Not getting better

While official Chinese media trumpet how well all is going and will go, COVID-19 reality is starkly different.
Restaurants mostly remain closed in my area, simply because: 1. government does not allow to open 2. government imposes exaggerated restrictions making operation as good as impossible.
Massages, gyms, KTV, SPA, cinemas, bars, all types of events are PROHIBITED. Cool. Can you imagine how many people have zero income and the chain reaction in the economy? My repair man of electronics cannot start working. And so on. The whole economy is paralyzed.

Worse is often the total hysteria and paranoia of ordinary Chinese. Depressing.

Oh yes, have you seen any ongoing construction? Since how long did it stop? What about all the workers? Even subway construction looks DEAD.

Return to normal? Not anytime soon with the paranoia and often meaningless restrictions. Don’t misunderstand me, we must remain cautious.
I am obviously NOT an optimist. If you are, let’s talk again in 3 months.

In the rest of the world, needless to say, the pandemic has only started. It will get much worse before it gets better. The coronavirus that has kept hundreds of millions of students out of classrooms and day cares around the world. And much more going down the drain. As commented in NYT: “It’s just one of a host of life-altering measures taken to preserve public health, and it has ripple effects: rising child care costs for parents, suppliers losing out on cafeteria food orders, babysitters and nannies in flux, and loneliness and tech glitches for kids in online classes, to name a few.”
Olympics this year? Good luck.

And as I already reported much earlier this would happen:
Coronavirus: China’s factory closures could cause global medicine shortages. US and Europe monitoring short-term delay to supplies, with antibiotics, diabetes medications, HIV drugs and ibuprofen among those heavily reliant on China. (SCMP)

China strongly opposed early coronavirus travel restrictions, such as by the U.S. and was supported by the WHO about it. Now it has its own as I reported earlier. Of course they swallow their earlier criticism of the ban…
Many countries now also close their borders to visitors from “infected countries”. Like Israel, no more visitors from Italy, France, Germany and other countries.
Slowly international travel is becoming paralyzed and this will have huge consequences for the economy.

All the stuff with QR color codes, health apps

As I reported earlier, both Alipay and Wechat claim to have applications where you can register so people can check your health situation before allowing you to enter somewhere.
I tested and yes, foreigners cannot use it. Only with Chinese ID.

In our compound, see the announcement with QR code (and WeChat translation). My wife registered, that at least worked, they called her to check her travel history and the only thing she needs to do is to daily report her temperature. That is OK.

Panic buying in Hongkong and Western countries: I haven’t seen this in Beijing…

As a James Bond fan…

Well this is BAD news: “Release date for new 007 film postponed amid coronavirus concerns.
The global release of No Time to Die has been pushed from April 3 to November 2020 after fans wrote an open letter urging the James Bond studios to delay the film’s release date due to public health concerns.

I am currently watching my big collection of 007 movies, all on VCD…
(FYI: VCD is a home video format and the first format for distributing films. The format was widely adopted in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, superseding the VHS and Betamax systems in the regions until DVD-Video finally became affordable in the late 2000s.)

David Mahon writes in his China Watch (Mid Spring 2020):

Some good points! See extract:

Over-reacting and masking the truth
…. Propaganda is not the sole domain of former communist countries. ….  Trump blithely announced that the virus was under control in the US, and his media supporters like Rush Limbaugh suggested that statements to the contrary by scientists were attempts to undermine his presidency.
Capital markets have been reacting to the dishonesty coming out of the White House regarding their preparedness to handle the virus. One of the first acts of Vice President Pence, the czar appointed to lead management of responses to the virus, was to issue a dictate that his team would control the messages of government officials. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was told not to say anything without White House clearance. In 2016, Trump dismantled agencies established to deal with epidemics and pandemics after SARS and H1N1. The United States is likely not ready for the social and economic impact of COVID-19.
…
A challenge to China is to avoid overzealousness in the enforcement of quarantine regulations and temperature checks. Social media has reported some abuses of citizens in Hubei, still the virus’s epicentre.
His website: www.mahonchina.com

China’s economy

See what China Economic Review reports
(edited)

China’s services sector contracted at the steepest pace in more than 14 years in February, as the gauges for total new businesses and employment plummeted to record lows amid the coronavirus outbreak, reported Caixin.
The Caixin China General Services Business Activity Index, which gives an independent snapshot of operating conditions in the services sector, fell to 26.5 in February from 51.8 in the previous month. The February reading was the lowest since the survey began in November 2005. A number above 50 indicates an expansion in activity, while a figure below that points to a contraction.
The reading follows a sharp decline in the Caixin China General Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which fell to a record low of 40.3 in February. The Caixin China Composite Output Index, which covers both manufacturing and service companies, tumbled to an all-time low of 27.5 in February from 51.9 the previous month.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slashed its 2020 growth outlook for China to below 5.6% because of the “sheer geographic spread” of the coronavirus epidemic globally, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said.

Passenger car retail sales in China, the world’s biggest auto market, fell 80% in February because of the coronavirus epidemic, one of the country’s industry associations said on Wednesday, reported Reuters.
(my take: with people losing so much income, do not expect sales to climb back in great numbers…)

And this:
China has less than a month to prevent businesses leaving the country in their droves because of the coronavirus epidemic, according to the latest estimate by government scientists.
Labour-intensive textile production, hi-tech electronics and pollution-heavy industries like metal smelting could be the first to leave if the government failed to contain the spread of the deadly virus by the end of the month, the experts said in a report published on Monday in the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3065039/coronavirus-clock-ticking-china-stop-foreign-firms-fleeing

Beware of Wechat

Wechat might be a great app but it is 100% controlled by the security people, often leading to annoying problems (without reason), as I experienced myself (I was kicked out of my account for no valid reason!). If you use Wechat you must accept Chinese security knows everything about you. You become an open book. The CIA must be jealous.

See this comment:
“China’s most popular messaging app censored a range of neutral chat group references to the coronavirus epidemic, potentially threatening public access to essential health and safety information, according to a digital media research group.
As well as politically sensitive terms, the researchers found that WeChat censored keyword combinations ranging from discussions of Chinese leaders’ responses to the outbreak, neutral references to government policies on handling the epidemic, responses to the outbreak in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, and references to Li Wenliang, a doctor who died after raising concerns about the outbreak.
The analysis was conducted by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and based on tests of keywords extracted from reports on major news websites in mainland China and Hong Kong.”
Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3064832/how-wechat-censored-even-neutral-messages-about-coronavirus

Is Belgium prepared?

Somber article in LaLibre.be:
“Coronavirus in Belgium, the worst scenario: up to 850,000 people infected and 50,000 deaths. Really?”
Published 2 March in French
https://www.lalibre.be/debats/opinions/coronavirus-sans-mesures-de-precaution-drastiques-on-risque-d-avoir-850-000-personnes-infectees-et-50-000-morts-en-belgique-5e5cf60f9978e23106a0bfd9

Interesting, if not a bit too pessimistic view.
It also gives – a question I had earlier – data on Belgian hospitals: Over 30,000 adult beds of which 1,400 beds for intensive care (with the necessary equipment). That would be grossly insufficient according to the article.