Category Archives: Science

If China valued free speech, there would be no coronavirus crisis

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Country could have contained spread of disease if only it had learned lessons from Sars outbreak

The death of the whistleblower Chinese doctor Li Wenliang has aroused strong emotions across China. Social media is awash with posts mourning the death of a martyr who tried to raise alarm over the coronavirus but was taken into a police station instead for “spreading false rumours” and “disrupting social order”.

Grief quickly turned into angry demands for free speech. The trending topic “we want freedom of speech”, which attracted millions of views, and links to Do You Hear the People Sing, a song popularised in recent Hong Kong protests, were quickly censored by police.

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Coronavirus economic impact: Australia could be among world’s hardest hit nations

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Australia’s economy is unusually dependent on China, and a coronavirus-driven slowdown could mean billions in lost revenue

Australia could be one of the countries worst affected by the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak as factories in China remain shuttered and millions of people are confined to their homes and banned from travelling.

The Reserve Bank of Australia on Friday stuck to its forecast of strong growth this year thanks to a rising housing market, and the stock market – along with others around the world – has largely shrugged off concerns about the global impact of the virus to remain close to all-time highs.

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China trials anti-HIV drug on coronavirus patients

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News of Kaletra being tested as a possible treatment for the disease sparks panic buying

Coronavirus – latest news

A drug used to treat people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is being trialled in patients in China as a possible therapy against the coronavirus.

News that HIV drugs are being deployed in hospitals, however, has led to panic buying on the black market by people who fear they are ill or are going to get sick. They have been obtaining the drug, Kaletra, from generics companies in India and even from people with HIV in China willing to sell or donate their own stocks.

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Concerns coronavirus is going undetected in Indonesia

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World’s fourth most populous country says it has no confirmed cases despite close links to China

There is growing concern that the new coronavirus may be going undetected in Indonesia, where officials have not confirmed a single case of infection among the 272 million-strong population despite the country’s close links to China.

As of Thursday, Indonesia said it had no confirmed cases of the coronavirus and that 238 people evacuated from Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak, had not shown symptoms, although it said they hadn’t been tested.

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Coronavirus live updates: cruise ship cases rise to 61 as China mourns whistleblower doctor – latest news

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Li Wenliang’s death in Wuhan comes as Hong Kong prepares to impose quarantine on mainland travellers. Follow live updates

Toyota has extended the closure of its 12 factories in China by a week.

Officials at the Beijing press conference said they had confidence in the economic system and that the impact on the economy from the outbreak would be “temporary. It will be limited and will not affect the fundamentals, and the economy is sound and stable”.

They added:

The outbreak has taken place during the spring festival and the impact on services is notable. The holiday has been extended and the construction sector and other sectors will be affected. There will be an impact on economic performance in Q1 but the economy will return to productivity when the epidemic is over. Look at 2003 Sars outbreak. There was disrupted growth in Q2 but in Q3 it rebounded. When the epidemic is controlled, the economy will rebound and pent-up investment and consumption released. The Chinese econony will have a quick recovery. it is promising and resilient. The funadmentals will not change. There is ample room for macro regulation – China is one of the few major economies that have normal monetary policy so we have sufficient tools to repsond.

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Bumblebees’ decline points to mass extinction – study

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Populations disappearing in areas where temperatures are getting hotter, scientists say

Bumblebees are in drastic decline across Europe and North America owing to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, scientists say.

A study suggests the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in any given place has declined by 30% in the course of a single human generation. The researchers say the rates of decline appear to be “consistent with a mass extinction”.

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Christina Koch returns to Earth after record-breaking space mission

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Koch lands in Kazakhstan after 328 days in space, the longest continuous spaceflight by a female astronaut

She would miss the friendship of her crewmates, she said, and of course the spectacular views.

But after 328 days on the International Space Station – the longest continuous spaceflight ever undertaken by a female astronaut – Christina Koch could not deny last week that she was looking forward to experiencing some very simple pleasures back on Earth, including “the feeling of wind on my face”.

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‘Hidden’ coronavirus cases could thwart containment efforts, experts warn

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Failure to report mild symptoms combined with highly contagious nature of disease raises fears existing figures are ‘tip of the iceberg’

Global health experts have warned that “hidden” infections make containment of the coronavirus unlikely and raised fears that the rapidly rising caseload of 25,000 people could be the “tip of the iceberg”.

“Hidden” cases – where people with mild symptoms do not seek medical help and so remain untested and unrecorded – combined with the highly contagious nature of the disease mean there could be “vastly more cases” than previously thought, according to Tom Frieden, a former director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Diary of a coronavirus evacuee: ‘Everyone’s trying to avoid contact with each other’ | Daniel Ou Yang

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Australian Daniel Ou Yang, 21, was on the Air New Zealand flight out of virus-struck Wuhan to Auckland. Here he writes about the stress of his evacuation

At 2.52pm, we arrived at Wuhan Tianjin airport.

The drive here was smooth, all the big wide roads with no cars on them. We made it through the checkpoints and arrived within an hour.

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The coronavirus lays bare the limits of WHO’s health diplomacy with China

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The global body is accused of failing to act fast to halt epidemic but the true cost of doing politics with Beijing is still unknown

On social media this week the insults were flying thick and fast, some tinged with racism, but all with a common theme: how the World Health Organization, and its head, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was effectively doing the bidding of the Chinese government in the midst of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

It is a charge that has also been expressed in less offensive terms elsewhere in columns and articles, some of which have focused on whether, in praising China’s response to the deadly Wuhan coronavirus outbreak during a visit to Beijing, Tedros allowed himself to become complicit in China’s flawed handling of the outbreak in its early days?

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Is UK overreacting to coronavirus crisis by telling citizens to leave China?

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Decision leaves tens of thousands weighing up huge choice without knowing why they should leave

The British government’s surprise announcement telling Britons to leave China “if they can” comes amid mounting international concern about the spread of coronavirus.

But the advice came with no detailed guidance about why the UK’s position had changed – making it unclear whether this was a political stance, or a position based on new medical guidance that British authorities have not shared publicly.

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China’s reaction to the coronavirus violates human rights | Frances Eve

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The WHO has praised country’s response, but heavy-handed approach could make things worse

When the World Health Organization declared the 2019nCoV coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency, it effusively praised China’s response to the outbreak. The WHO issued a statement welcoming the government’s “commitment to transparency”, and the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tweeted: “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”

The WHO is ignoring Chinese government suppression of human rights regarding the outbreak, including severe restrictions on freedom of expression. In turn, Chinese state media are citing the WHO to defend its policies and try to silence criticism of its response to the outbreak, which has included rights violations that could make the situation worse.

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Coronavirus: officials seek people with contact to UK cases as some airlines stop China flights – live news

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Death toll rises, with almost 12,000 confirmed cases of infection in China. Follow the latest developments

Public Health England said the University of York student did not come in contact with anyone on campus whilst having the coronavirus symptoms, Sky News is reporting.

Vietnam has declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus epidemic and said it would stop all flights to and from China.

The government said it would also stop issuing visas for foreign visitors who had been in China in the past two weeks.

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Help or hindrance? How Chinese politics affected coronavirus response

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Authoritarian bureaucracy has allowed dramatic response but also let virus fester

When Wuhan’s mayor took to live national television to discuss the rapidly escalating outbreak of coronavirus in his city, he came primed for a rare – and very prolonged – display of self criticism.

Over nearly an hour Zhou Xianwang said his work “wasn’t performed well enough”, that the city government had failed to provide timely information or act on what it knew, and offered his own resignation, although it is yet to be accepted.

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Coronavirus outbreak: Britons fly out of Wuhan as death toll passes 200

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Flight carrying 83 British people and 27 foreign nationals will land in the UK on Friday as US tells citizens ‘don’t go to China’

A plane carrying more than 100 British and other EU nationals trapped in Wuhan, the city at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, has left for the UK after Chinese spouses and partners were given permission to travel.

The chartered flight left Wuhan at 9:45am local time on Friday, the Foreign Office said in a statement. The plane was carrying 83 British people and 27 foreign nationals, and was scheduled to land at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire at 1 pm UK time.

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Poorer countries suffer most from global health crises, we need help to handle coronavirus | Dr Claude Posala

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Pacific nations, still reeling from a devastating measles outbreak, have watched news out of Wuhan in panic

As Pacific Islanders watched updates about the coronavirus outbreak over the past few weeks, unease soon gave way to panic.

Still reeling in shock from a measles outbreak in Samoa, Pacific Islanders’ fears were stoked as it became apparent that even large, well-developed countries were struggling to contain the outbreak. Low-resourced settings always suffer the greatest losses in global medical crises and people living in these island nations are not blind to that detail.

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Coronavirus: China death toll reaches 213 after WHO declares global emergency – live news

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More than 9,320 people infected globally, as WHO director says decision comes amid concern for countries with weaker health systems

Press Association is reporting that Virgin Atlantic has suspended its flights between Britain and China due to fears about the spread of the coronavirus.

The airline said in a statement it would suspend its daily operations between the UK and Shanghai for two weeks from Saturday, PA said.

We are now hearing from the premier of the state of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, who is calling for national co-ordination of the response to the virus. Australia is a federal system made up of states and territories and so far each state seems to have had a slightly different response to the virus.

“There is no reason why the Federal government can’t be on a phone hook-up today or over this weekend, talking to all of the (state) Premiers giving them the most up to date information. This is a serious national issue,” Palaszczuk said.

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Wuhan coronavirus grown by scientists in Melbourne – video

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Scientists at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne have grown the novel coronavirus from a patient sample, which they plan to share internationally under advice from the World Health Organization to provide data to fight the virus.

The virus has also been grown in cell culture in China, but the breakthrough in Melbourne will allow accurate investigation and diagnosis of the virus globally. The project comes from a collaboration between the Royal Melbourne hospital and the University of Melbourne

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Africa’s colonisation of the English language continues apace | Afua Hirsch

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The British empire forced its colonies to abandon their own languages. Now they are making English their own

There is one expression I have grown up hearing from relatives of a certain age, but never been able to accept. It’s the description of Twi – the Akan language spoken by my family – as “the vernacular”, a term which implicitly compares it with the colonial language, English, and somehow finds it wanting. The word itself is a revealing symptom of the colonial project. Just as nations like the Yoruba, with a population of more than 40 million, were patronisingly described as “tribes”, when in fact they were substantial nations, African languages were downgraded to “the vernacular”. It’s a term more befitting of a regional dialect than a nation’s language, with its own history, politics and literature.

The attempt to discourage Africans from speaking our own languages not only failed, but has had the glorious result of backfiring, to the extent that now Britain’s own inhabitants are officially adopting African vocab. This month the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added Nigeria’s first entries to already recognised gems like “howzit” from South Africa. Other Africans will recognise lots of the latest lingo to get the OED stamp – “chop”, to eat or to misappropriate funds; “next tomorrow”, the day after tomorrow; “sef”, a great Pidgin flourish for emphasis.

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Telescope captures most detailed pictures yet of the sun

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First observations from Inouye telescope bring previously hazy star into sharp focus

The sun’s turbulent surface has been revealed in unprecedented detail in the first observations by the Inouye solar telescope in Hawaii.

The striking images reveal a surprising level of structure hidden within the churning plasma exterior, bringing a previously hazy impression of the sun’s patchwork surface sharply into focus for the first time.

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