38 TheEconomistFebruary 15th 2020
1T
he diamond princess, an 18-deck
cruise ship, has been marooned in the
waters off Yokohama, a port city near To-
kyo, since February 3rd. Japanese officials
in protective suits have brought fresh sup-
plies on board. No passengers are permit-
ted to disembark. Some 3,700 holidaymak-
ers and crew have been quarantined since
an 80-year-old passenger, who left the ship
in Hong Kong, tested positive for the new
coronavirus sweeping China. Since then,
218 of those on board have been infected.
Any infection spreads rapidly on such ves-
sels so passengers are mostly confined to
their cabins. Some are relying on sudoku
puzzles delivered to their rooms by staff for
entertainment. Others have had wine de-
livered by drone. All are anxiously count-
ing the days until February 19th, when their
two weeks of isolation should end.
Most confirmed infections of covid-19,
as the World Health Organisation has just
renamed the disease, are in China. But the
disease is now spreading throughout Asia.
Singapore confirmed its first infection onJanuary 23rd. It has since detected 49 more.
The first 14 identified had all travelled there
from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the
outbreak began. The first cases of local
transmission, traced to a traditional medi-
cine shop frequented by Chinese tourists,
were announced on February 4th.
The arrival of the new coronavirus in
the city-state was predictable. China is Sin-
gapore’s largest trading partner. But it is
spreading elsewhere. Japan says 28 people
have been infected—not including those
confined to the Diamond Princess. Thailand
has identified more than 30 and Malaysia- Along with Singapore they have all con-
firmed cases of local transmission. So has
Vietnam, where 16 people have caught the
disease and 10,000 have been quarantined.
In the Philippines one person has died—
one of two known deaths outside mainland
China. Laos and Myanmar, which share
long land borders with China, say they are
dealing with only a few suspected cases,
though the numbers will surely rise.
Armed insurgent groups in Myanmar, such
as the Kachin Independence Organisation,
have launched public-health campaigns
promoting handwashing.
Others insist they are unaffected by the
virus. Indonesia, with its 6,000 inhabited
islands and 267m people, denies it has a
single case. That would be surprising (see
chart overleaf ), given that 2m Chinese
tourists visit every year. Some 5,000 Chi-
nese visitors to Bali extended their stay
there, fearful of returning home and expos-
ing themselves to the virus. Amin Soeban-
drio, director of the Eijkman Institute for
Molecular Biology in Jakarta, maintains
that the country is more than able to detect
anyone infected. And yet 238 Indonesians
who were evacuated from Wuhan were
quarantined but not tested for covid-19.
The health ministry said that this was be-
cause the arrivals appeared healthy and the
tests are expensive.
Experts suspect there are many more
infections than have been reported. “Any
country that has significant travel back and
forth with China and hasn’t found cases
should be concerned,” cautions Marc Lip-
sitch, a professor of epidemiology at Har-
vard University. Covid-19 has arrived in
Singapore; it would be foolish to think that
it has not spread more widely, he says.Covid-19Curbing the Asian contagion
JAKARTA, SINGAPORE AND TOKYO
China’s neighbours are rushing to contain the spread of the new coronavirusInternational
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