“Chinese state media quote a Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards. He sharply criticizes the United States. Then the Swiss embassy in Beijing intervened and spoke of a false report.”
Read the full article @ NZZ (paywall):
Category: COVID-19
China, Indonesia vow to deepen ties in vaccines, BRI, marine security | Global Times
“China and Indonesia will deepen vaccine cooperation, push forward on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects and enhance cooperation in the marine field, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi agreed, during a meeting in East China’s Fujian Province on Friday.
China is deepening cooperation with Indonesia on vaccines and discussing proceeding with mutual recognition for health codes to facilitate personnel exchange as early as possible. Wang hopes that Indonesia can support the implementation of China’s “Spring Seedling Action” in Indonesia, making Chinese citizens in the country receive their COVID-19 vaccines earlier.”
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China, Indonesia vow to deepen ties in vaccines, BRI, marine security
China and Indonesia will deepen vaccine cooperation, push forward on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects and enhance cooperation in the marine field, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi agreed, during a meeting in East China’s Fu…
Coronavirus effect helps Swiss soap brand target China | swissinfo.ch
“Threatened several times with extinction, Switzerland’s oldest soap manufacturer is enjoying a new lease of life thanks to the importance of handwashing in 2020. The company’s owner, a businessman from Hong Kong, is now planning to tap into the Asian market.”
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COVID gave China an edge in A.I. battle against the U.S. | Fortune
“The U.S. and China are battling for global supremacy in artificial intelligence. Amid the pandemic, China may have taken the lead.
“Data is what drives A.I., and China has more data than anyone else,” Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Chinese venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures and author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, said at the Fortune Global Forum on Tuesday.”
Read the full article @ Fortune (paywall):
When will China roll out a COVID-19 vaccine? Which countries will get it? | SupChina
“Four vaccines developed by Chinese companies have moved on to Phase 3 trials, accounting for half of the global candidates at that final stage of human testing before approval.”
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China’s CNBG, Sinovac find more countries to test coronavirus vaccines | Reuters
“China National Biotec Group (CNBG) and Sinovac Biotech Ltd said on Saturday they have each found two more countries to run late-stage clinical tests of their coronavirus vaccine candidates, as China steps up its efforts in the global race.
Serbia and Pakistan have agreed to participate in the Phase 3 trials of CNBG’s vaccine candidates while Sinovac has received approval from Turkey and Bangladesh. The two companies are seeking more data from overseas as new cases in China are dwindling.”
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China’s CNBG, Sinovac find more countries to test coronavirus vaccines
China National Biotec Group (CNBG) and Sinovac Biotech Ltd said on Saturday they have each found two more countries to run late-stage clinical tests of their coronavirus vaccine candidates, as China steps up its efforts in the global race.
BRI and beyond update | Baker McKenzie
“We regularly share this Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) media coverage bulletin, so our growing BRI Community across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America can remain ahead of the curve when it comes to the latest developments in the market.”
Read the full bulletin @ Baker McKenzie:
Hebei: China locks down 400,000 people after virus spike near Beijing | BBC
“China has reinstated a strict lockdown near Beijing, affecting around 400,000 people, after a small surge in cases.
The restrictions have come into force in Anxin county in Hebei province near the capital.
After the pandemic emerged in China at the end of last year, the country has managed to get new infections to a consistently low level.
To avoid a second wave, even small surges are taken very seriously by the country’s health authorities.”
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Contract for Kenya’s China-funded railway ruled ‘illegal’ | SCMP
“When Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted African leaders at last week’s China-Africa Summit, he singled out Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway, a multibillion-dollar Chinese-funded Belt and Road Initiative project, for helping to move cargo during the coronavirus pandemic.
Xi congratulated Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta for ensuring the uninterrupted flow of cargo from the Port of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast into the East African hinterland via the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), which first started operating in 2017. Kenya’s decision, he said, had helped keep trade flowing in the region despite freight restrictions required by Covid-19 containment measures.”
Read full article @ SCMP (paywall):
Beijing coronavirus cases to see ‘cliff-like’ drop this week: expert | Reuters
“China’s capital will see a “cliff-like” drop in new cases in a recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus by the end of this week with efforts to cut chains of transmission underway, a disease control expert said. The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case of a new spike in infections on June 11, linked to a sprawling wholesale food centre. In all, 236 people have been infected in the worst outbreak in Beijing since the novel coronavirus was identified at a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan late last year.
Beijing reported on Monday nine new cases had been confirmed the previous day, sharply down from 22 a day earlier.”
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Anxiety in Beijing as officials battle new coronavirus outbreak | The Guardian
“In the last eight days, Beijing has recorded almost 200 new cases of coronavirus, linked to a sprawling wholesale market in the city’s south-east. That market and two others have been shut and at least 33 neighbourhoods have been put under varying levels of lockdown. Schools and sports and entertainment venues have been closed.
Officials have ordered all residents to avoid non-essential travel outside of the capital, and suspended hundreds of flights and all long-distance buses. Other cities and provinces have begun to impose quarantine measures on travellers from Beijing.
The city had lowered its Covid emergency response level on 6 June, only to raise it again 10 days later, and residents have reacted with a mixture of frustration and anxiety. Roads that were crowded as offices and businesses reopened are emptier again.”
Read the full article @ The Guardian:
Coronavirus: WeChat, Alipay deny helping government identify 350,000 users who visited Beijing food market | SCMP
“The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated China’s collection of big data, especially for contact tracing. Posts on Weibo claimed that WeChat Pay and Alipay helped identify people who had visited Beijing’s Xinfadi market using their payment data.”
Full article @ SCMP:
China’s Vice Premier Demands ‘Strictest’ Virus-Tracing Measures | Sixth Tone
“China’s Vice Premier Sun Chunlan has warned of the high risk of a COVID-19 rebound and tasked officials with aggressively tracking the virus after an infection cluster in Beijing was linked to a local farmers market, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
On Saturday, Beijing’s Fengtai District went into “wartime” mode after 46 people connected to the Xinfandi market — the largest farmers market in the capital — tested positive for the coronavirus. The following day, the city tested 76,499 people, 59 of whom were positive, a health official said at a press briefing Monday morning.”
Read the full article @ Sixth Tone:
Beijing battles ‘explosive coronavirus outbreak’ as food market cases mount | SCMP
“Scientists struggle to track source of cluster linked to massive food wholesale centre. Mass testing and strict lockdowns imposed in some parts of the capital while other cities order isolation for travellers from Beijing.”
Read the full article @ SCMP:
Parts of Beijing sealed off due to new corona infections | Die Zeit
“Beijing is experiencing a major outbreak of the corona virus for the first time in many weeks. According to health authorities, 45 infections were already detected in 500 tests in a wholesale market in the Chinese capital. The Xinfadi Market in the Fengtai district, which supplies around 90 percent of the vegetables and fruits of the 20 million metropolis, was closed. 10,000 dealers and employees of the market are still to be tested..”
Read the full article @ Die Zeit:
The mutating SARS-CoV-2 is gaining virulence against the young COVID-19 patients | Demiurge Technologies
“As the world’s first AI-biopharma company that has discovered and publicized the precise aetiology and pathology of COVID-19, we are committed to the non-profit dissemination of our COVID-19 discoveries and the public validation of our COVID-19 clinical predictions.”
Read the full article @ Demiurge Technologies:
Fast-forward China: How COVID-19 is accelerating five key trends shaping the Chinese economy | McKinsey
“Over the last few months, COVID-19 has spread across the world, uniting humanity in a shared experience that has highlighted the vulnerability of our societies. As the first country to grapple with the crisis, China has been on the frontlines both of post-COVID-19 economic recovery, and of the societal changes the pandemic has precipitated. Efforts to stabilize the domestic economy are already well underway, and though China’s first-quarter gross domestic product declined 6.8 percent over the previous year, according to government statistics, our simulations suggest that economic activity may have bottomed out in the first quarter.
As that recovery takes shape, several important shifts in the make-up of China’s economic landscape have already become apparent. COVID-19 has accelerated pre-existing trends, ushering in the arrival of a future we were likely already on track to realize. In this report, we discuss five trends shaping the Chinese economy that have been accelerated, or “fast forwarded,” as a result of the onset of the COVID-19 crisis (Exhibit 1).”
Read the full report @ McKinsey:
Internal Chinese report warns Beijing faces Tiananmen-like global backlash over virus | Reuters
“The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said.
As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence body.”
Read the full article @ Reuters:
Exclusive: Internal Chinese report warns Beijing faces Tiananmen-like global backlash over virus
An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters.
The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting chaired by Xi Jinping | Xinhua
“Xi Jinping pointed out that with the strong leadership of the Party’s Central Committee and the strong support of all parties, with the active participation and cooperation of the people of Hubei, especially the people of Wuhan, after arduous efforts, the defensive battles in Hubei and Wuhan have achieved decisive results and the national epidemic prevention and control blockade has achieved Major strategic achievements.
This all was not easily achieved. At present, the overseas epidemic outbreaks continue to grow, the pressure on China’s foreign defense imports continues to increase and the complexity of preventing domestic epidemic rebounds is also increasing. The string of epidemic prevention and control must be strict at all times, and must never be abandoned. All regions and departments should pay close attention to the prevention and control of normal epidemic situation, strengthen the import of external defense and the rebound of internal defense in a targeted manner, continuously consolidate the results of prevention and control, provide a strong guarantee for the comprehensive restoration of economic and social order and ensure the completion of the decisive battle and the goal of overcoming poverty, and build a well-off society in an all-round way.”
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Life-size test before producing pollution masks | 24heures
“In full development of masks against pollutants or pollens, two Vaud start-ups are taking on the coronavirus.
This is the story of two start-ups from Vaud, Breez and Helvitek Labs, who are developing a similar product: an anti-pollution protective mask. Having stayed in China several times, their founders understood how useful such an accessory could be to protect themselves from the dangers of exhaust gases, fine particles but also pollens. The two start-ups have been working there for almost two years and have won awards for the innovation of their product.”
Read the full article @ 24heures:
