Day: December 24, 2021

While many countries are fighting off their worst coronavirus outbreaks yet, Japan is detecting hardly any COVID-19 infections at all. Observers are trying to figure out why.

As recently as late summer, Japan’s coronavirus outlook wasn’t great. An outbreak coinciding with the Tokyo Olympics was killing dozens per day and overwhelming hospitals.

Starting in September, though, as Japan ramped up its vaccination campaign, the country saw a dramatic plunge in the number of reported cases and eventually the number of deaths.

Since then, the situation has only improved. Japan this month has reported an average of less than one COVID-19 death per day – a shockingly low number for a country of 126 million.

No one knows exactly why Japan has experienced such success — especially while other countries, even its immediate neighbors, have been hit by serious winter waves of the coronavirus.

There are many possible explanations. Nearly 80% of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated. Virtually everyone wears masks. Even after the government relaxed restrictions this autumn, people continued to socially distance themselves.

Some researchers have pointed to Japan’s low rates of obesity. Several recent studies have concluded that COVID-19 is more severe in obese individuals.

Cultural customs may also play a role. For instance, Japanese do not typically kiss, hug, or even shake hands during greetings. Many Japanese are also relatively quiet in public settings, points out Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease specialist at Japan’s Kobe University.

“Masking and keeping silent in public places is very important [for fighting the virus]. Everybody knows it, but practicing it can be very difficult in some parts of the world, maybe due to cultural reasons,” said Iwata, who has dealt with infectious outbreaks for more than 20 years, by email.

Those factors, however, do not explain why neighboring South Korea, which shares many cultural traits, is dealing with its worst COVID-19 outbreak yet.

One possible explanation is that Japan is testing far fewer people, Kenji Shibuya, an epidemiologist and researcher at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, said.

In the first half of December, Japan tested an average of 44,623 people per day, according to government data. South Korea, whose population is less than half that of Japan, conducted an average of 238,901 tests per day during the same period, according to official data.

Because of Japan’s lack of testing, it is difficult to believe that official case figures reflect reality on the ground, Shibuya told VOA in an email.

If the lack of testing were a major factor, though, Japan would have likely seen a surge in other indicators, such as the number of hospitalizations or deaths from respiratory illnesses, as other experts have noted.

In the absence of any definitive explanation, some researchers have tried to identify a so-called X-factor. One study even suggested many Japanese people share a genetic feature linked to white blood cells that helps the fight against COVID-19. Others theorize that the coronavirus variant spreading in Japan may have mutated itself into extinction.

Whatever the reason for Japan’s success, the battle is not over, said Shibuya, who said he still expects the country to see a winter wave of infections.

In a possible ominous sign, Japan this week identified its first cases of community transmission of the omicron variant, which scientists say spreads much faster than previous iterations of the virus. Many of those found to be infected with omicron had no history of overseas travel, officials said.

Source: Voice of America

U.S.-based Hong Kong observers contacted by VOA have disagreed about whether a tougher Biden administration response to Hong Kong’s first legislative election under Beijing-imposed conditions would help to curb the erosion of democracy in the city.

Sunday’s election almost completely eliminated pro-democracy voices from the former British colony’s Legislative Council.

Pro-Beijing and establishment lawmakers won 89 of the 90 seats in the chamber. The remaining seat went to a candidate who identified with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy opposition camp, which had been a significant minority presence in all previous assemblies.

It was the first Legco election since China changed Hong Kong’s electoral system in March, expanding the assembly from 70 to 90 seats but reducing the proportion of directly elected seats from 40 to 20. The other 70 seats under the new system were reserved for candidates picked by influential members of industry groups and by a committee of Beijing loyalists. In another change from the previous 2016 election, all Legco candidates had to be vetted for “patriotism” toward Beijing.

With most of Hong Kong’s prominent opposition politicians boycotting the new election system as undemocratic and some having fled into exile or been imprisoned under a June 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing, the ballot drew a record low turnout of 30.2%.

The Biden administration responded to the election Monday by joining with allies in two statements, one as part of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, and the other as part of a bloc of five major English-speaking nations.

Both statements expressed “grave concern over the erosion of democratic elements of [Hong Kong’s] electoral system.”

They also urged China to “act in accordance” with international obligations including the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which Britain agreed to return Hong Kong to China in 1997. Under that treaty, Beijing promised to let the city enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region of China, and maintain its civil liberties for 50 years.

In another Monday announcement, the Biden administration said it would impose secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions doing business with five Hong Kong-based Chinese officials whom it initially sanctioned in July for undermining the city’s freedoms.

Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian rejected the Western powers’ statements, accusing them of “hypocrisy and malicious intent” to disrupt life in Hong Kong and contain China’s development.

Zhao also blasted the sanctions as “preposterous and despicable,” and said Bejing will take unspecified measures to safeguard its national interests.

China analyst Nathan Picarsic of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies told VOA that he believes the U.S. diplomatic denunciations of Beijing will not be enough to deter what he called its anti-democratic Hong Kong moves.

One step that Picarsic said the U.S. should take is to work with Britain to seek international legal recourse for China’s actions by virtue of London’s status as a party to the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

“I think the U.K. should be a centerpiece in our response,” he said.

New York-based and Hong Kong-born law professor Sharon Hom, who serves as executive director of advocacy group Human Rights in China, said Western powers would put Beijing in an uncomfortable position if they signaled a start to international legal action.

“The Chinese authorities would have to start researching how to argue against giving an international court jurisdiction in such a case so that Western powers won’t drag them in,” Hom said.

“If China loses a jurisdiction battle and has to defend itself in court, one thing it cannot say is that a legally binding treaty registered with the U.N. is just a ‘historical document.’ That is not an allowable defense,” she added.

Asked by VOA whether London would consider filing an international legal case against China, a British government spokesperson reiterated previous pledges to “hold China to its international obligations.” The U.S. State Department did not respond to an emailed VOA question asking whether Washington would join London in such an action.

Hong Kong activist Anna Cheung, a New York-based microbiologist and convener of the NY4HK pro-democracy group, said another step the U.S. should take is to warn U.S. companies about the risks of continuing to operate in the territory.

“There are still a lot of U.S. businesses in Hong Kong. They might think the Legco election will not affect them, but that’s not the case, because the government has all the votes it needs to create any rules that it wants,” she told VOA.

Picarsic said the Biden administration should require U.S. businesses in Hong Kong to mitigate two main types of risk.

“One is a loss of their data to China’s communist rulers by virtue of the national security law imposed on Hong Kong, and another is that U.S. capital flows through Hong Kong financial markets enable Beijing to fund military and surveillance teams committing rights abuses against ethnic minority Uyghurs in Xinjiang,” he said.

Picarsic said such requirements should be imposed even if there is an economic cost to U.S. companies.

“Democratic values should be more important than the bottom line of Goldman Sachs or other U.S. corporations trading into Hong Kong,” he said.

However, the notion that the U.S. could pressure China into changing course on Hong Kong by talking or acting tougher is misguided, according to Robert Daly, director of the Washington-based Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

“I love Hong Kong and consider it one of my favorite cities in the world, but it’s game over. It is fully part of China, which holds all the cards. The West holds none,” he said.

Daly said the United States should adopt what he considers to be a realistic approach with two main elements. One would be to tell the world that Hong Kong no longer has a special status.

“China’s rulers have destroyed Hong Kong’s democracy,” Daly said. “They’ve long had control over its chief executive. They’ve now taken over the legislature. And they’re moving on its judiciary and culture and changing school curricula at a great rate. So let’s treat Hong Kong in every respect as we treat the rest of China. And American businesses that thrive in Beijing and Shanghai will be able to thrive in a Hong Kong run entirely by the Communist Party,” he said.

Daly said the second message the U.S. should send is that China’s poor human rights record in its self-described autonomous regions of Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong is an indicator of the Chinese Communist Party’s global agenda.

“They want to legitimize illiberal Chinese practices everywhere. We don’t want to live in a world that is more amenable to the Communist Party, so we need to remind the world continually to be extremely skeptical of China’s claim that its rising power is peaceful,” he said.

Source: Voice of America

HPAKANT (Myanmar)— As many as 100 people are feared missing after a landslide at a jade mine in Myanmar.

Rescue teams are desperately searching for people in a nearby lake, with most victims believed to be illegal miners. One person is confirmed dead.

The landslide occurred in the Hpakant area of northern Kachin state at 04:00 on Wednesday.

Myanmar is the world’s biggest source of jade, but its mines have seen numerous accidents.

The landslide is believed to have been caused by an overflow of rubble discarded from lorries to the open-pit mines.

The rubble creates large slopes that can be dangerous in an area denuded of trees, forcing those looking for fragments of the semi-precious stone to labour in hazardous conditions.

Rescue teams consisting of about 200 people from Hpakant and the nearby town of Lone Khin joined search and recovery efforts at the site. Boats were used to search for the missing in a nearby lake.

“We’ve sent 25 injured people to hospital while we’ve found one dead,” a member of the rescue team, Ko Nyi, said, confirming up to 100 people may be missing.

Jade mining is banned in Hpakant, but locals often defy regulations, driven by a lack of employment opportunities and impoverished conditions that have worsened from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Operations have also flourished in the area since February’s military coup and landmines at sites are not uncommon.

Several days ago, at least 10 unskilled miners went missing in another landslide at a jade block in Hpakant.

In 2020, more than 160 people – most of whom were migrants – died in one of the worst disasters in Hpakant after mining waste collapsed into a lake.

A new gemstone mining law was passed in 2018, but critics say the government has too few inspectors with only limited authority to stop illegal practices.

Campaigners have accused the military, drug dealers, insurgent groups and Chinese business interests of controlling the jade trade and preventing a safer and more sustainable exploitation of the valuable gemstone.

Myanmar’s jade trade is reported to be worth more than $30bn a year, with Hpakant being the site of the world’s biggest jade mine.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

BANGKOK— Thailand reported on Friday its first domestic cluster of coronavirus infections from the Omicron variant in Kalasin province in north-eastern Thailand, officials said.

“From the Kalasin cluster, there are 21 new infections,” said the country’s COVID-19 task force spokeswoman Apisamai Srirangsan.

The infections stem from a couple who travelled from Belgium through the country’s Test & Go scheme that waived quarantine for vaccinated arrivals, she said.

Both had tested negative for infections before travelling and after arrival in Thailand in early December.

“By Dec 15, they started having symptoms and tested positive and were later confirmed to have the Omicron variant,” she said.

The announcement comes as Thailand’s capital city Bangkok cancelled government-sponsored New Year activity, including midnight prayers

Fireworks and countdown events organised by malls were still going forward, and would require proof of vaccination and antigen test results.

The health ministry also previously said that it would introduce a fourth booster dose for medical personnel.

So far, Thailand has 205 infections from the Omicron variant, mostly in foreign arrivals. Of that number, 25 people were infected with Omicron by those coming from aboard.

Other clusters are being investigated in the country’s south, senior health official Supakit Sirilak told a separate news briefing.

The country reported its first local transmission of the variant on Monday, and later reinstated quarantine for foreign arrivals, ending a waiver for vaccinated tourists. A sandbox programme that requires travellers to stay on the resort island of Phuket for seven days remained in place.

“We should follow the protective measures closely and slow down the outbreak as much as possible,” Supakit said.

Thailand has reported a total of 2.2 million confirmed COVID-19 infections and 21,528 deaths. About 62 per cent of an estimated 72 million people living in the country have received two doses of vaccinations.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK