 several weeks after recovering from mild bouts of COVID-19. The authors chalked the protection up to the antibodies they found in the monkeys’ bodies, apparently produced in response to the virus?a result that appears to echo the detection of comparable molecules in human COVID-19 patients.

But the mere presence of antibodies doesn’t guarantee protection, Wang says. Reinfections with common cold coronaviruses can still happen in patients who carry antibodies against them. And a bevy of other factors, including a person’s age and genetics, can drastically alter the course of an immune response.

An evolving virus?

Complicating matters further is the biology of SARS-CoV-2 itself. Viruses aren’t technically alive: While they contain genetic instructions to make more of themselves, they lack the molecular tools to execute the steps, and must hijack living cells to complete the replication process for them.

After these pathogens infect cells, their genomes often duplicate sloppily, leading to frequent mutations that persist in the new copies. Most of these changes are inconsequential, or evolutionary dead ends. Occasionally, however, mutations will alter a viral strain so substantially that the immune system can no longer recognize it, sparking an outbreak?even in populations that have seen a previous version of the virus before. Viruses in the influenza family are the poster children for these drastic transformations, which is part of why scientists create a new flu vaccine every year.

Some viruses have another immunity-thwarting trick as well: If a person is infected with two different strains of the flu at the same time, those viruses can swap genetic material with each other, generating a new hybrid strain that doesn’t look like either of its precursors, allowing it to skirt the body’s defenses.

Researchers don’t yet know how quickly similar changes could occur in SARS-CoV-2. Unlike flu viruses, coronaviruses can proofread their genomes as they copy them, correcting mistakes along the way. That feature reduces their mutation rate, and might make them “less of a moving target” for the immune system, says Scott Kenney, an animal coronavirus expert at Ohio State University. But coronaviruses still frequently trade segments of their genetic code with each other, leaving the potential for immune evasion wide open.

So far, SARS-CoV-2 also doesn’t appear to be undergoing any extreme mutations as it sweeps across the globe. That may be because it’s already hit on such a successful strategy, and doesn’t yet need to change its tactic. “Right now, it’s seeing a completely naive population” that’s never been exposed to the virus before, Graham says. The virus “doesn’t seem to be responding to any kind of pressure,” she adds.

Should SARS-CoV-2 get a second infectious wind, it may not come for some time. Even fast-mutating influenza strains can take years to reenter populations. And if or when that day comes, future COVID-19 outbreaks could be milder. Sometimes viral success means treading gently with the host, says Catherine Freije, a virologist at Harvard University.

“Viruses that causes severe disease actually tend to die out faster because a host that’s feeling ill can’t spread it as well.” In those cases, she says, sometimes, “the outbreak just sort of fizzles out.”

But we can’t rule out the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 could change in a way that bumps up its virulence instead, Kenney says. To steel the population for what’s ahead, sometimes, he adds, “We just have to be the ultimate pessimist when it comes to this type of outbreak.”

Protection without disease

Although much about COVID-19 remains unknown, researchers are racing through vaccine development to boost the world’s collective immunity?something that would stem the spread of the virus through the human population.

“Vaccine development is going to be critical to controlling this outbreak,” says Wang. That’s especially true if SARS-CoV-2 returns for an encore act. “If it’s an ever-present pathogen, we’ll certainly need vaccines to be part of our arsenal.”

Researchers have managed to concoct partially effective vaccines to combat other coronavirus infections in animals, such as pigs. In these creatures, immunity lasts “at least several months, possibly longer,” says Qiuhong Wang, a coronavirus expert at Ohio State University. (Because many of the subjects are livestock, they often don’t live long enough for researchers to test them further.) These vaccines may be reason for hope, she says, pointing out that “humans are animals, too.”

Several research teams are designing human vaccines that trigger the production of antibodies that attack SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein?the molecular key the virus uses to unlock and enter human cells. Because the spike protein is crucial for viral infection, it makes an excellent target for a vaccine, says Benhur Lee, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. But Lee also points out that the spike protein, like other parts of the virus, is capable of mutating?something that could compromise the ability of a vaccinated individual to ward off the virus.

If mutation regularly occurs to that extent, scientists may need to frequently reformulate COVID-19 vaccines, like they do with pathogens in the flu family, Wang says. “We’d be starting over to some degree if there is a new outbreak.”

However, Wang cautions that it’s too soon to tell whether that will be the case. As research worldwide proceeds at breakneck speed, scientists may instead be able to brew up a universal vaccine that’s active against multiple forms of SARS-CoV-2.

But vaccines, which require rigorous testing and retesting to ensure efficacy and safety, take a long time to develop?typically more than a year, Qiuhong Wang says. In the meantime, researchers are turning their attention to treatments that could save those who have already been infected.

Some solutions will inevitably require antiviral drugs that tackle active SARS-CoV-2 infections after they’ve already begun, usually by interfering with the virus’ infection cycle.

But another approach, based on a time-tested technique, also taps into the immune response: transferring blood plasma?and the disease-repelling antibodies it contains?from recovered patients into infected ones. Though new to the current pandemic, the treatment has been deployed in various forms since the 1890s, and saw modest success during outbreaks of SARS in 2003 and Ebola in 2014. Ongoing trials in New York are now recruiting carefully screened, healthy volunteers who no longer have symptoms or detectable virus in their bodies to donate plasma. Importantly, this doesn’t diminish donors’ own resistance to SARS-CoV-2, since their immune systems have already learned to manufacture more antibodies.

Antibodies degrade over time, and won’t protect the people who receive these transfusions forever. The plasma treatments also can’t teach their recipients’ immune systems to make new antibodies after the first batch disappears. But this stopgap measure could ease the burden on health care workers and buy time for some of the outbreak’s most vulnerable victims.

Even as the pandemic evolves, researchers are already looking ahead. Just as the response to this outbreak was informed by its predecessors, so too will COVID-19 teach us about what’s to come, Qiuhong Wang says. The entry of other coronavirus strains into our species “is inevitable.”

“We don’t know when or where that will happen,” she says. But hopefully by the time the next pandemic comes around, the world will be more ready.

'We need to be alert': Scientists fear second coronavirus wave as China's lockdowns ease [Nature.com, 30 Mar 2020]

By David Cyranoski

Other countries on lockdown will be watching for a resurgence of infections in Hubei province now that travel restrictions are lifting.

For the first time in months, the Chinese province of Hubei, where the coronavirus first emerged, is getting attention for a good reason. COVID-19 cases there have dropped to practically zero, and last week authorities lifted travel restrictions in and out of the province, some 60 days after much of it was dramatically locked down. Now scientists ? and the rest of the world ? are watching closely to see whether easing the intense measures to keep people apart results in an emergence of new cases. An early analysis suggests that, so far, these fears have not come to pass.

“It’s time to relax the lockdown, but we need to be alert for a potential second wave of infections,” says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, who will be following the situation in China. If a second wave comes, Cowling would expect to see it emerge by the end of April.

How things unfold in Hubei ? and across China ? will be relevant to many European nations and some US states that have restricted travel inside their borders, closed most businesses, schools and universities and told people to stay at home, in an attempt to halt the pathogen’s spread. Modelling of the UK outbreak suggests that the country’s social distancing measures, including school and university closures, might be needed for large parts of the next two years to keep the proportion of people with severe COVID-19 infections in hospital at manageable levels.

But if China can show that it can lift its lockdown without a significant re-appearance of COVID-19, it might be possible that such protracted restrictions won’t be necessary.

Extensive testing

Chinese provinces will now use extensive testing and contact tracing to pinpoint new infections, and will maintain some social-distancing practices to prevent a resurgence. The country has also closed its borders to everyone but citizens to prevent cases from being imported. Returning residents will be quarantined for 14 days.

But some researchers say that the situation in China is different because its government acted aggressively, using social-distancing measures to slow down the spread and extensive testing and isolating of infected people to stamp out potential transmission sources. This strategy helped the country contain the outbreak. But other nations, such as Italy and Spain, have focused mainly on slowing the virus ? through social distancing ? without intensive testing and contact tracing. They will face more challenges when trying to return to life before the pandemic, says Cowling.

And yet, the risk of new outbreaks in China is high given the ease with which the virus passes between people, and the possibility that some infections still linger undetected, says Gabriel Leung, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of Hong Kong. It’s possible that one lockdown might not be enough, and severe efforts to suppress the virus might be needed again, he says. “The tension between health, protecting the economy and emotional well-being will vex every government for the foreseeable future.”

Restrictions ease

Life in Hubei ? home to roughly 60 million people ? hasn’t returned to normal yet, but people are slowly leaving their homes and returning to work, and factories are reopening. Universities, schools and child-care centres remain closed pending “a scientific assessment of the epidemic control situation”, say government authorities. And travel in and out of the provincial capital, Wuhan, remains restricted until 8 April. Until then, people will need to be tested for the virus to come and go. Since 18 March, there has been only one new case reported in Hubei.

A UK team has modelled whether the increasing movement following the easing of travel restrictions in the six Chinese provinces with the highest number of COVID-19 cases resulted in a surge of new infections. In these provinces ? Hubei, Beijing, Guangdong, Henan, Hunan and Zhejiang ? the lockdowns helped to reduce new COVID-19 cases to near zero.

The team, led by infectious-disease researchers Neil Ferguson and Steven Riley at Imperial College London, found that as movement and economic activity in these regions increased in late February for all provinces except Hubei, the number of new infections stayed near zero.
As activity restarted in Hubei in March, the numbers of new cases remained low. The analysis concludes that after containing the virus with the severe lockdowns, “China has successfully exited their stringent social-distancing policy to some degree.”

“So far, so good,” says Andrew Tatem, an emerging-disease researcher at the University of Southampton, UK. But the findings must be approached with some caution, he adds. The movement and economic activity levels in the six regions that the group measured were only half of what they were before the outbreak, except in Zhejiang province, where it appears to have matched pre-pandemic levels. There might also be a lag between the increase in activity and reports of new cases. “We’re at the ‘wait and see’ stage. How the graphs look as movement levels keep rising back towards normality will be very interesting,” he says.

Second wave

The virus would have difficulty reestablishing itself in the community if a significant portion of people, between 50% and 70%, were infected and are now immune, says Leung. But he notes that even in Wuhan ? which accounted for more than half China’s 81,000 cases ? the number of those people infected and are now immune to the disease is probably less than 10% ? which means there are lots of people still vulnerable to infection. A vaccine would increase the percentage of immune people, but no vaccines are expected for at least a year.

“These numbers don’t allow a sigh of relief,” he says.

To see the risk of easing these measures, “You only have to look across to Hong Kong to see what’s happened there with a resurgence,” says Tatem. Hong Kong, as well as Singapore and Taiwan, contained the initial spread of the coronavirus with intensive testing and contract tracing.

But over the last week, all three regions have seen a jump in new infections. Most were in travellers from abroad, but some local transmission has been detected. All three regions have now temporarily banned international visitors and are making returning residents undergo a two-week quarantine.

Containment measures should be relaxed “gradually and with ultra-caution and very close monitoring and surveillance”, says Tatem.

Test and trace

China is still implementing extensive COVID-19 monitoring nationwide. Provinces issue all residents a QR code, a type of barcode containing information that is revealed when scanned, based on their health details and travel history. If a person has remained in areas considered safe in China or has been quarantined and tested negative for the disease, they are assigned a ‘green status’ ? the lowest risk ? which allows them to cross provincial borders, enter hospitals and residential areas, and ride the subway and trains.

The measure not only keeps infected people from mingling with others, but if a new infection is detected, the government can track that person’s movements and pinpoint people they might have come in contact with. Cowling calls this an “advanced form of test and trace” that will allow China to identify as many infected people as possible as quickly as possible, and then isolate them.

The big question is whether that will be enough to stop a new outbreak. Cowling thinks other cities would have trouble if required to do the number of tests that Wuhan did, which at its peak reached about 10,000 tests per day. “There is a danger in focusing too much on testing and isolation,” he says, and adds that social-distancing measures will still be important.

Chinese cities seem to fear the dangers of loosening measures to keep people apart too soon. Museums and attractions in Shanghai, which have been open for the past 18 days, were shut again from today. Cinemas were also closed again. Although the city has relaxed some rules: people are no longer required to have a pass to leave residential compounds, and delivery people are able to enter these areas. The city also dropped the requirement to wear masks in some public areas ? a practice police had previously enforced with drones or robots.

Most of the countries now facing raging outbreaks, including Italy, Spain and the United States, are relying on social-distancing policies and getting people to stay home. China implemented those measures, but it also built new hospitals and conducted extensive testing. Then, officials went door to door to check people’s temperatures. They tested anyone with a fever, and isolated positive cases. “The extra work allowed them to stop the virus,” says Cowling. “People are following China, but not in exactly the same way,” he says.

Coronavirus Affects Bangladesh Garment Makers [pymnts.com, 30 Mar 2020]

The coronavirus outbreak has affected virtually all aspects of the economy, including the fashion industry, which has been grappling with how to pay for supply orders from garment makers.

The Associated Press is reporting that garment makers in Bangladesh are being laid off in massive numbers after $3 billion in orders have been either canceled or put on hold.

Some retailers have agreed to pay what they owe, but many have not.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) released the data on Monday (March 30) on orders already made or in the works. Bangladesh is the world’s second biggest clothing exporter after China.

The canceled orders are in the tens of millions, and include Inditex, C&A, Primark and Marks & Spencer. Labor groups and manufacturers in the country have been asking major retailers to adhere to their commitments.

Most businesses in Bangladesh have recently been asked to close during the pandemic, but the exports sector has been feeling the effects for some weeks now.

About $1.8 billion orders are on hold and another $1.4 billion have been canceled. Orders from April through December alone cost the industry $1.7 billion.

Clothing company H&M said it was going to wait and see about new orders, but will pay suppliers for (and take delivery of) orders that were already made or are currently in production.

“This is in accordance with our responsible purchasing practices, and not only the case in Bangladesh, but in all production countries,” the company said.

The company that owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, PVH, said that it told suppliers to release invoices on hold since March 18, and later ones will be processed gradually.

If companies paid for orders already being made or for ones not yet shipped, that would help factories stay solvent.

“PVH and H&M are doing the right thing, in contrast to the long list of brands refusing to pay for goods workers have already made for them,” said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium.

Defusing Bangladesh's COVID-19 time bomb [Atlantic Council, 30 Mar 2020]

by Irfan Nooruddin and Rudabeh Shahid

Bangladesh has a health crisis in the making. The lack of preparation in the United States and Europe that has spawned the ongoing crisis there still exceeds the preparedness of developing countries such as Bangladesh, which will have to battle the COVID-19 pandemic with limited financial resources and a legacy of poor healthcare infrastructure, especially for the urban poor. Already one of the most densely populated countries in the world, Bangladesh also has thousands of stateless Rohingya housed in sprawling refugee camps in the southeastern region of the country, in conditions prime for rapid spread. Given its proximity to China and a large migrant population living in severely affected countries such as Italy, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare should have taken preventative measures when the Chinese government first shared news of the deadly virus. Unfortunately, precious time was squandered.

After the first reported death in Bangladesh from COVID-19, there was a mass religious gathering in the southern part of the country attended by tens of thousands of people. Such events have been discouraged by authorities but communications need to be clearer and more forceful to be effective. Currently there is a ten-day nationwide holiday from March 26 to April 4, during which the army is enforcing social distancing across the nation. There are several potential policies the Bangladeshi government can use in its response strategy to blunt the COVID-19 pandemic’s health and economic impact on Bangladesh.

The current situation

The Bangladeshi research institute spearheading the fight to test and detect coronavirus is the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), a body under the Ministry of Health. The IEDCR has recommended that citizens avoid mass public gatherings. Yet, for the March 17 birth centenary of the country’s founder, Sheikh Mijibur Rahman, the government arranged two major public events in Dhaka. These events were supposedly more scaled down from their original intended size, but even so they was still packed with thousands of celebrants, live music, and fireworks.

Unlike in neighboring Nepal where the army set up a quarantine facility in Kathmandu as per the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation upon the first positive COVID-19 test, the handling of quarantine measures in Bangladesh was inadequate. When the first batch of mass returnees arrived from China in February, they were all quarantined at the Ashkana Hajj Camp in Dhaka. The returnees complained about subpar conditions, including poor hygienic conditions and being crammed in small spaces. However, the authorities ignored the situation and the health risks it posed to those in quarantine. Subsequently, in mid-March when the second batch of foreign returnees?over a hundred and forty Bangladeshis evacuated from Italy?arrived, confusion ensued when they were taken to the same inadequate quarantine spot. These returnees protested and were ultimately allowed to leave with the promise of “home quarantine.”

On March 18, tens of thousands of people gathered in Raipur in the southern district of Lakshmipur to pray “healing verses” from the Quran. This event was organized by an influential local religious leader who urged people to join this event, promising a way to be “free from the coronavirus.” The same week, school holidays were announced to support the quarantine, but domestic tourist destinations such as the coastal areas of Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar were all bustling with people and activity. On March 20, the Islamic Foundation allowed congregational prayers to go on albeit for a shortened length.

Such contradiction in policy guidance and lack-luster enforcement has wasted precious time for the government to shore up its limited public health system and to implement best practices for maximizing social distancing and minimizing community transmission of the novel coronavirus. The impact on Bangladesh’s economy due to these missteps is likely to be significant.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that export industries will suffer and the country will lose 1.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) growth due to the pandemic. The ready-made garments sector which accounts for more than 80 percent of Bangladesh’s manufacturing income has already suffered a loss of $3 billion as major export destinations such as the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union are cancelling orders. In addition, foreign remittances representing over 5 percent of GDP (close to $17 billion in fiscal year 2019) will be affected as half a million migrant workers have returned home since the outbreak. The majority of these migrant workers were based in Middle Eastern countries which have been hit by declining oil prices. Furthermore, daily wage laborers, such as rickshaw-pullers, are the hardest hit as the closure of schools and colleges have led to lower demand for their services. For these workers?who survive hand to mouth daily?the consequences of quarantines and lockdowns, however medically necessary, are dire without robust government provision of food and supplementary income.

Some encouraging news

Bangladesh’s government is hardly alone in not tackling the pandemic early enough.

Fortunately, after a slow start, the government has begun to show signs of urgency. Following the mass religious gathering in southern Bangladesh, the government started enforcing social distancing measures. Local administrations have been told to punish violators of the home-quarantine rules in line with Section 269 of the Penal Code. Additionally, an emergency lockdown has been imposed in the sub-district of Shibchar since March 19 where many returnees from Italy are based. The general secretary of the ruling party Awami League, Obaidul Quader, said that in the future there may be a possibility of further lockdowns in other areas. Most recently, the government declared a ten-day nationwide holiday from March 26 to April 4, wherein all government and private offices have been closed, and with the army mobilized to enforce social distancing across the nation. Almost all international flights have been suspended until April 7 and the country’s March 26 Independence Day celebrations were subdued.

The government encouraged low-income people to return to their villages where they would be provided with government aid or to take refuge in Bhashanchar, an island in the Bay of Bengal originally built to house Rohingya refugees. On March 20, the government authorized the Bangladesh Army to run two quarantine centers in Dhaka. One quarantine facility remains the same Ashkona Hajj Camp that has proved inadequate before. The other is a new one at Rajuk Apartment Project near Diyabari in Uttara.

In the medical arena, there has been progress as well. Isolation wards to treat COVID-19 patients have been set up in district-level hospitals across the country. Students and teachers of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Dhaka have started making low-cost hand sanitizers due to market shortages in the wake of coronavirus fears. And, Gonoshasthaya Kendra, a public health center in Dhaka, received approval from the country’s Directorate of Drug Administration (DGDA) to mass-produce COVID-19 detection kits, each costing around $3.

Recommendations for tackling the situation

Policymakers in Bangladesh should gear up in anticipation of a deterioration of the situation. While the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has promised a $6.5 billion package to address the immediate needs of developing member countries (DMCs), and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged $10 million toward a special emergency fund to set up a rapid response team for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Bangladesh will have to face this battle largely on its own. Over the past ten days, the South Asia Center has consulted broadly with public health professionals and social scientists who study Bangladesh.
Those conversations lead us to offer the following healthcare, social, and economic recommendations:

Health Care

? Support initiatives to increase the local production of medical gloves, masks, and other medical kits for health care practitioners who, as the front line defenders, are the most vulnerable. According to Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque, as of now, Bangladesh has adequate testing kits and personal protective equipment (PPE), numbering around two hundred thousand units. On March 26, a large consignment of emergency medical supplies provided by the Chinese government arrived. This shipment included 10,000 testing reagents, 15,000 surgical masks, 10,000 medical protective equipment, and 1,000 infrared thermometers. But, as the grim lessons from other countries make clear, in the case of a mass outbreak, even more PPE will be required and more testing needs to be done.

? COVID-19 testing facilities should be made available across both public and private medical centers with immediate effect. Once locally produced full-scale standardized and accurate kits are available, testing capabilities should be distributed to other locations in Dhaka and across the country. Bangladesh should commit to mass testing on about one percent of its population to identify community spread of COVID-19. As of March 29, Bangladesh’s official COVID-19 tracker confirms forty-eight cases and five deaths. A press conference that day stated that 1,185 tests have been conducted thus far. This number is much lower in comparison to India and Pakistan, who as of March 29, have tested 27,688 and 14,336 cases respectively.

? Implement awareness campaigns for the general public. Unless an individual is over sixty-five and/or has pre-existing health conditions, symptoms should be followed by a six to seven-day quarantine period and individuals should not go to health care facilities. If an individual’s health condition continues to deteriorate, they should then go for COVID-19 testing.

? Emotional and mental health services, as well as financial support, should be provided for health workers. The medical community of the nation at this point are severely at high risk and are fearful.
Social

? The Ministry of Religious Affairs should endorse the fatwa of the Council of Senior Scholars at Al-Azhar, one of the Muslim world’s top Islamic institutions, where it is permitted under Sharia Law to suspend congregational prayers to counter the spread of the virus. Many Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia have banned gatherings such as in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

? Restaurants and public locations should remain closed after April 4 for a period of at least another ten days, and citizens should be prepared for even longer disruptions of daily life. There must be tougher self-quarantine norms?and if needed lockdown measures?in certain areas of the country with higher concentrations of Bangladeshi expatriates. Sri Lanka had instituted a stay-at-home curfew in eight districts of the country, where violation of this measure has led to the arrest of over 1,600 people. Now that the army has been summoned in Bangladesh, certain districts across the country can be asked to impose curfew-like restrictions, with violations leading to strict punishment and fines.

? The government must utilize television, radio, and social media to counter the spread of fraudulent treatment methods through disinformation channels, and to raise appropriate awareness of COVID-19’s dangers for even otherwise healthy victims.

? Village community leaders such as Imams and village elders should be involved in spreading information on countering COVID-19. Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government officials have a list of such leaders and can centrally coordinate their response.

? Private universities should be mobilized to provide premises for quarantine facilities and temporary hospitals, given that many of them have campuses located right outside Dhaka. Similar initiatives have been taken by higher educational institutions in the United States.
Economic

? In concurrence with the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), one of Bangladesh’s leading economic think tanks, leniency should be provided for loans to small and medium sized-businesses and extended pay back periods granted. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced a stimulus package of Tk 5,000 crore ($590 million) for the export-oriented industries. However, it is also imperative that the government provide smaller entrepreneurs with fiscal support so that they can maintain production and pay workers’ wages.

? To protect daily wage laborers who have not left Dhaka to return to their hometowns, tougher lockdown measures accompanied by supportive humanitarian measures should be implemented in slum areas where daily wage workers are concentrated. As in the Rohingya camps, daily wage laborers should be provided with rations for two weeks so that they can observe social distancing measures without risk of starvation or malnutrition. Such a policy could build on the precedent by the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal, which will provide free rations to the poor until September. Additionally, as the month of Ramadan is approaching, zakat funds should be collected by both the government and NGOs for this purpose

? The government must provide the necessary financing to allow Gonoshasthaya Kendra and other health care organizations to produce their COVID-19 testing kits at requisite volumes and support distributional channels to allow medical facilities around the country to access these kits.

? The government must help catalyze the funding required to enable the local production of hand sanitizers and PPEs, which are being made by university students and small tech companies. This will disincentivize counterfeiting and fraud.

? Over the next six months, the government must ensure that strategies suggested by the ADB and other international organizations are implemented without delay to minimize the inevitable economic slowdown that will follow even a successful fight against the novel coronavirus.

The global COVID-19 pandemic is caused by a once-in-a-generation pathogen that has proven capable of bringing the health systems of the richest countries of the world to their knees. The damage that will be wrought on developing country populations if their governments delay implementation of aggressive countermeasures is unimaginable. Living in densely populated areas with large sections of society reliant on daily wages to make ends meet?and served by public health systems that have been deprived of investment for decades?Bangladeshi citizens are among the world’s most vulnerable to the unchecked spread of this disease. But the situation is not hopeless, and Dhaka must utilize every tool in its arsenal to serve its citizens. The policy checklist presented above is a good place to start.

Collapse Of Bangladesh’s Garment Industry During Coronavirus Leaves Its Workers More Vulnerable Than Ever [Forbes, 30 Mar 2020]

Millions of garment factory workers in Bangladesh have been released from work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving them without income and without choice but to return to cramped homes in slums or villages, without resources to fight the pandemic or even with the basic ability to sustain their lives.

The garment and textile business is the number one industry in Bangladesh, accounting for 80% of the country’s exports. They are the 2nd largest individual country for apparel manufacturing in the world behind China and is where brands like H&M, Target and Marks and Spencer produce much of their goods.

This dangerous cocktail of out-of-work, low-wage workers living in cramped slums without basic sanitation or the ability to isolate, coupled with the lack of income due to being laid off from the factories have the potential to leave the workers in a state of abject poverty and with the threat of an outbreak in this already vulnerable community. A situation which could also prove to be a ticking-time bomb for the country as a whole.

“When you talk about isolation in a densely populated country, it’s a joke,” says labor activist Kalpona Akter. Akter is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and is a former child laborer that fights against the exploitation of garment factory workers.

“In other countries people can isolate. Our people don’t have that possibility. Workers live in houses that are a 10 x 10 room where 5 or 6 people live. If one person gets infected in a community, everyone will be infected.”

Akter is right that self-quarantine and social distancing is a near-impossible task for the masses in Bangladesh. It’s one of the world’s most densely populated countries, where 164 million people are packed into 57,000 square miles. That’s a space roughly the size of North Carolina containing half the population of the United States. The capital city of Dhaka, which is about the size of Philadelphia at 118 square miles, is home to almost 21 million inhabitants.
Philadelphia, in comparison, only has 1.5 million people. In Dhaka, residents live on top of each other in the best of conditions, and live packed like sardines in the worst of conditions.

“In other countries people can isolate. Our people don’t have that possibility. Workers live in houses that are a 10 x 10 room where 5 or 6 people live. If one person gets infected in a community, everyone will be infected.”

Kalpona Akter, Executive Director, Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity

The top priority for the garment industry is to stop the hemorrhaging of the billions of dollars worth of cancelled orders in order to save the workers and the industry which supports them.

“As per the latest report at BGMEA, 1025 factories reported 864.17 million pieces worth $2.81 billion export cancelled,” says Rubana Haq, the President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturer’s Export Association (BGMEA), the governing body of Bangladesh’s apparel production industry. “With so many orders cancelled and on hold and with no visibility of any confirmed direction, we are at a complete loss at this moment.”

Meanwhile, while the factories remain closed, workers return to the villages where they are from or to the slums where they live. In the case of the latter, hundreds upon hundreds of the tin rooms described by Akter line narrow, unlit pathways. Kitchens, which are often open cement shelters whose walls are lined with campsite-like ranges, are shared, as are bathrooms, which are also outdoor cement sheds. In many cases, the bathrooms are without doors.
Showers are had and water is drawn from the only faucet in the entire slum, where there is no guarantee the water is without disease or other bacteria.

“As with any other vulnerable populations such as refugees and internally displaced populations, if a virus or disease gets into the population in overcrowded conditions it is likely to spread like wildfire and there is little infrastructure to respond to it,” says Dr. Adam Coutts, a Research Fellow at Cambridge University.

The government has issued a bailout to manufacturing industries, which includes the garment sector, in the sum of BDT 50 billion (roughly $600 million).

“Logically what could be possibly earmarked for us would be around BDT 42 billion, which would provide for one month’s salary for workers, but the logistics through which these funds would be dispersed have yet to be sorted. The modalities of disbursement of the bailout is yet to be drawn in consultation with the stakeholders,” says Huq. “We are hoping it will happen in the quickest possible time and flexible term so that workers can draw their salary on time.”

“As with any other vulnerable populations such as refugees and internally displaced populations, if a virus or disease gets into the population in overcrowded conditions it is likely to spread like wildfire and there is little infrastructure to respond to it.”

Dr. Adam Coutts, Research Fellow at Cambridge

“This is the big question: How will the funds get to the worker?” asks Akter in the interview.

“Through the factories? And how are they going to pay? Will they be paid in advance? Will be it be equal distribution or not? We don’t have social security system, we don't have data on citizens. A lot of workers don't even have bank accounts.”

Beyond this package from the government, there are no other provisions for the workers. “The cruel reality is that the sufferer is our worker, they are the most vulnerable,”says Akter. “The manufactures will be losing profit, but it is the worker who will lose their food.”

Both Akter and Huq, along with the country’s Commerce Minister, Tipu Munshi, are making international appeals to brands asking for financial support to help quell what could be a disaster, and are all aligned in their stances that brands have some obligation to support the workers.

Munshi went on the air with CNBC and asked for support from brands who manufacture in Bangladesh, and Huq did the same through the BGEMA’s channels.

“Gone are the days when a company's actions stay isolated to a particular market. When stories and videos travel the world at the speed of a click, a company's actions anywhere affect their reputation everywhere. There’s a strong reputational, as well as humanitarian, argument for companies to treat their workers with compassion and dignity, regardless of where those workers are located,” says Dr. David Bowen.

Bowen is the former the Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, and was also the Deputy Director of Global Health Policy for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Today, he heads global healthcare strategies for Hill + Knowlton Strategies, and he suggests that, from a communications standpoint, it’s in the best interest of the brands to have some role in providing for workers in the communities in which they operate.

“When stories and videos travel the world at the speed of a click, a company's actions anywhere affect their reputation everywhere. There’s a strong reputational, as well as humanitarian, argument for companies to treat their workers with compassion and dignity, regardless of where those workers are located.”

Dr. David Bowen, Head of Global Healthcare Strategies for Hill + Knowlton Strategies, formerly the Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health

“We have to think about the people who made you [brands] profit for years. When they need you, you cannot leave them in a starving situation,” says Akter. “All these years we worked to make your companies so much profit. We did that together. We should be in this together.”

Some of the solutions Munshi, Huq and Akter have suggested to the brands are the setting up of a fund, deferring payment schedules, or at the very least, simply paying for completed product which many brands are now refusing to collect, a point which Huq makes in her video.

“All we are asking from the brands at this moment is to accept the goods which are currently in different stage of production at the factories including finished stock,” says Huq. “Also we urge brands to pay the cost of manufacturing for the goods we have confirmed order for and we have imported fabrics for those but did not start production yet. When the situation improves we can reciprocate to our valued customers to the best possible extent.”

Companies are already responding. In a statement made to Forbes, an H&M spokesperson said:

“We will stand by our commitments to our garment manufacturing suppliers by taking delivery of the already produced garments as well as goods in production. We will of course pay for these goods and we will do it under agreed payment terms. In addition, we will not negotiate prices on already placed orders. This is not only the case in Bangladesh, but for all production countries. We are at this instance intensively investigating how we can support countries, societies and individuals from a health and financial perspective. We hope to be able to communicate more around these initiatives within shortly.”

Smaller local brands and manufacturers have taken matters into their own hands. Saadat Chowdury is the co-founder of the luxury Bangladeshi fashion brand, Zurhem, and has made the decision to pay his 100 or so employees through the end of April, and perhaps longer.

“For people at this level of society, it’s impossible for them to have savings, and if you decide to lay them off, no one is going to hire them for the several months. So how are they going to survive?”

Saadat Chowdhury, co-founder, Bangaldeshi luxury fashion brand, Zurhem

“We take high-skilled and multi-skilled workers and pay them about $300 month, which is more than what factory workers make because of their skill set. We will continue to pay this and keep them for some time after,” says Chowdhury.

Chowdhury also made a public plea through his social media channels urging his friends and colleagues in business to do the same. “For people at this level of society, it’s impossible for them to have savings, and if you decide to lay them off, no one is going to hire them for the several months. So how are they going to survive?”

Compounding the economic issues are the infrastructural and social ones. As of late last week, there was only one medical facility in the entire country capable of testing, which has now been increased to three. According the Minister of Health, Zahid Maleque, the government has been able to procure 250 more ventilators to add to the 29 they had as of last week, bringing the number of ventilators in the country to 279.

In her speech on March 25, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the nation that, “Corona virus spreads very rapidly but it is not fatal. You will get better soon if infected. It is only the weak, elderly people who already have pre-existing conditions that this virus can be deadly.” She also said there are enough stores of food to feed the country although made no remarks on how these resources would be distributed.

The country has been on lock down since March 26, and as of the time of publication, the Bangladeshi government is reporting 48 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 5 coronavirus-related deaths. This is a number questioned by many as it is disproportionately low compared to the population, especially considering the high number of migrant workers that have returned from infected regions.

“Workers in Bangladesh and China who produce goods for the fashion and tech industry face huge social, economic and health challenges in normal times. Now with covid they doubly suffer as global corporations have shut these links down and countries have retreated to putting their head in the sand to deal with their own domestic issues,” says Coutts.

“These workers have been forgotten. The covid crisis really shows how expendable multi nationals and governments consider these workers.”

Japan Lied About Coronavirus to Keep Olympics, Former PM Says [CCN.com, 30 Mar 2020]

by Laura Hoy

As the number of new coronavirus cases spikes, suspicion is rising that Tokyo understated its coronavirus cases to hold on to the summer Olympics.

? Tokyo’s sudden spike in coronavirus cases has raised questions about the government’s transparency.
? Some are accusing Japan of purposefully understating coronavirus numbers to keep the Olympics from being cancelled.
? A lack of trust between governments around the world is emerging amid the crisis.

The global coronavirus pandemic has been amplified in recent days by a growing mistrust between governments around the world.

China has been at the center of conspiracies claiming government officials have been understating case and death numbers. But Japan has recently come under fire as the nation’s reported coronavirus cases suddenly spiked just hours after announcing the cancellation of the Olympics in Tokyo.

In early March, many pointed to Japan as a beacon of hope in the global coronavirus crisis.
The nation had efficiently gotten a handle on the virus before it spread out of control even as it multiplied in surrounding countries. Tokyo in particular, where the Olympics were due to be held, had been able to keep a lid on new cases.

Japan May Have Understated Cases To Push Olympics Forward

But bubbling under the surface of Japan’s rosy numbers was speculation that the government wasn’t revealing the entire picture.

On Mar. 5, the executive director of Japan’s Medical Governance Research Institute Masahiro Kami said the number of cases, just 1,023 at the time, was the tip of the iceberg.

Epidemiologist Hiroshi Nishiura said the rate of infection seen in Hokkaido was probably on par with that seen in Wuhan where the outbreak began.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Health Ministry denied allegations that it was purposely suppressing case numbers through limited testing.

On Mar. 24, the Olympic committee in Tokyo finally decided to postpone the games after weeks of deliberation. The news was a devastating blow to Tokyo, whose infrastructure was already prepared to host the event. Many pointed to the Olympics as a symbol of recovery for the city after it was rocked by an earthquake in 2011.

Hours after the announcement, Tokyo saw a pronounced spike in coronavirus cases. On Tuesday, the day the Olympics were postponed, 17 cases were reported. On Wednesday the number of new cases was 41. On Saturday, the number of new cases in Tokyo was 63.

The exponential rise sparked questions?was Tokyo purposely understating its coronavirus impact in order to hold on to the Olympics? Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama voiced his suspicion on Twitter saying the government prioritized the Olympics over its citizens.

Suspicion Surrounding Tokyo’s Tone

The government was calm, cool and collected just days before announcing the Olympics would be postponed. Since then, there has been a marked increase in urgency among lawmakers.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe struck a cautionary note this weekend, warning that a state of emergency could be on the horizon:

Once infections overshoot, our strategy … will instantly fall apart.Under the current situation, we are just barely holding up.

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike called on the city’s inhabitants to stay home over the weekend as the spike in cases suggested a worrying trend. Koike said the city was embarking on an

important phase in preventing an explosive rise in the number of infections.

Despite growing speculation about a cover-up, the Japanese government has been adamant that’s not the case. Abe dismissed reports that COVID-19 deaths were mislabeled saying,

I’m aware that some people suspect Japan is hiding the numbers, but I believe that’s not true. If there is a cover-up, it will show up in the number of deaths.

Mistrust And Fear Lead Coronavirus Responses

The speculation about Japan’s coronavirus numbers underscores a growing mistrust between governments around the world. Donald Trump has been quick to point to Chinaas a leading example of misrepresentation,

British Cabinet Minister Michael Gove also pointed to China’s lack of clarity regarding the nature of the virus as reason for the U.K.’s inadequate testing supplies.

Japan 'On The Brink' But Government Resists Declaring Coronavirus State Of Emergency [NPR, 30 Mar 2020]

BY ANTHONY KUHN

Japan's government on Monday resisted calls to declare a national state of emergency, despite a recent spike in confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Tokyo and warnings of further exponential growth.

"It's not true that the government is planning on declaring a state of emergency from April 1," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters, refuting rumors.

With fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases and 54 deaths, Japan has so far managed to avoid the explosion of numbers that China and South Korea have seen. Some medical experts argue that Japan's strategy of limiting testing to the most urgent cases and focusing on isolating clusters has been effective. Others argue that the country's conservative use of testing has concealed the scale of the problem.

At a Monday evening news briefing, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike reissued a plea to the capital's residents to avoid outdoor activities and refrain from visiting bars, nightclubs and karaoke parlors, where experts say the virus is being spread.

Her earlier entreaty for a sort of "soft lockdown" ahead of the weekend seemed to have some effect. Tokyo metro usage was down by 70%-80% compared to the same weekend last year, according to the East Japan Railway Co.

"At this point, we don't need to declare a state of emergency," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Saturday. But, referring to the spike in cases, he also acknowledged that the country is at a critical moment, saying, "We are on the brink."

Some experts want Abe to change his mind about declaring a state of emergency. "I personally feel it's time [Japan] makes the declaration," Satoshi Kamayachi, an executive board member of the Japan Medical Association, said at a news conference on Monday. He said fellow members of a panel of experts advising the government on the outbreak agreed.

A national emergency would likely trigger a three-week lockdown, during which governors of hard-hit prefectures could instruct residents to stay at home, except for essential purposes.

There were fewer than 20 new cases a day in Tokyo until March 25, when they more than doubled. That was one day after Abe agreed to the postponement of the Summer Olympics.
Japan announced Monday that the games would take place next July.

Health Minister Katsunobu Kato dismissed the notion that Japan had concealed cases in order to avoid affecting the games, saying there was "absolutely no relationship."

The pandemic's immediacy was brought home for many Japanese when Ken Shimura, a household name, died on Sunday from COVID-19. Shimura's comedy and rockabilly group, the Drifters, opened for the Beatles in Japan in 1966.

Ken Shimura, 'Japan's Robin Williams,' dies from coronavirus at 70 [New York Post, 30 Mar 2020]

By Hannah Frishberg

Beloved Japanese comedian Ken Shimura has passed away a week after contracting the coronavirus. He was 70.

The Tokyo native was revered in his home country, where he is a household name and has been called “Japan’s Robin Williams.”

“He was popular among a wide range of generations and was the No. 1 source of pride for locals,” Minoru Hasegawa, 69, a fellow native of Shimura’s home city, told the Japan Times.

Shimura was hospitalized on March 20 after developing a fever and being diagnosed with pneumonia. He tested positive for the virus on March 23, becoming the first Japanese celebrity to announce his infection, and to pass from the disease.

Shimura was known for his parodies and slapstick comedy bits, including the “mustache dance,” and a song about his home city of Higashimurayama in western Tokyo. Following his high school graduation, he joined the well-known Japanese comedy group the Drifters in 1974 ? among Japan’s best-known comedy troupes, the group had opened for the Beatles when they performed in Japan in 1966. The group’s surviving members were too shocked to yet issue statements regarding Shimura’s death, their management tells The Japan Times.

“I am sure he was working hard with a sense of mission to deliver laughter to people,” a representative from Shimura’s agency says. “I don’t think he imagined he would die a death like this.”

The funnyman stayed active until his death, starring in numerous TV programs, and was to begin work on a movie in April. He was set to run the Tokyo Olympic torch relay representing Higashimurayama in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics until they were postponed until next year.l

“I cannot think anything now. I can no longer see Ken-chan. This is too sad,” Japanese singer Naoko Ken tweeted of Shimura’s death.

Another Tokyo resident bemoaned the laughter Shimura would no longer be able to bring. “He was our hero. I wish he could entertain us more,” says Toshio Takazawa, 70, who recalled going to see The Drifters live in his childhood.

Japan’s health ministry recorded 173 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, with 68 in Tokyo, the biggest single-day spike for the capital, CNN reports.

Japanese Scientists Find New Coronavirus Transmission Route in Breakthrough Study [CCN.com, 30 Mar 2020]

By Joseph Young

Scientists in Japan have found a third transmission route for coronavirus. Some are hopeful it could reduce the spread of the virus.

? Scientists in Japan discovered that micro particles could be causing coronavirus to spread much faster.
? Simple conversations in close proximity could spread the virus without coughs and sneezes.
? Solutions to better contain the virus will emerge as scientists break down how it spreads.

Scientists in Japan have found a third transmission route for coronavirus in a breakthrough study. Some are hopeful that the new findings could significantly reduce the spread of the virus in the coming weeks.

Mainstream news agency NHK reported:

So far, we have considered 2 main routes of transmission. One is infection by coming into contact with something that has the virus on it. The other is infection through droplets admitted in sneezes and coughs. But some experts say there is possibly a 3rd infection route.

The presence of another transmission could explain the unusually rapid spread of the virus across the globe.

Nanometer Particles Could Be Key To Weakening Coronavirus Pandemic

According to Kazuhiro Tateda, president of the Japanese Association for Infectious Disease, micrometer particles could be transmitting coronavirus when people are in close proximity to one another.

Previously, scientists believed coronavirus spreads when droplets from coughs and sneezes travel through the air.

If the third route of transmission is micro droplet infection as Tateda and other Japanese scientists theorize, then the micrometer particles can spread even when people are having conversations or are simply close to each other.

The report read:

Experts are now looking at this new infection mechanism as a key to preventing a further spread of the virus. It seems transmissions are happening during conversations and even when people are standing a certain distance apart. These cases can’t be explained by ordinary droplet infection.

As CCN.com previously reported, both surgical and N-95 masks cannot prevent viral coronavirus particles from entering one’s body. If the coronavirus particles are suspected to be micrometer particles, it becomes all the more difficult to stop infection.

Jeffrey Swisher, chairman of California Pacific Medical Center’s department of anesthesiology, said:

This mask issue is really a problem. Again, you do not protect yourself against COVID-19 by wearing a mask! The viral particles are too small and the filtration ability of surgical masks is insufficient. Even N-95 masks fail to protect you.

The identification of a new coronavirus transmission route could help slow the spread of COVID-19. But it also confirms our worst fears: Widespread self-quarantining may be the most effective strategy to fight the pandemic.

How Fast Can Micro Droplets Spread?

In an experiment, NHK found that when a person coughs once in an enclosed space the size of a classroom, about 100,000 droplets can be released within a few seconds.

Large droplets were seen falling to the floor within 20 to 30 seconds. Micro droplets, however, remained in the air for prolonged periods of time, leaving other people in the space vulnerable to possible infection.

With a single cough capable of spreading 100,000 droplets, micro droplets could also spread during simple conversations. This leaves people at risk of infection virtually all the time.

Coronavirus in Japan: Can the Economy Get Any Worse? It May Soon Find Out. [The New York Times, 30 Mar 2020]

By Ben Dooley and Makiko Inoue

As the coronavirus has prolonged a deep slump in Japan, one ray of hope has come from its avoidance of a crippling lockdown. But it’s unclear whether that can last.

TOKYO ? Even before the new coronavirus, Japan’s economy was in trouble. Exports were plummeting on slowing demand from China, and a tax increase at home was keeping shoppers out of stores. The numbers were stark: Economic output contracted 7.1 percent in the last quarter of 2019.

With the coronavirus pandemic, a country that had already looked set to open this year with one of the worst performances among the world’s major economies is bracing for a tremendous blow.

Trade has slowed to a crawl as other leading nations come to virtual standstills to curb the virus. Tourism has nearly evaporated, with bankruptcies starting to pop up among hotels, restaurants and tour operators. Large sports and cultural events have been canceled, and postponing the Tokyo Olympics to 2021 will require a dizzying amount of money and time, while delaying an expected economic boost.

The situation is so dire that even Japan’s unwaveringly optimistic officials now express worry about the country’s growth, saying the economy ? the world’s third largest after the United States and China ? is facing “severe circumstances” because of the pandemic.

Desperate to get through the storm, the government has passed several stimulus measures, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged over the weekend that Japan would soon approve the largest package in its history. He said it would exceed the 56.8 trillion yen, or $530 billion, that the country spent to mitigate the damage from the 2008 financial crisis. Mr. Abe’s announcement followed the passage of a $2 trillion intervention in the United States.

Japan’s one ray of light has been that it has not yet instituted the kinds of lockdowns that have halted economic life in parts of China, Europe and the United States. Salarymen are still commuting to the office, and teenagers are still buying streetwear in Harajuku, as the country has seemingly kept its coronavirus outbreak in check.

“If Japan can avoid being shut down, I think the economic damage will be much lighter. That will be the key difference,” said Takuji Okubo, North Asia director at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

But that, too, is now in doubt. In the days since the decision to delay the Olympics, Japan has been announcing significant upticks in coronavirus cases. In Tokyo, which on Sunday reported a single-day high of 68 new infections, the governor asked people to stay inside this past weekend. Many heeded the warning.

Mr. Abe said on Saturday that Japan was now at risk of an explosion of cases as it became increasingly difficult to trace infections and limit clusters. He said that although he did not yet need to declare a state of emergency, “we are barely holding on.”

Critics say that it is no coincidence that Japan did not start to voice alarm over the coronavirus until it had given up hope of holding the Olympics this year. Many fear that Japan has left the outbreak to fester, and say that policymakers may soon discover that winning a few extra weeks of economic activity through a limited virus containment policy may ultimately exact a high price.

“There’s a trade-off between stopping the spread of the infection and the economy,” said Tomoyuki Ota, head of economic research at the Mizuho Research Institute. “If you stop economic activity, you can stop the transmission. If you can do that quickly, I think you can return to normal. But if you do it bit by bit, it’s going to be difficult to bounce back.”

In the United States, unemployment figures have reached catastrophic levels, with almost 3.3 million claims filed in a single week. In Japan, by contrast, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported this month that companies had rescinded 21 job offers to recent graduates ? positions that typically confer lifetime employment. The news drew a storm of media attention and provoked widespread concern on social media. (That number was updated to 32 on Monday.)

Japan’s less restrictive approach to combating the coronavirus has so far mitigated damage to several sectors, J.P. Morgan said in an analyst’s note on Friday. Spending at supermarkets and drugstores surged in mid-March as people prepared to stay home, it noted, but added that the numbers showed “no widespread pullback” in consumption beyond the sectors that have already been affected.

The country has also breathed a collective sigh of relief over the decision to push back the Olympics, now set to open on July 23, 2021. While economically “there is going to be a very high price to pay” from the delay, said Mireya Solis, co-director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, “obviously if this was a cancellation, it would be much higher.”

Yosuke Moriwaki, a spokesman at Mitsui Real Estate, which had planned to spend the year after the Games redeveloping the Olympic Village into luxury condominiums, agreed that the postponement was bad, but better than the alternatives.

The decision has thrown the company’s plans into disarray, and it is uncertain how to proceed as it is forced to renegotiate deals with contractors and property owners. But if the Games had been canceled, the prestige and value that come from the Olympic brand “would have disappeared,” Mr. Moriwaki said.

Although companies like his may have avoided the worst outcome, the delay will undoubtedly cause large-scale economic disruption in Japan, which had planned on the economic lift from the Games to help overcome the downturn in the last three months of 2019, the sharpest in five years.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, many economists believed that the contraction would continue into the first half of this year, tipping the country into a technical recession ? commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinking production. But they had forecast that an influx of tourists this summer would propel the economy back into the moderate expansion it had experienced for the better part of the past decade.

Direct spending during the Olympic period in the Tokyo region alone was expected to reach several trillion yen, and the country could expect even more growth, according to official predictions, as it basked in the event’s afterglow.

Now, at a minimum, organizers will have to pay to continue maintaining the venues, keep staff members on for another year, and placate sponsors and broadcasters who have already spent billions of dollars on the event. And that’s even before taking into account potential refunds for tickets.

Businesses will also find themselves in a tough spot, particularly those in hospitality, where many small companies “made big investments, counting on the 2020 Games,” said Sayuri Shirai, a professor of economics at Keio University in Tokyo and a former board member of the Bank of Japan.

Now they may “find it hard to pay their debt,” she said, adding that if the virus outbreak “continues until the end of the year, many small companies will not survive.”

Japan’s tourism industry, which has grown increasingly important to its economy, has been hit the hardest by the pandemic. The government had estimated that the country could see 40 million visitors this year. But as countries close their borders and airlines cancel flights, that number seems impossibly far out of reach.

Last month, the number of visitors to Japan dropped almost 60 percent from a year earlier, to just under 1.1 million, according to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization. This month is likely to be even more dire.

Hiroaki Yamamoto, 56, who owns a bus company on the outskirts of Tokyo that operates tourist and commuter lines, said his business was suffering before the Olympics postponement.

Now, he said, he will also lose as much as 40 million yen, or $370,000, in revenue he had counted on from renting out his fleet during the Games.

Mr. Yamamoto thinks he’ll be lucky if he can hold out until the end of May.

“It’s like the company’s heart has stopped,” he said.

Motoko Rich contributed reporting.

Japan 'On The Brink' But Government Resists Declaring Coronavirus State Of Emergency [NPR, 30 Mar 2020]

By ANTHONY KUHN

Japan's government on Monday resisted calls to declare a national state of emergency, despite a recent spike in confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Tokyo and warnings of further exponential growth.

"It's not true that the government is planning on declaring a state of emergency from April 1," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters, refuting rumors.

With fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases and 54 deaths, Japan has so far managed to avoid the explosion of numbers that China and South Korea have seen. Some medical experts argue that Japan's strategy of limiting testing to the most urgent cases and focusing on isolating clusters has been effective. Others argue that the country's conservative use of testing has concealed the scale of the problem.

At a Monday evening news briefing, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike reissued a plea to the capital's residents to avoid outdoor activities and refrain from visiting bars, nightclubs and karaoke parlors, where experts say the virus is being spread.

Her earlier entreaty for a sort of "soft lockdown" ahead of the weekend seemed to have some effect. Tokyo metro usage was down by 70%-80% compared to the same weekend last year, according to the East Japan Railway Co.

"At this point, we don't need to declare a state of emergency," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Saturday. But, referring to the spike in cases, he also acknowledged that the country is at a critical moment, saying, "We are on the brink."

Some experts want Abe to change his mind about declaring a state of emergency. "I personally feel it's time [Japan] makes the declaration," Satoshi Kamayachi, an executive board member of the Japan Medical Association, said at a news conference on Monday. He said fellow members of a panel of experts advising the government on the outbreak agreed.

A national emergency would likely trigger a three-week lockdown, during which governors of hard-hit prefectures could instruct residents to stay at home, except for essential purposes.

There were fewer than 20 new cases a day in Tokyo until March 25, when they more than doubled. That was one day after Abe agreed to the postponement of the Summer Olympics.

Japan announced Monday that the games would take place next July.

Health Minister Katsunobu Kato dismissed the notion that Japan had concealed cases in order to avoid affecting the games, saying there was "absolutely no relationship."

The pandemic's immediacy was brought home for many Japanese when Ken Shimura, a household name, died on Sunday from COVID-19. Shimura's comedy and rockabilly group, the Drifters, opened for the Beatles in Japan in 1966.