up and down

Yes you are right. Then right now we have 3 specators with Coronavirus in the stadium. What a big mess this is. News already spread out. So all the players and coaches who have lost in the ealier rounds immediately flew back to their country upon their match is over.

Yes I heard about this and got a shock of my life. Coronavirus among the spectators. All the spectators sat so near to each other and virus could already spread from there. Not to mention we have spectators from various different countries aroudn the world watching there. Worse still we also have coaches and players from various different countries playing in All England too. It would have been a big mess if Coronavirus spread out in this All England tournament. Wonder why this is even allowed at the very first place. This tournament should have been called off or cancelled.

Is it true that there are 3 spectators with Coronavirus watching the All England Open which is held this week? If this is true then the players and coaches and the rest of the specators in the whole stadium would have been in a big trouble as Coronavirus can spread very fast. I don't know how true this is but I have heard people talking about it.

Thank you very much for your explanation.

I am also beginning to like Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov even more. Both of them won their first ever MD title in All England 2016. Now both of them managed to play so well and reach the semifinals. Will both of them be able to win their second All England MD title? Chances are they but it will be tough. Anyway coming from a country whereby badminton is not the main sport, both of done well and made all the Russians proud by defying all the odds to reach the semifinals. Hope both of them can continue to surprise us by winning the MD title in this All England 2020.

https://bwfworldtour.bwfbadminton.com/news-single/2020/03/13/all-england-russians-find-form-at-favourite-venue/ ALL ENGLAND: RUSSIANS FIND FORM AT FAVOURITE VENUE Having reached the quarterfinals of the lone major tournament that they’ve won previously, Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov couldn’t avoid the inevitable question. What was the feeling like to find form once again at the scene of their most famous triumph? The Russians had pulled off a terrific win over familiar rivals Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda in today’s second round match at the YONEX All England 2020. Their entry into the quarterfinals marked a welcome break from their sequence of modest results over the last two years. “We didn’t have a good couple of years,” acknowledged Sozonov. “Of course once you play the top level and make the top 10, it’s very difficult mentally to stay there. But now we’ve reached the quarterfinals of the best tournament in the world, and that will give us confidence. And maybe we will find our best game. The winning moment – Ivanov and Sozonov celebrate. Ivanov/Sozonov and Kamura/Sonoda have been involved in some close contests over the last six years; the Russians had won the first three and the Japanese the last two. It was another crackling match today, with high-intensity attack and defence from both sides, before the Russians shot past at the very end, 21-14 15-21 21-19. It will be their first top-tier quarterfinal after the French Open in 2018. “Today it was a tough match, we’ve played them six times. Every match has been tough against them. Today we had great defence in the first and third games, and sometimes it was just luck.” The All England triumph of 2016 is the sparkling gem in their resume, but the Russians weren’t in the mood to dwell on the past. Having achieved their biggest result in a while, they are determined to make it count. “We’re not thinking about the past. We want to just think about the next match, our minds will be focussed on tomorrow. We’re just so happy to be in the quarterfinals. “The All England has great atmosphere, it’s a great arena. We love playing here, because we feel the people here like badminton, and we feel the energy and they give us the confidence. It’s a great feeling.”

I am beginning to like Marcus Ellis / Lauren Smith even more. Coming from a country whereby foot ball is the top priority and no funding not at all for badminton, this England XD pair have certainly proved it that hard work certainly pays off when both of them entered their first ever semifinals in a high tier All England tournament. Now both of them stand a high chance to become the first ever British XD pair to win the All England XD titles. Congratulations.

https://bwfworldtour.bwfbadminton.com/news-single/2020/03/13/all-england-memorable-win-for-ellis-smith/ ALL ENGLAND: MEMORABLE WIN FOR ELLIS & SMITH Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith’s dream run at the YONEX All England 2020 continued as they completed a sensational quarterfinal win against Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet from three match points down. Lauren Smith was as effective in attack as in defence. Their first top-tier semifinal will therefore be at event they grew up watching. Through the first two games the match was an absorbing affair. The Hong Kong pair went ahead 26-24 in the first game; the second too was neck-and-neck until Tang and Tse pulled away at the end, holding three match points. Lauren Smith Steps Up Smith’s superb defense and opportunism turned the tables on the Hongkongers at this stage, and once the England duo had the game in the bag, the match swung their way, 24-26 22-20 21-11. “Incredible. Speechless, almost,” said Smith. “This is almost part of the dream when you play badminton in this country and when you’re younger you spot all your idols here, and to be part of it and to play here at the weekend – this is my first (top-tier) semifinals as well, so a great place to be that. So really happy and elated.” “No matter what the situation, we always fight for every single point. And we could see in the second game, towards the end they were getting tired, so we desperately wanted to be in the third, because we knew we had the fitness and stamina to take the win, so we really dug in our heels at the end, we fought every single shot and we almost relaxed a little bit because it felt calm.” Ellis however was denied a semifinals place in men’s doubles, as he and Chris Langridge went down in a well-contested match to Russians Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov, 21-18 11-21 21-8. Match of the Day While there were several close encounters, one of those that stood out was Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti’s hard-fought 15-21 21-19 21-19 result over second seeds Wang Yi Lyu/Huang Dong Ping. The Indonesians were down a game and 10-18 in the second. With their backs to the wall, Jordan and Oktavianti threw everything they had. Jordan’s ferocious assault from the back and Oktavianti’s follow-up kills gave the Chinese little to work with, as the Indonesians pocketed 11 of the last 12 points to take the match to a decider. There was no let-up in the third game either, and Jordan and Oktavianti kept their momentum to finish victors in 72 minutes. Melati Daeva Oktavianti. Talking Point “I was so focussed on what I had to do. You can see that from the score in the second game. I enjoyed it a lot. As you can see, I was smiling even when I lost a point. I did amazing today, I just enjoyed it. This feeling is really important and I have to keep going on,” – Carolina Marin, after beating Akane Yamaguchi 21-15 21-12. Other Results Nozomi Okuhara avenged the devastating 21-7 21-7 defeat that she’d suffered in the final of the World Championships to Pusarla V Sindhu, beating the Indian 12-21 21-15 21-13 in today’s semifinal. Chinese Taipei’s Wang Chi-Lin/Lee Yang made their first Super 1000 semifinals, getting the better of Liu Cheng/Huang Kai Xiang, 18-21 21-18 21-14. The men’s singles semifinals will see top seed Chou Tien Chen against Anders Antonsen, and second seed Viktor Axelsen against Lee Zii Jia. Antonsen beat compatriot Rasmus Gemke 21-10 21-13, while Axelsen was just as comfortable against Shi Yu Qi, 21-15 21-7. ALL ENGLAND: CLASSY LEE ZII JIA THWARTS CHEN LONG A finely balanced performance by Lee Zii Jia saw him through to the semifinals of the YONEX All England 2020 – the farthest he has gone in a major event so far. In Lee’s 21-12 21-18 takedown of former champion Chen Long in the quarterfinals today, two elements shone through – new-found patience and consistency. The score wasn’t reflective of how tight the match actually was, particularly in the second game with Chen always hovering close behind Lee. All through, the Malaysian had bided his time on every rally, pushing the pace only when he sensed his opportunity. When his rasping smashes were returned, he was unruffled – the waiting game commenced again, until the next injection of pace. Lee won most of the exchanges at the net. In many ways, Lee had dished out to Chen Long what the Olympic champion usually does to others – he showed the heart for a fight, was nimble in defence, and picked the moments when he had to rev up the pace. At the net, he barely made an error today. Despite the magnitude of his achievement, Lee was understated in his analysis of the match. “It is my first All England and I’m very happy to make the semifinals,” said the Malaysian. “He is a former world champion and reigning Olympic champion. This is our fourth meeting and he won the last match, so this was a revenge victory for me. I’m quite happy and looking forward to the semifinals.” Today’s result was the quickest of the four matches they’ve played. All three of their previous matches had gone the distance. Lee won their first encounter, at the Indonesia Open last year, but Chen won both their subsequent clashes. Lee acknowledged that it was his consistency and patience that had helped him stay the course against the third seed. “I think for this event, from the first round I played very patiently. I made fewer mistakes. This is good improvement for me. Last time, my weakness was in making many unforced errors. I think I improved on that, so I’m happy. “The atmosphere is very good, the audience is very friendly and they have supported me. There were some Malaysian fans also. Hopefully I will make them proud.”

https://bwfbadminton.com/news-single/2020/03/14/bwf-suspends-international-badminton/ The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has taken the necessary step to suspend all HSBC BWF World Tour and other BWF-sanctioned tournaments from Monday 16 March until Sunday April 12. The escalation of the COVID-19 outbreak globally has led the BWF, in close consultation and consensus with its Host Member Associations and Continental Confederations, to cancel or postpone all tournaments in this period due to heightened travel and quarantine restrictions in place and the subsequent extreme logistical complications this causes to the movement of badminton athletes. BWF equally has strong considerations for the health, safety and wellbeing of all athletes, their entourage, officials and the greater badminton community in general. Tournaments affected include the YONEX Swiss Open 2020, YONEX-SUNRISE India Open 2020, Orléans Masters 2020, CELCOM Axiata Malaysia Open 2020, and Singapore Open 2020, as well as a number of international Grade 3 tournaments (see full list below). The suspension of the circuit will come into effect following the completion of the YONEX All England Open 2020 in Birmingham, England, on Sunday 15 March. Both BWF and Badminton England have been in constant communication with government officials and relevant authorities in the United Kingdom in relation to any possible disruption to the YONEX All England Open and both parties are satisfied with the British government’s most recent advisory issued Friday morning UK time to continue with the staging of the tournament. Unless government advice changes, Badminton England remains confident that the robust and comprehensive measures in place before and during the event will minimise the potential risk of the virus. BWF duly accepts this position and that all relevant health, safety and logistical risks have been considered by BWF, Badminton England, tournament organisers, and the local government in reaching this decision. A number of the tournaments impacted as a result of the suspension fall within the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games qualifying period. BWF will make a further announcement on regulations related to Olympic qualification points at a later date.

You are right.

Hope for Cyprus to remain as Corona-free forever.

As of today Italy has recorded 197 deaths among their own local people and Iran has recorded 145 deaths among their own local people. These looks bad as it seems like this 2 countries are really sufferring from Coronavirus and there are not enough man power to treat the patients. Very sad case indeed.

The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 98 countries and territories around the world and 1 international conveyance (the Diamond Princess cruise ship harbored in Yokohama, Japan). The day is reset after midnight GMT+0. The "New" columns for China display the previous day changes (as China reports after the day is over). For all other countries, the "New" columns display the changes for the current day while still in progress. Country, Other Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths New Deaths Active Cases Total Recovered Serious, Critical China 80,651 +99 3,070 +28 22,070 55,511 5,489 S. Korea 7,041 +448 48 +5 6,875 118 36 Iran 5,823 +1,076 145 +21 4,009 1,669 Italy 4,636 197 3,916 523 462 Germany 717 +47 699 18 9 Diamond Princess 696 6 478 212 34 France 653 9 632 12 23 Spain 441 +40 8 427 6 9 Japan 435 +15 6 380 49 34 USA 335 +16 17 +2 303 15 8 Switzerland 216 +2 1 212 3 Belgium 169 +60 168 1 1 UK 164 2 144 18 Sweden 137 136 1 Norway 136 +9 135 1 Singapore 130 48 82 9 Netherlands 128 1 127 1 Hong Kong 108 2 55 51 6 Malaysia 93 +10 70 23 Austria 74 +8 72 2 1 Australia 64 +1 2 40 22 1 Kuwait 61 +3 60 1 Bahrain 60 56 4 Canada 54 46 8 1 Thailand 50 +2 1 18 31 1 Iraq 46 4 41 1 Greece 46 +1 46 1 Taiwan 45 1 29 15 Iceland 45 44 1 UAE 45 38 7 2 India 33 +2 30 3 San Marino 23 1 22 4 Denmark 23 22 1 Lebanon 22 21 1 1 Israel 21 19 2 Algeria 19 +2 19 Czechia 19 19 Finland 19 +4 18 1 Ireland 18 18 Vietnam 18 +1 2 16 Oman 16 14 2 Palestine 16 16 Egypt 15 14 1 Portugal 15 +2 15 Brazil 14 +1 14 Ecuador 14 +1 14 1 Russia 13 11 2 Croatia 12 +1 12 Georgia 12 +3 12 1 Qatar 12 +1 12 Macao 10 0 10 Estonia 10 10 Azerbaijan 9 9 Romania 9 6 3 Argentina 8 8 Slovenia 8 8 Philippines 6 +1 1 3 2 1 Belarus 6 6 Mexico 6 5 1 Pakistan 6 5 1 New Zealand 5 +1 5 Saudi Arabia 5 4 1 Chile 5 5 Hungary 5 +1 5 Poland 5 5 Afghanistan 4 +3 4 Indonesia 4 4 Senegal 4 3 1 Luxembourg 3 3 North Macedonia 3 3 Bosnia and Herzegovina 3 3 Slovakia 3 +2 3 Dominican Republic 2 2 Morocco 2 2 1 Cameroon 2 2 Andorra 1 1 Armenia 1 1 Cambodia 1 0 1 Jordan 1 1 Latvia 1 0 1 Lithuania 1 1 Monaco 1 1 Nepal 1 0 1 Nigeria 1 1 Sri Lanka 1 0 1 Tunisia 1 1 Ukraine 1 1 Bhutan 1 1 Colombia 1 1 Costa Rica 1 1 Gibraltar 1 1 1 Vatican City 1 1 Liechtenstein 1 1 Malta 1 +1 1 Peru 1 1 Serbia 1 1 South Africa 1 1 Togo 1 1 Total: 103,809 1,864 3,522 56 41,830 58,457 6,138 With coronavirus getting more and more severe and widespread, there is such a high probability that Tokyo 2020 Olympics will have to be postponed. Korea has reached more than 7000 cases and became extremely severe. The host country itself Japan also has more than 400 cases. As every one knows Coronairus spread rapidly with close contacts there is a high probability when athletes from various different countries get infected when they have close contact with each other. This is indeed worrying as Tokyo 2020 Olympics will start soon yet the Coronavirus is still spreading rapidly.

Thank you very much for your information.

Thank you very much for your information. It is located in America. Hmm.... looks like the Coronavirus is spreading rapidly and very fast.

Where is Rhode Island? Never heard of it before. Looks like Coronavirus is too severe. Even countries who is not famous and names unheard of has even been contracted with Coronavirus. The coronavirus is spreading rapidly.

The truth about the Coronavirus is here in this video below.

China’s initial response to the Coronavirus received praise. But now with the accusations of cover-ups, crack-downs and even forced quarantines beginning to mount - is China trying to shut down Coronavirus whistleblowers? (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) ------- Watch more of our explainer series here - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... Get more news at our site - https://www.channel4.com/news/

Yes you are right. The government announced it too late.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/26/the-reaction-to-the-outbreak-has-revealed-the-unreceonstructed-despotism-of-the-chinese-state Over the past 70 years, the Chinese Communist party has subjected its country to a succession of manmade catastrophes, from the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre, to the forceful suppression of rights in Hong Kong and Tibet, and the mass internment of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Official coverups and corruption have multiplied the death toll of natural calamities, from the Sars virus to the Sichuan earthquake. Xi Jinping’s mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic must now be added to the party’s shameful list of crimes. With serious outbreaks occurring in Japan, South Korea, Iran and Italy, it is clear that the virus of Xi’s totalitarian rule threatens the health and freedoms not only of the Chinese people, but of all of us everywhere. Xi’s vacuous, self-aggrandising ideological vision lies at the heart of this global crisis. When he was appointed party leader in 2012, he announced his “China dream” of national rejuvenation, promising that the country would be moderately prosperous by the party’s 2021 centenary, and fully advanced into global economic hegemony by the republic’s centenary in 2049. Xi vowed that, by then, the world would concede that his one-party dictatorship is superior to the mess of liberal democracy. Appointing himself “president for life”, Xi now has more power than any party leader since Mao Zedong, and has crushed all dissent by attempting to build a hi-tech totalitarian state. The Communist party is an insidious pathogen that has infected the Chinese people since 1949. But under Xi’s rule, it has mutated into its most sinister form, allowing capitalism to grow rapaciously while reaffirming Leninist control. The promise of wealth and national glory has blinded many Chinese people to the chains around their feet, and to the barbed wire around the faraway internment camps. In a speech on 31 December 2019, Xi heralded triumphantly a new year of “milestone significance in realising the first centenary goal!” Naturally, he didn’t mention the mysterious pneumonia reported that day by health authorities in Wuhan, Hubei province. Although the World Health Organization had been notified, the Chinese people were largely kept in the dark. How could an invisible bug be allowed to dampen the glory of Xi’s China dream? In times of crisis, the party always places its own survival above the welfare of the people. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan central hospital, has become the tragic symbol of this disaster. On 30 December, he notified his former medical classmates on WeChat that seven people with an unspecified coronavirus, which reminded him of Sars (the virus that killed almost 800 people in 2003), were in quarantine at his hospital, and advised them to protect themselves. In any normal society, this wouldn’t be considered subversive – but in China, even a small act of kindness, a cautious and private alert to colleagues, can land a person in political danger. On 3 January, Li was reprimanded by police – he then went back to work, and within days contracted the virus. Over the next two weeks – the critical window of containment – authorities claimed the problem was under control. But coronavirus is indifferent to the vain desires of despots. Left unchecked, it spread. By the time Xi deigned to publicly acknowledge the outbreak, on 20 January, ordering it to be “resolutely contained”, it was too late. On 23 January, Wuhan was placed in lockdown. Yet on that same day, at a reception in Beijing, Xi merely stressed the need to “race against time and keep abreast with history to realise the first centenary goal of the China dream of national rejuvenation”. Videos on WeChat and Weibo revealed the hollowness of Xi’s ambitions. There was footage of deserted boulevards in affected cities. Corpses lying unattended on pavements. A woman on the balcony of a luxury tower block striking a gong and wailing into the sky: “My mother is dying, rescue me!” As Li lay on his deathbed on 30 January, he revealed the truth about his experience of the epidemic. Despite being a party member, he spoke to the New York Times about official failures to disclose essential information about the virus to the public, and told the Beijing-based journal Caixin: “A healthy society cannot have just one voice.” In that one sentence, he identified the root cause of China’s sickness. Xi suppresses truth and information to create his utopian “harmonious” society. But harmony can only emerge from a plurality of differing voices, not from the one-note monologue of a tyrant. After the eruption of public grief and anger that followed Li’s death on 6 February, the government backtracked, and hailed the doctor they had muzzled “a hero”. But behind the scenes, the silencing continued: several people who documented and spoke out about state handling of the outbreak were detained. In the thick of calamity, people finally understand that if your leaders have no regard for human life or liberty, no amount of money can save you. Entire families have been wiped out by the virus as more than 70 million people have been confined to their homes. Chinese officials have today reported 78,064 infections and 2,715 deaths, mostly in Hubei. But no one trusts the party’s figures. The only certainty about the numbers it releases is that they are the numbers it wants you to believe. In an effort to change the narrative after Li’s death, the party has called for a people’s war against the virus, and has urged journalists to replace “negative content” on social media with “touching stories from the frontline of combating the disease”. Having buried the truth about the calamity of the Cultural Revolution and other earlier crimes, the party is now dragging the nation back to its Maoist past. Official language is being contaminated once more with military jargon; society is being divided once more into antagonist groups – not the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, but the infected against the yet-to-be-infected. Rural police post videos of their attacks on citizens who dare venture outside without a face mask. The state media have posted photographs of pregnant nurses in hazmat suits serving on the frontline; there are masked patients in another field hospital being awarded party membership on their deathbeds, joyfully raising their fists in the air as they pledge undying loyalty to Xi. To anyone with a conscience, these sad individuals look like victims of an inhumane cult. That it is believed these snapshots could promote “positive energy” reveals the moral abyss into which totalitarianism has sunk the nation. Meanwhile, with the epidemic still raging, Xi has ordered the country back to work, all to ensure that the economic targets of his 21st-century goals are met. Of course, he is keeping the political elite safe, though, by postponing the National People’s Congress in March. Further proof, if it was at all needed, that Xi’s China dream is a sham. • Ma Jian is an author from Qingdao, China. He left Beijing for Hong Kong in 1987 as a dissident, and after the handover moved to London. All his books are banned in China

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/03/wuhan-coronavirus-coverup-lies-chinese-officials-xi-jinping/ As fear of the Wuhan coronavirus seizes China, the outlines of the local government mistakes that gave the disease a critical monthlong head start are becoming apparent. Reporting in both foreign and domestic media paints a picture of a city government in Wuhan more concerned with political meetings than epidemic control—and where attempts by insiders, including eight separate doctors, to speak out were stamped on by police. The central government is now promising to perform where Wuhan officials failed. Officials in Beijing have pledged greater transparency to both the public and outside groups like the World Health Organization—even introducing a whistleblower hotline within the massively popular WeChat messaging app. Such measures are about as convincing as an organized crime boss who launches a “Start Snitching” campaign. The hostility to transparency and fear of speaking out baked into the fabric of Xi Jinping’s China can’t be thrown away for one crisis. Transparency is not a window that can be opened and shut at the state’s will when it finds it useful. Brave calls for transparency by Chinese media aside, the Chinese government’s habits of opaqueness, concealment, and distrust of the public will impede attempts to control the outbreak. The central government authorities may truly want transparency—if only so that they themselves know what’s going on. But they don’t want it across the board: only on this one specific issue. And the repression of speech and distortion of data in China aren’t a matter of a singular central will. It’s mostly carried out by local officials, who have the most to lose if people can complain freely about mistakes or cover-ups. In a public health crisis, that could have fatal consequences. For instance, it’s unclear whether it’s deliberate policy or simply an overwhelmed system, but numerous reports testify to bodies being cremated in Wuhan without the death being recorded as a coronavirus fatality, which has made it highly difficult to tell just how lethal the virus is. To be sure, the men responsible for covering up the initial outbreak—the online monitors who stifled the doctors’ comments (originally posted to a relatively private group chat); the police who threatened them; and the local government officials who signed off on their harassment or detention—will be punished at the central government’s insistence, if only to appease public anger. But there’s a perverse injustice, given that they were following the expected standards of the party-state. Under ordinary circumstances, in fact, their behavior would have, from the party’s perspective, been laudable. Hundreds of similar incidents play out every day across China as part of a program of “stability maintenance” that officially costs the country around $200 billion a year, more than double the figure of a decade ago. (That figure includes some policing activities that would be normal in any country, but it also excludes much of the apparatus of control, such as the domestic United Front programs that look to co-opt non-party groups into serving the party’s purposes.) The kind of repression that occurred in Wuhan didn’t even need any special conspiracy behind it to specifically cover up the coronavirus. The kind of repression that occurred in Wuhan didn’t even need any special conspiracy behind it to specifically cover up the coronavirus.Rumormongering—a euphemism for drawing attention to potential sources of social or political scandal—has been a priority of the authorities since 2013, especially online. Most of the time, of course, it’s over far smaller matters than an epidemic: a police killing, a polluting factory, a hospital turning away a dying child. The monitoring of messages for destabilizing information intensified in 2017, when the administrators of chat groups began to be held accountable for content posted by any user, allowing the authorities to leverage the power of self-censorship. For Wuhan’s police, threatening people for posting information that might cause trouble, true or false, was as routine and automatic an action as a traffic arrest. The local government authorities tipping the national media off about the story showed their bosses they had the situation under control. The public is well aware of what the score is. For years, the government has signaled that the fate of whistleblowers isn’t a happy one. This is not a new habit; take Shuping Wang and Gao Yaojie, the heroic doctors who exposed the illicit blood sales and subsequent AIDS crisis in Henan in the 1990s. Both of them faced years of persecution as a result, even after the state admitted they were right; both were forced to take refuge in the United States. Activists like Tan Zuoren, who attempted to document the corruption that led to the collapse of supposedly reinforced school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, were put in prison. Despite all this, between around 2000 and 2012, the Chinese internet developed its own watchdog culture, particularly over local corruption. Journalists often shared information from scandals, backed by a public keen to haul greedy officials over the coals. Crackdowns were relatively rare, and there were those within the party itself who saw this kind of monitoring as a useful tool to engage the public in the work of maintaining some accountability. All that ended in 2012-2013, as a concerted campaign against some of the most prominent watchdogs, combined with sweeping new online restrictions, signaled the end of any tolerance for outside monitoring. By the end of 2013, Weibo, the most popular social media site for such stories, had seen its traffic drop by 70 percent. In the next few years, that campaign broadened to a mass crackdown on human rights activists, lawyers, and anyone else who dared to monitor officials’ business, even as it was joined by a sweeping purge within the party of supposedly corrupt figures, who also happened to be Xi’s political foes. Humiliating TV confessions became a normal part of evening broadcasts. Even now, arrests and threats continue throughout China for spreading so-called rumors about the virus. Some of that is directed against genuine misinformation, but some of it is simply the state’s usual crushing of any perceived dissent. Any potential whistleblowers eyeing up that WeChat hotline, for instance, have to be very aware that the app requires them to sign up with their real government ID numbers. To speak up, citizens need to believe not only that they won’t be punished now but that local authorities won’t remember them and take vengeance later. Given the record, that’s unlikely. Take the village of Wukan, once heralded for resisting corrupt local officials in 2011. By 2016, the villagers involved in the protests had been picked off one by one, and the local government was more repressive than ever. The state has a long memory and keeps records. It’s true that Chinese reporting has enjoyed a rare spring and that media has been doing brilliant and honest work from inside Wuhan itself and elsewhere. (See this compiled list in Chinese, put together by the reporter Shen Lu.) But such flourishing has happened after disasters in the past, such as the Tianjin explosions of 2015 and the high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou in 2011, and it has always been short-lived. There’s no real new transparency. Instead, the old red lines have been temporarily erased in the wake of disaster, and the many talented and frustrated journalists in China are able to quickly occupy the new space created—until the authorities decide what can and cannot be said and the lines are drawn again. In the case of the coronavirus, the disruption may be such that the freedom lasts longer than usual—but it’s still ultimately temporary. Officials, on the other hand, persist unless unlucky enough to be scapegoated; as some sardonically noted this week, the man in charge of the port area of Tianjin that exploded is now a prominent member of the Hubei government. Actual, lasting openness would need watchdogs outside the party-state itself. It would need a media environment where the censor’s pen doesn’t hover over every piece of copy filed. It would need protections for whistleblowers and an independent judiciary able to enforce those protections. It would need a willingness to let control slip out of the party’s hands and to bear the consequences. None of this is remotely likely in the foreseeable future. That means the Chinese people will be left in darkness about what their institutions are doing—until something else slithers out of the shadows that endangers them all.

The biggest problem here is China is always trying to control their people. So much so that everything comes out from China must be good and nothing bad should be reported. When Doctor Li Wen Liang found out about this virus and tried his level best to tell how hardful is the virus, he is told to keep quiet and not to spread rumors. The virus is already widespread by November 2019 just that the China government is trying their level best to cover up. It was not until end of January 2020 when the situation worsen that the China government is forced to tell the truth about the virus. By then it is too late already.

You are right.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047720/chinese-premier-li-keqiang-head-coronavirus-crisis-team-outbreak About 5 million residents left Wuhan before the lockdown because of the deadly coronavirus epidemic and the Spring Festival holiday, mayor Zhou Xianwang revealed on Sunday, as health officials ­warned the virus’ ­ability to spread was ­getting ­stronger. There were about 9 million people remaining in the city after the lockdown, Zhou told a press conference. Of the 2,700 people currently under observation in the city, about 1,000 were likely to be confirmed cases. As of Sunday, Wuhan had 533 confirmed cases. The central government imposed a lockdown on Wuhan and several cities on Thursday hoping to stop the new virus from spreading to other parts of the country. However, many had already left the city for the holiday, while others rushed out after the lockdown was announced on Wednesday night. China, meanwhile, said Premier Li Keqiang would head the high-level group to fight the coronavirus epidemic that has killed 80 people and infected more than 2,500 others, while health officials said the virus’s ability to spread is getting stronger. Beijing city reported five more confirmed cases, including a nine-month-old infant. It is the first confirmed infant case. On Saturday, a two-year-old girl in Guangxi was confirmed to be infected. The Chinese State Council has extended the Lunar New Year holiday to February 2 to curb the spread of the virus, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The holiday, which was initially supposed to last until January 30, is the country’s most important festival and hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers nationwide travel home for it. Suzhou was the first city to announce a holiday extension, saying workers at companies within its jurisdiction should resume work no earlier than February 8. The State Council also said that kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, and colleges will be suspended until further notice from the education ministry. Ma Xiaowei, the minister in charge of China’s National Health Commission (NHC), told a press conference that battling the outbreak was complicated, particularly as it had been discovered that the new virus could be transmitted even during incubation period, which did not happen with Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome). “From observations, the virus is capable of transmission even during incubation period,” Ma said, adding that the incubation period lasted from one to 14 days. “Some patients have normal temperatures and there are many milder cases. There are hidden carriers,” he said. Ma said also that the virus had adapted to humans and appeared to have become more transmissible. “There are signs showing the virus is becoming more transmissible. These walking ‘contagious agents’ [hidden carriers] make controlling the outbreak a lot more difficult.” The authorities had also not ruled out the possibility of the virus mutating in the future, he said, which meant it could spread to different age groups. To date, most of the people infected are in the 40-60 age range, health officials said earlier. Sars, which killed more than 800 people and infected over 8,000 around the world, typically had an incubation period of two to seven days, and was not infectious during that time. University of Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung said that how transmissible the virus was during its incubation period depended on the “viral load” in each infection. “If I sneeze on you point blank, you may get a fever and pneumonia tomorrow too,” he said. Ma said that the epidemic was accelerating and “may last for some time”. “It is possible that there will be more cases,” he said. Speaking to the press on Sunday, Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said the peak of the outbreak had yet to come. “There are trends for an epidemic cycle,” he said. “It is still growing.” However, he said there had yet to be any signs of the virus mutating. Li Bin, deputy minister of the NHC said the authorities that the severe measures they had taken to control the spread of the virus – such as issuing travel bans and locking down cities – would at least delay the peak and “buy time to combat the next stage of the outbreak”. China has closed off 13 cities in Hubei province, which is at the epicentre of the outbreak, while almost the entire country has declared an emergency response. Of all of China’s confirmed infections, more than half are in Hubei. To help tackle the epidemic, Ma said that 2,360 military and civilian doctors and nurses had been sent to Wuhan, the city in which the outbreak was first detected at the end of last month. As the pressure has mounted on the city’s hospitals, the medical system has moved ever closer to collapse. Many people who developed feverish symptoms were turned away by hospitals earlier in the week because there were not enough beds, local residents said earlier. Medical practitioners are also running seriously short of protective kits and are being forced to recycle goggles and masks. Ma said 2,400 hospital beds had been added in Wuhan, and the government was planning to add 5,000 more over the next three days. Wang Jiangping, China’s vice-minister of industry and information technology, said China had the capacity to produce a maximum of 30,000 protective outfits per day, but that was less than a third of what was needed in Hubei. And during the Lunar New Year holiday, manufacturing capacity was only about 40 per cent of normal, he said. The government was working to acquire the 50,000 protective jackets China produces for export every day to send to Hubei, he said. However, the civil affairs ministry issued a statement on Sunday banning charity organisations and NGOs from sending teams to Hubei. Any donations should be sent to government-sanctioned charity organisations in Hubei, such as the Red Cross, and they would be allocated by the Hubei and Wuhan governments as appropriate. The NHC also issued a nationwide plan on containing the epidemic by locking down certain neighbourhood communities in both urban and rural areas. In the case of a neighbourhood community or village having two confirmed cases, it could be declared an epidemic zone and sealed off, it said. A Wuhan resident, who declined to be named, said that checkpoints had been set up in some communities on Sunday. People who had fever symptoms were being screened by medical workers within the community and those needed more attention were sent to hospital, he said. China also imposed a nationwide ban on wildlife trade on Sunday. The outbreak is suspected to have originated at a seafood market in Wuhan, which also sold wild animals. However, a research paper published by medical journal The Lancet on Saturday said the first confirmed case of the viral infection was a person who had not been to that market. When asked if China planned to expand its travel ban to more cities, Li said the authorities would make adjustments as necessary. China is hoping the travel bans will reduce the spread of the outbreak. As a result of the restrictions, rail passenger numbers have fallen by 41 per cent, road travellers by 25 per cent and air passengers by almost 42 per cent on Saturday, the first day of the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile, the United States, France, Australia, Japan and Russia are all preparing to pull their citizens out of Wuhan, while others are ramping up measures to prevent people travelling from infected cities into their territories. Health officials in the US confirmed early Monday the fourth and fifth cases there, one in Los Angeles County, California and the other in Arizona. Both patients had traveled to Wuhan. The ABC reported that more than 100 Australian children were currently trapped in Wuhan.

The Coronavirus could have been preveted from spreading. It is said that before the lockdown of the Wuhan cities, 5 million people from Wuhan have travelled out of Wuhan. That means these 5 million people who have travelled around the whole world could have been a potential spreader of Coronavirus.