China is disinfecting and isolating used banknotes as part of efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1,500 people, officials have said.
Banks use ultraviolet light or high temperatures to disinfect yuan bills, then seal and store the cash for seven to 14 days – depending on the severity of the outbreak in a particular region – before recirculating them, China’s central bank said at a press conference.
Every year there's an additional horror story in the news that underscores why cruise ship vacations are a risk not worth taking. The quarantine of the Diamond Princess is the latest in the nautical nightmare procession. If I want salt air and sunshine, I'll just hang out on a beach, thank you very much.
Isn't that the truth? I turned down a whale watching tour for 1/4 the price on a vastly smaller boat simply because I didn't want to stand shoulder to shoulder with people I didn't know or barely knew for an hour and a half. Dealing with those energies would have totally distracted me from the sea, land, and sky.
Stuck in a boat with thousands would be like going to Las Vegas for the crowds, noise, smoke, perspiration, and hormones. No thanks.
We canoe or kayak if we want on the water but I like being out of it walking in the windy salty air breathing in and breathing out the really good stuff not man-made. My apologies to the good shows and on board classes people.
Besides I grew up where seeing whales was a regular activity and watching their beauty without screaming, yelling, finger pointing and selfies that I see in tourists now?
Blessings to those who think they're relaxing and fun and best and highest wishes for those who are ill or fighting other law suit claims now.
I suspect cruise lines are going the route of D.T.s casinos.
While I know in my heart that Jeanne is right and from our current public health viewpoint we all need to take care of ourselves and consider that getting influenza a or b is a far more serious risk than the neuvo-coronavirus to most of us now, I am still feeling too much anxiety from others especially here to not keep up with all of the goings on statistically and to know that the covering up of this virus by China is a serious indicator of perhaps far more relevant goings on.
When Dr. Li Wenliang warned about the coronavirus outbreak, he was attacked as a rumormonger and of course ending up as a victim of this disease.
China’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak for political reasons and the fact that China is "a land of 21st-century science and 19th-century politics.Scholars in China predicted a year ago in an article in the journal Viruses that it was “highly likely” that there would be coronavirus outbreaks, calling it an “urgent issue.”
Once the outbreak occurred, other Chinese scientists rapidly identified the virus and sequenced its DNA, posting it on Jan. 10 on a virology website for all to see. That is pretty incredibly amazing when I think about how slowly so much works here in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party instinctively organized a cover-up, ordering the police to crack down on eight doctors accused of trying to alert others to the risks. National television programs repeatedly denounced the doctors as rumormongers."
This NYT article mentioning that when Dr. Li Wenliang caught the virus and died, some made the point that if Li had been in charge of China, rather than President Xi Jinping, many lives might have been saved.
Imagine that in the U.S. now. It most certainly could, would, and probably has already happened in many respects.
“The coronavirus epidemic has revealed the rotten core of Chinese governance,” a law professor in Beijing, Xu Zhangrun, wrote this month in an online essay that was immediately banned.
“The level of popular fury is volcanic, and a people thus enraged may, in the end, also cast aside their fear.”
It is remarkable that there is now a groundswell of anger online toward the dictatorship. Citizens can’t denounce Xi by name, but they are skilled in evading censors; such as by substituting President Trump’s name for Xi’s.
You have to admire that. Look how how often his own psychological abilities of projection have done the same.
With Chinas ever growing middle class and their own mentally unstable and narcissistic leader we can all see to potential for revolutionary uprising and hopefully change in Chinas long term future.
Xi’s government also mishandled a swine fever outbreak that began in 2018 and has now killed almost one-quarter of the world’s pigs and SARS epidemic in the 2000s. It also covered up an AIDS outbreak spread by government-backed blood collection efforts.
The opinion piece cited goes on to remind us of the vast numbers of impoverished farmers and workers died and that the government response was not to help those infected but to punish doctor whistle-blowers ..hmmm..remind you of anyone who has similar responses to or news?.
The amazing reminder in this piece for me was that "it’s a tribute to China’s progress that a baby born in Beijing today has a longer official life expectancy (82 years) than a baby born in Washington, D.C. (78), or New York City (81)."
Doctors battling this virus are working almost around the clock with limited supplies, taping up masks, using goggles made of plastic folders and eating only one meal a day or wearing diapers so as to go to the bathroom less often in order to jot have to waste time removing protective clothing that can’t be replaced.
That's beyond dedication to me. That's also medical desperation. The emotional furor, the fear, and even the levels of beginning panic is what I feel we need to be paying attention to as a predictor of the importance of these years ahead especially as we see the effect if global impact in so many, many ways.
So incredibly sad when lives are lost due to the narcissistic ego of a dictators need for control. My heart go out even more than it did before learning about and thinking about what this virus really is creating now. In all of those in China and emotionally in those who focus on it now and their own fears, angers, depression are rising and altering the energies of the collective once again.
So incredibly sad when lives are lost due to the narcissistic ego of a dictators need for control. My heart go out even more than it did before learning about and thinking about what this virus really is creating now. In all of those in China and emotionally in those of us who focus on it now and their own fears, angers, and depression as they are rising and altering the energies of the collective once again.
New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/opinion/sunday/china-coronavirus.html
I feel as though COVID will ultimately be the event (or rather chain of interlinked events) that will make the world stop to catch it’s breath. It has already highlighted so many flaws and weaknesses around the world - how critical basic hygiene practices are in disease control, cruise ships for their ability to transmit sickness among the passengers and crew, how deeply intertwined our manufacturing economies are, and how the actions of corrupt or inept leaders inevitably come down upon the masses.
But as troubling as the situation is, I’m not picking up on a sense of panic or fear (outside of conspiracy circles, but that’s just their base currency and language). If anything the message I’m hearing is, “be aware, but know that this storm will pass.”
@michele-b @saokymo, such great information and interesting thoughts.
As bad as this is in China, and it is horrible there, I believe it is a wake-up call for the world.
A virus that is deadlier and as easily transmitted as the one, will cause global devisation. "They" will be studying this outbreak for decades. Industries in health and safety, transportation, travel, food distribution, sanitation, economists and journalists will need to re-evaluate how their fields are organized and run. Government and how cities and countries are managed both proactively and during the crisis will come under scrutiny. All these areas will be studied in order to have a better understanding of who, what where when why and how this crisis was managed (mis-managed). There will be changes made and warnings ignored as well I assume. Ethics in a crisis like this will be analyzed too.
How much will people now be expected to take care of them selves is similar situations and how much will the government need to provide? Will handshaking become a thing of the past?
How does one shut down a large city yet provide the basics for life to continue?
One thing for sure, we can not be reliant on one country to supply goods for the world. For example masks or basic ingredients to make pharmaceuticals.
@coyote, this will make many rethink cruising and even flying and public transportation.
Last year I meditated a few times on China's future, and I kept seeing that by the latter half of the 2020s, there would be problems in the communist regime and a major discontinuity in the country's political structure.
In Chinese history there's a concept called the "rule of the mandate of heaven," which basically boils down to the power of the people to overthrow a dynasty when it is no longer serving them. The current political dispensation in China is just a Marxist facsimile of an imperial dynasty, so it's inevitable that it will be overthrown at some point. Many political and economic analysts like to go into histrionics about the "Chinese juggernaut," when really the dazzling economic might exuded by Beijing is a paper empire built on quicksand. Economic problems have been percolating in the People's Republic for quite some time, and I see COVID as setting off a chain of existential economic (and sociological) crises that will break the loyalty of average Chinese people to the powers that be.
Another 99 from the Diamond Princess tested positive for the virus bringing the total to 454. 14 evacuated US citizens had been diagnosed with the disease.
The UK is going to send a plane to evacuate their citizens now. The government has now made a Holiday Inn near Heathrow Airport a corona virus facility for those at risk of spreading the disease.
Global cases are now over 71,000.
The Tokyo Marathon will be closed to all but elite runners to reduce the risk of spreading the disease.
There are concerns about the practice of "self-isolating" at home. ( Seriously? This is a surprise?)
-The deaths of four members of the same family in Wuhan have raised concerns over the practice of self-isolating at home, Chinese media group Caixin reports.
Chang Kai, a director at Hubei Film Studios, died on 14 February aged 55 from pneumonia caused by the Covid-19 virus, according to an obituary published by his employer. His father, mother and older sister also died from the disease between 28 January and 14 February, according to the Caixin story.Chang Kai reportedly tried to take his ill father to a number of hospitals, but was turned away at each one due to a lack of beds. His father died at home a few days later.
My heart breaks for the students who are stuck in China right now. They (and all people dealing with this situation) truly need our prayers and a lot of light and love. Here is one story of what it is like for these trapped college students.
A Pakistani international student on a university campus in Wuhan, the city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak in China, has told of how he and other international students have been ordered not to leave their dormitories.
More than 100 foreign students at Wuhan’s Zhongnan University of Economics and Law had been allowed to visit grocery stores for one hour a week to purchase basic necessities.
They have now apparently been advised to remain in isolation to reduce the risk of possible disease spread, though it is unclear if anyone has contracted the deadly virus.
“There are lots of people in this situation,” he said. “I am not alone. For the past few days, we have been told to stay in our room and not go anywhere. Our exterior doors are locked and we cannot go outside.”
He and his fellow students spend most of their time in their rooms, only leaving to cook food in bulk to then refrigerate.
"All students are scared and waiting for this disaster to end or our countries to rescue us. We are trying to stay strong and encourage each other."
It should be noted, there are over 500 Pakistani students studying in China and there are not current plans to rescue them. I can't imagine being locked in your dorm. If there is a fire...
Current live updates regarding the virus can be found here:
Reading this makes me think of Nazi Germany. Well, there are other aspects of Chinal make me think the same thing. But this is creepy.
In China, the fight to contain the virus is continuing despite encouragement that the number of new cases has fallen below 2,000 for the first time since January.
The Global Times newspaper reports that a “dragnet style” operation is under way in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, to make sure all those infected are “rounded up”.
The operation was ordered by the city’s new party chief, Wang Zhonglin, on Sunday and aims to be completed in three days. Big data and AI would be used to assist the operation.
The three-day campaign aims to fulfill five objectives: have all suspected victims receive nucleic acid tests; round up all infected patients; check all patients with fever; put under quarantine anyone who has had close contact with patients; and ensure all communities and villages implement 24-hour closed-off management measures.
Dang it! I have been following them everyday. This is so sad for them and their biggest fear. They were terrified that they would have to go to the hospital in Japan for many reasons .
Thanks Laura for Reporting this. This is just so very sad.