Alice Yan

China has halted imports from European salmon suppliers after state-run newspapers reported that chopping boards used for the fish contained traces of coronavirus, although experts say the fish itself is unlikely to carry the disease. Beijing is currently trying to contain an outbreak centered on the Xinfadi market that has so far infected 137 people. The reports prompted major supermarkets in Beijing to remove salmon from their shelves. “We have stopped all sales to China and are waiting for the situation to be clarified,” said Stein Martinsen, head of sales and marketing at Norway Royal Salmon. Mike Ryan, the head of the World Health Organization’s emergency program, said the claim that t

Beijing has imposed “wartime management” on one of its districts and locked down more than 20 housing estates after a new coronavirus outbreak at the city’s biggest vegetable market. There were 36 new reported cases on Sunday, taking the number in the capital’s fresh outbreak to 79 – all of them linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market, a huge food distribution center in southern Beijing that supplies food to northern provinces. Some of the cases were found in a second market, Yuquandong, but had links to Xinfadi. In Fengtai district, where Xinfadi market is located, 11 residential compounds had been locked down and were under guard, and a command center had been set up to oversee “wartime” re

Beijing has kicked off a campaign to help graduates enter the labor market as the country faces growing pressure to reboot a sagging economy. Much like the rest of the world, China’s economy ground to a halt as the country instituted strict movement restrictions to battle the coronavirus, which first emerged in the central city of Wuhan.  The country’s economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter this year – an unprecedented GDP contraction. Ten initiatives were announced on Wednesday that aim to help people find jobs for this year’s 8.74 million new graduates. The “100-day” campaign includes more graduate degree programs for universities, hiring an extra 400,000 graduates as teachers, expandin

The Chinese city of Wuhan said 50% more people died from the coronavirus than it previously reported.  The government of the central city, where the new coronavirus was first reported, on Friday added 1,290 more deaths to its tally, bringing the official death toll from 2,579 to 3,869. The change is consistent with the suspicion held by many doctors and residents in Wuhan that a significant number of Covid-19 deaths was not counted. Some people who likely contracted the coronavirus reportedly died before they could be diagnosed or treated because an explosion of patients paralyzed the city’s medical system. The government said the increase in the death toll was mainly because many people di

Last Tuesday was the most anticipated opening day of a new term for Yin Shirui, a high school student in Ganzhou, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi. It came about two months later than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic. For final-year high school students in nine Chinese provinces, last week marked their return to campus after an extended winter holiday and weeks of online learning at home. “I don’t like learning on the internet at all. I stayed at home alone for most of the day, from morning until late in the afternoon,” Yin, 17, said. “I am not interested in what is taught in online class because the teachers there do not target me, or my class. They target the whole grad

Populations might have to endure lockdowns or stay-at-home orders of more than six weeks before the coronavirus pandemic can be brought under control in their area, researchers in the United States have said. According to the study published this week on SSRN, an open-source journal for early-stage research, countries adopting aggressive interventions might see a moderation of an outbreak after almost three weeks, control of the spread after one month, and containment after 45 days. The researchers defined aggressive intervention as lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, mass testing and quarantine. With less aggressive intervention, the process could take much longer. “In the absence of a vaccine,

Thai Airways staff restrained a Chinese woman on Friday after she coughed at a flight attendant.  The carrier said the woman coughed deliberately at the attendant because she was angered about having to wait seven hours on the plane at Shanghai Pudong International Airport for medical screening. Thai Airways said that every passenger arriving in Shanghai or flying through the airport from countries with a high number of coronaviruses patients, including Italy, Iran and South Korea, must be examined by medical staff on the aircraft. Planes that were not checked were not permitted to open their doors to let passengers off. The chaos on the plane reflects how the spread of the coronavirus has d

Chinese state media reports heaping praise on women nurses for their sacrifices in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic are backfiring online, with social media users and academics dismissing them as propaganda and “humiliating.” State broadcaster CCTV led the charge last week, describing a nurse who was in her last month of pregnancy as “a great mother and angel in a white gown” because she had continued to work in the emergency ward of a hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak in central China. Zhao Yu was due to give birth in 20 days when the report aired, and apparently insisted she should remain on duty at a hospital overwhelmed with virus patients. Although her colleague

A recently identified coronavirus has killed at least six people, Chinese authorities said Tuesday. Previously, on Monday, China’s health authorities said that 15 medical staff members in the central Chinese city had contracted the virus, confirming that it is spreading by human transmission and raising concerns that people at the most virulent stage of infection – so-called super-spreaders – could infect many others. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it would call an emergency meeting on Wednesday to decide whether the outbreak should be declared an international public health emergency. The new strain of coronavirus was identified this month after a mystery pneumonia started strikin

Scientists are stepping up efforts to protect the stocks of wild yellow croaker fish – the most popular sea fish on Chinese dinner tables – by preparing fry for release into the wild, state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday. News of the conservation plan came about two weeks after the Chinese paddlefish, a species indigenous to the Yangtze River and one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, was declared extinct, prompting a public backlash against dam-building, overfishing, heavy water traffic, pollution and other human activities on Asia’s longest river. A 10-year commercial fishing ban has been announced to protect the aquatic life in the Yangtze.  The yellow croaker is often found o