Home delivery has helped China through its coronavirus crisis. The US needs to catch up.

The US is “four or five years” behind China when it comes to home delivery. This is bad news for locked-down cities.

Shao Bingbing - the Courier for Meituan APP - who managed 120 home deliveries daily in Yiwu, before the outbreak of Covid-19.

At the peak of China’s Covid-19 outbreak, more than half of the country’s population — some 760 million people — were living under some form of home lockdown. But even as they hunkered down behind locked gates and guarded checkpoints, deliveries of groceries and KFC were often as little as 20 minutes away while parcels containing phone chargers and pajamas could arrive in hours.

Read more: Home delivery has helped China through its coronavirus crisis. The US needs to catch up.

Sam's Club to open flagship outlet in Shanghai

Sam's Club, the high-end membership store of world retailing giant Walmart, is expected to open its flagship store in Shanghai, the third in the city, a proactive move in the face of the fierce competition accelerated by the opening of Costco Wholesale store last year.

Andrew Miles, president of Sam's Club China, said on Wednesday the outlets, growing with their members, are excited to add the flagship outlet into their rapidly expanding footprint, calling it "a testimony of our commitment to our members and China."

Read more: Sam's Club to open flagship outlet in Shanghai

Spain hated being linked to the deadly 1918 flu pandemic. Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ label echoes that.

Don’t call it the Spanish flu.

That’s what Spain said in 1918 at the start of what would become the deadliest pandemic in history, killing more than 50 million people worldwide. The Spanish got tagged with the killer name during the end of World War I because Spain was the first country to report the disease publicly, not because it originated there.

Spaniards called the highly contagious disease “The Soldier of Naples” after a catchy song popular at the time. But when the deadly virus exploded across the world and became known as “Spanish influenza,” Spain protested that its people were being falsely stigmatized.

Read more: Spain hated being linked to the deadly 1918 flu pandemic. Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ label echoes that.

Trump's 'Chinese virus' is a racist attack

On March 19, US President Donald Trump stood in the White House to give yet another statement about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). A photograph of the president's speech notes showed the word "Corona" scratched out and replaced with "Chinese" written in sharpie.

The photo, taken by a Washington Post reporter, exposes how factually inaccurate Trump's racist language is. Rather than informing the public with scientifically accurate information, Trump is policing language in order to create a political distraction and cover up his own mishandling of the epidemic.

Read more: Trump's 'Chinese virus' is a racist attack

11 extreme measures China took to contain the coronavirus show the rest of the world is unprepared for COVID-19

A member of the Jiangxi province medical team crying while Qinghai province medical team about to leaving Wuhan on 17th Mar 2020. The 2 medical teams from different province fought against Covid-19 in the same hospital in Wuhan. 

The novel coronavirus is slowing down across China, just as the pandemic accelerates rapidly elsewhere around the world. On Sunday, there were just 27 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the country where the disease originated, in the city of Wuhan, last year, while elsewhere around the world, 10,955 new cases were diagnosed.

A recent multilateral mission to China by health authorities from around the globe has revealed the rest of the world "is simply not ready" to tackle the coronavirus with the speed and seriousness that China has, as the World Health Organization's Dr. Bruce Aylward, who led the international team of 25 health experts, told reporters upon his return. 

"Hundreds of thousands of people in China did not get COVID-19 because of this aggressive response," Aylward said, adding that the techniques were "old-fashioned public-health tools" but applied "with a rigor and innovation of approach on a scale that we've never seen in history." 

At the same time, professors, journalists and doctors in China have been silenced and disappeared, after they've shared vital information about the coronavirus outbreak — without the consent of the Chinese government. 

Read more: 11 extreme measures China took to contain the coronavirus show the rest of the world is unprepared...

Power to the People’s Republic: A view from the front-line of China’s tech revolution

Beijing is often smothered by great dirty clouds of smog. But on the day I touched down in this ancient city late last year, a strong wind had blown away the grime and a cheery blue sky shone above the metropolis. It was a pleasant start to my trip to a country that, if I’m being honest, I was a bit scared of visiting. I was in China in part of the first group of foreign reporters to be given a tour of an innovations lab operated by a company called Lenovo – the world’s biggest PC manufacturer. The company flew dozens of journalists to China to discuss its ambitions to lead a ‘smart transformation’ in which artificial intelligence is embedded in everything from phones to cars. Lenovo wants to present an image and corporate identity that will appeal to socially-conscious millennials and members of Generation Z. Which is why, I think, it summoned such a large contingent of journalists and influencers to China, where we were all housed in a marvellously lavish hotel with incredible views over the capital city. I also got a sense that it wants to play down its association with China, a country lots of potential customers are still a bit iffy about. High up in a plush hotel in downtown Beijing, a cool American guy called Torod Neptune, Lenovo’s chief communications officer, set out the company’s vision in the sort of language you’d expect to hear from a Silicon Valley marketeer rather than a communist party apparatchik.

Read more: Power to the People’s Republic: A view from the front-line of China’s tech revolution

Associate professor of music at Grinnell College: felt safer in China than in the U.S.

On 6th March 2020, most shops are closed due to the Coronavirus. The Korean Street is located in Minhang District of Shanghai.

When my family returned to the United States after six weeks of quarantine in Shanghai, our friends and relatives responded with congratulations and relief that we were finally safe. Less than a week since arriving back home, however, we don’t quite share our loved ones’ sentiments. We felt safer in Shanghai as conditions improved than we do in the U.S.

Read more: Associate professor of music at Grinnell College: felt safer in China than in the U.S.

Chinese official Zhao Lijian asks US to be transparent on COVID-19

A Chinese official has suggested that the US army may have brought the deadly coronavirus into China, without providing any evidence for his eyebrow-raising claim.

Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman, made the assertion on Twitter late Thursday, echoing similar conspiracy theories proliferating on Chinese social media that blame the US for the pandemic. (Beijingimpact.com posts Zhao Lijian quoted article here here https://www.beijingimpact.com/society/2758-covid-19-further-evidence-that-the-virus-originated-in-the-us.html)

Read more: Chinese official Zhao Lijian asks US to be transparent on COVID-19

China Bought the West Time. The West Squandered It.

Why did so many countries watch the epidemic unfold for weeks as though it was none of their concern?

Mr. Ian Johnson - a writer based in Beijing.

When I got off my flight from Beijing to London nearly two weeks ago, I knew what I had to do: go straight into self-quarantine.

Read more: China Bought the West Time. The West Squandered It.

USA citizen ‘feels safer’ in China amid coronavirus crisis

After vacationing in Vietnam over the Lunar New Year holiday, Dover High School alumnus Douglas Coleman, 26, headed back to China. That was Jan. 27, less than a week after the Chinese government instated a lockdown in Wuhan in response to the new coronavirus.

Read more: USA citizen ‘feels safer’ in China amid coronavirus crisis

Italian ambassador to the EU: Only China responded bilaterally.

Maurizio Massari is the Italian permanent representative to the European Union.

The coronavirus crisis is not just a national crisis. It’s a European crisis, and it needs to be treated as such.

Read more: Italian ambassador to the EU: Only China responded bilaterally.

Shanxi Bethune Hospital: the Nucleic acid test to confirm coronavirus infection

Nucleic acid test is an important method for clinical diagnosis of new coronavirus infection. The Enhanced Bio Lab of Shanxi Bethune Hospital is in charge of the Nucleic acid test for the whole hospital, that's the battle field against the Coronavirus.

Read more: Shanxi Bethune Hospital: the Nucleic acid test to confirm coronavirus infection