The Wall Street Journal - 19.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Thursday, March 19, 2020 |A

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

ISTANBUL—On a typical
workday, Zafer Sari had his
pick of riders for the passen-
ger seat of his Fiat taxi. At 11
a.m. on Monday, he was drink-
ing tea with fellow drivers at a
small cab stand on the Euro-
pean side of Istanbul.
“At this hour, normally, cli-
ents can’t find a taxi, we can
select them,” he said during
an interview in the heart of a
city known for producing
some of the world’s most inex-
tricable traffic jams. “Now,
we’re struggling to find any
clients—they can select us.”
Mr. Sari, 47, can’t afford to

to the municipality.

Mr. Sari’s income is also in

free fall. His typical daily reve-

nue of about 700 Turkish lira,

or $94, was more than halved

Monday: When his shift ended

at 8 p.m., he had earned only

300 lira.

Mr. Sari said he felt fortu-

nate to own his vehicle and his

taxi license plate. Renting

them would eat more than half

of his normal income. But fig-

uring out a way to drum up

riders isn’t going to be easy.

Rather than go on the

prowl for them and burn fuel

unnecessarily, he opted to wait

BYDAVIDGAUTHIER-VILLARS

A group of 300 Chinese in-
tensive-care doctors began to
arrive in Italy on Wednesday,
one of several Chinese offers to
support epidemic-stricken Eu-
ropean countries, as China tries
to rebrand itself internationally
from source of the new corona-
virus to a friendly helper.

China’s European relief ef-
forts, while welcome, are small
compared with European
health-care needs. One tempo-
rary hospital in Milan alone
will need 500 doctors and
about 1,400 nurses for 400 in-
tensive-care beds. But China’s
initiatives have been accompa-
nied by heavy publicity and
are having a diplomatic im-
pact. China has also sent coro-
navirus test kits and protec-
tive clothing to Italy as well as
other European countries such
as Spain, Poland and Greece.
The help from China has
won particular attention in It-
aly and some other virus-hit
countries where many people
feel let down by the European
Union, whose struggle to orga-
nize any effective action has
left an open door for Beijing to
walk through. No other EU
countries responded to an Ital-
ian plea for masks earlier in
March, and German authorities
temporarily impeded deliver-
ies of medical supplies to Italy.
“It’s good that China is mak-
ing humanitarian gestures, but
it should not be allowed to re-
write the history of where the
virus originated and how their
initial handling of it allowed
for it to spread across the
world,” said Thorsten Benner,
head of the Global Public Policy
Institute, a Berlin-based think
tank. Still, he added: “This is a
shocking failure of European
solidarity. The impression in It-
aly, Spain, Serbia and so on is
that the weaker links will be
left alone” by the EU.
The damage to the EU’s
standing prompted the EU ex-
ecutive, the European Com-
mission, to promise that Italy
would get “whatever is neces-
sary.” EU countries are in-
creasingly facing their own
coronavirus crisis, however,
and are trying to muster all
the supplies and medical staff
they can for domestic use.
China has stepped in with a
diplomatic and humanitarian
campaign that portrays Beijing
as a reliable partner. The Chi-
nese and Italian foreign minis-
tries recently announced a deal
to supply Italy with more venti-
lators, which are in increasingly
short supply in intensive-care
wards of hospitals in northern
Italy. Already last week, a plane
chartered by the Italian Red
Cross arrived in Rome filled
with Chinese medical supplies,
including ventilators and face
masks, and nine medical staff.
China’s coronavirus diplo-
macy has also extended to Bal-
kan countries that haven’t been
able to import medical material
from the EU—including Serbia,
which has long had strong ties
to Beijing. “European solidarity
does not exist. It was a fairy
tale,” President Aleksandar
Vucic said on Sunday.

ByEric Sylvers

in Milan andBojan

Pancevskiin Berlin

Chinese

Doctors

Arrive

In Italy

be idle. Having spent half his

life clocking 12-hour shifts

through the streets of the

Turkish megalopolis, he relies

on the steady income to pay

down a loan for the car and

college fees for two of his four

children.

Turkey has registered two

deaths from 191 confirmed

cases of the new coronavirus,

and authorities have intro-

duced preventive measures to

limit the outbreak.

After stopping flights with

about two dozen countries and

shutting down land borders

with hard-hit neighbors such

as Iran, the government can-

celed all international fairs,

suspended collective prayers

at mosques and closed schools

throughout the country of 82

million.

As economic activity, in-

cluding tourism, slams on the

brakes, demand for cabs has

dwindled. Use of mass trans-

portation declined 48% over

the past five days, according

at the stand.

“The roads are traffic-free

but there is no work,” he said.

One of his colleagues, who

was busy cleaning his car, dis-

played what many Turkish

people see as an effective

weapon to kill viruses: bottles

of cologne stashed in the front

seats’ rear pouches.

Sometimes derided as out-

moded and provincial, the tradi-

tion of using various scents with

80% alcohol as a hand sanitizer

at home, at restaurants and in

long-haul buses, has made a

huge comeback in Turkey since

the coronavirus outbreak.

“I’m offering it to all my

clients,” Mr. Sari said, showing

a bottle of olive-flower co-

logne near the gear shift. “It

feels like welcoming them into

my home.”

The taxi driver said fear

that he could become a vector

of contamination for clients or

his family sank in when the

government announced that

Turkey had recorded its first

diagnosed case last week.

His wife urged him to be

careful, especially upon receiv-

ing ride payment, because

while the car is equipped with

a contactless credit-card ter-

minal, most clients continue to

use cash.

Still, Mr. Sari said he con-

tinues to allow clients to sit

next to him—a widespread

practice in Turkey—and avoids

disinfecting his own hands in

front of them.

“I’d feel ashamed doing

that,” he said. “It would be

like telling customers that

they aren’t healthy.”

Apart from the 1999 earth-

quake near Istanbul that killed

more than 17,000 people, Mr.

Sari can’t recall seeing the

usually bustling city being en-

veloped in such a sense of des-

olation.

“We lived through terrorist

attacks and a coup. It all

passed within a few days or

weeks,” he said. “This could be

the mother of all crises.”

A Turkish Taxi Driver Shifts Into Low Gear as Streets Empty

Zafer Sari offers riders in his taxi alcohol-laden cologne to use as

hand sanitizer, saying ‘it feels like welcoming them into my home.’

DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Malaysia has closed

schools, offices and places of

worship as the country tries to

contain an outbreak of corona-

virus infections linked to an

Islamic religious gathering. At-

tendees of the event have also

taken cases of the virus to

Singapore and Brunei.

In Pakistan, pilgrims who

returned from Iran are testing

positive in large numbers.

Religious gatherings,

closely knit faith groups and

pilgrims have emerged as ma-

jor spreaders of the coronavi-

rus, transmitting the disease

in ways that are proving diffi-

cult to trace and contain.

Over the past week in Mus-

lim-majority Malaysia, author-

ities have reported 513 cases

linked to an Islamic religious

gathering of around 16,

people in the capital Kuala

Lumpur. Infections resulting

from the mass event, which

stretched from late February

to early March, account for

two-thirds of Malaysia’s 790

confirmed cases.

Malaysian health officials

are scrambling to track down

the thousands of men who

were at the prayer meeting to

test and quarantine them.

The fallout extends beyond

Malaysia’s borders. Brunei, a

wealthy Islamic sultanate home

to less than half a million peo-

ple, had no reported infections

until a 53-year-old retiree who

had attended the Malaysia

gathering returned in early

March. He developed a cough

and fever. On March 9, he be-

came Brunei’s first confirmed

coronavirus case.

Cases in Brunei linked to the

event have since grown to 50,

health ministry data show. At

least three Indonesian attendees

tested positive. Singapore re-

ported that five of its residents

who were at the meet were also

infected, and that they went to

10 mosques in the city-state.

Pakistan is grappling with

soaring infections among pil-

grims who returned from Iran,

exacerbated by a poorly man-

aged quarantine facility set up

for them. The Iranian city of

Qom, which many of the Shiite

pilgrims from Pakistan visited,

lies at the center of Iran’s out-

break, among the worst in the

world.

At Pakistan’s quarantine fa-

cility—which has housed nearly

5,000 pilgrims—people are

closely packed together in un-

hygienic surroundings. The

country’s health minister, Zafar

Mirza, said this week that con-

ditions “are not ideal” at the

facility, located in the sparsely

populated Balochistan province.

But the problem is no lon-

ger limited to that area.

Around 2,600 pilgrims who

completed their two-week

quarantine left. Few were

tested there as authorities

didn’t have the necessary fa-

cilities, said Liaquat Shahwani,

a spokesman for the provincial

government of Balochistan.

“It was a makeshift ar-

rangement. This is a desert lo-

cation, not Islamabad,” said

Mr. Shahwani. “We’ve done

what we could.”

Authorities are discovering

the scale of the spread as those

pilgrims are tested in or near

their hometowns. In the south-

ern province of Sindh, out of

274 tested so far, 140 people are

infected, said Saeed Ghani, a

provincial minister. Out of 19

people tested in the northern-

western province of Khyber Pak-

htunkhwa, 15 have the illness.

As a result, coronavirus cases

in Pakistan soared this week, to

247 cases on Wednesday from

52 cases on Sunday. Pakistani

authorities on Wednesday re-

ported the country’s first

deaths. One was a 50-year-old

man who had gone on a reli-

gious pilgrimage to Saudi Ara-

bia, arriving back this month.

In Singapore, authorities

have relied on a strategy of

rigorous contact-tracing oper-

ations to identify potentially

exposed people. But the Ma-

laysia-linked mosque cluster

has presented a challenge.

Mosques don’t have a mem-

bership system and it isn’t

possible to identify and trace

all those who have been to the

many mosques at which the

sickened attendees prayed.

Singapore closed all

mosques for 14 days. After

that period, congregants will

have to bring their own prayer

mats and avoid physical greet-

ings like handshakes.

This isn’t the first instance in

Singapore of religious networks

causing the virus to spread. The

health ministry has linked three

churches to 38 of the country’s

313 confirmed cases. The Roman

Catholic Archdiocese of Singa-

pore suspended in-person Mass,

and broadcasts online instead.

Epidemiologists say that

the intimacy of religious ser-

vices, where hundreds of peo-

ple are packed into enclosed

rooms, greeting each other af-

fectionately and often sharing

food and utensils, makes them

prime locations for the spread

of the coronavirus.

“The issue is of course not

religion itself, but that the virus

can spread quickly to many

people in crowded settings, like

religious gatherings and ser-

vices,” Prime Minister Lee

Hsien Loong said in a recent ad-

dress to the nation.

ByJon Emontin

Singapore andSaeed

Shahin Islamabad

Religious Gatherings Raise Scope of Spread

“All the people who work,

who live by economic activity, by

what they can get day-to-day,

people who make their lives

however they can...we must take

care of them,” he said. “We must

defend this economy.”

Hours later, Mr. Trump said

he would turn back all asylum

seekers and others who entered

the U.S. illegally immediately.

He added that he was seeking

ways to temporarily ban nones-

sential travel over the 2,000-

mile border with Mexico, in-

cluding recreational visits to

dine at restaurants.

The plan will likely require

cooperation from Mexico,

which has appeared resistant to

accepting back non-Mexican

migrants. Foreign Minister

Marcelo Ebrard said Wednes-

day Mexico is willing to work

with the U.S. to address the

coronavirus “at a regional

level.”

For weeks, Mexico has

played down the risk of the

pandemic. The government

hasn’t barred travel from any

country, is screening passen-

gers from only a handful of na-

tions and is still allowing some

large public events and for

schools to operate normally.

The president, 66 years old,

has continued to hold mass

events and his customary week-

end rallies. Last weekend, he

waded into a crowd in the south-

ern state of Guerrero, shaking

hands with well-wishers, and re-

peatedly kissing a baby.

Critics said he was setting a

bad example.

How Mexico handles the pan-

demic could affect the U.S., given

the countries’ close trade and

social relations. Nearly $1.4 bil-

lion in truck and rail freight

crosses the nearly 2,000-mile

U.S.-Mexico border each day,

with shipments spread among

dozens of crossings.

Between pedestrians, per-

sonal vehicles and mass transit,

like buses, there were more

than 188 million border cross-

ings between Mexico and the

U.S. in 2019. Many of those who

crossed were workers and chil-

dren traveling to their jobs or

schools from border cities.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia

Sheinbaum, a López Obrador

ally, resisted calls to cancel the

massive Vive Latino music fes-

tival, held this past weekend.

The festival attracted more

than 115,000 people.

Government health officials

have argued that in Mexico, the

pandemic was still in the early

stages. As of Tuesday night,

Mexico had 93 confirmed cases

of coronavirus infection. No

deaths have been reported.

Mexico’s government plans to

implement a “safe distance pol-

icy” that includes an extended

holiday for public schools, ban-

ning events of 5,000 people or

more, and avoiding handshakes

or Mexico’s traditional kiss on

the cheek greeting. But it said it

wouldn’t implement the mea-

sures until next week.

Many Mexicans, like Italians

at the beginning of the out-

break, have resisted calls for

social distancing. Claudia Mo-

lina, a 42-year-old municipal

worker, attended two large con-

certs last weekend—the re-

union tour of the Argentine

pop-rock band Soda Stereo and

Saturday’s Vive Latino festival,

where she saw hard-rock band

Guns N’ Roses, one of her fa-

vorite groups from her youth.

“We’re not hearing very

much (from the government) so

I don’t think it’s a big deal at

this point,” Ms. Molina said. “I

had a lot of fun.”

—Michelle Hackman

contributed to this article.

MEXICO CITY—Mexico’s

government is resisting imple-

menting strong measures to

slow the spread of the novel

coronavirus, even as President

Trump said he would block the

entry of asylum seekers and

ban nonessential travel across

the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Wednesday morning, Mex-

ican President Andrés Manuel

López Obrador said he wouldn’t

close airports, shut down busi-

nesses or take other steps that

might damage the economy.

“(We face) pressures of all

types. Close the airport, shut

down everything, paralyze the

economy. No,” Mr. López Obra-

dor said at a news conference.

He said that while he was wor-

ried about the epidemic, he had

to act responsibly, especially in

protecting the poor.

BYROBBIEWHELAN

ANDJUANMONTES

Mexico Bides Its Time in Responding

A man wearing a protective mask walked down the steps of a mosque in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. Malaysia has closed places of worship to try to contain the virus.

LIM HUEY TENG/REUTERS

Faith groups and

pilgrims have spread

the virus in ways that

are hard to contain.

As the new
coronavirus
forces big
changes in
how we
work, The Wall Street Jour-
nal is looking at how differ-
ent people are coping with
the stresses and risks.