Los Angeles Times - 18.03.2020

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MEXICO CITY — Amid
mounting global dread
about coronavirus, the 12
young airline passengers ap-
parently stirred scrutiny be-
cause of their facial attire —
they all donned protective
masks.
According to Mexican au-
thorities, that was the origin
of suspicions that led Presi-
dent Nayib Bukele of El Sal-
vador on Monday to air an
incendiary accusation:
Twelve travelers with
COVID-19 were about to
board an Avianca jet Mon-
day afternoon from Mexico
City to San Salvador.
“I ask all the people who
are thinking of boarding
that flight, DON’T DO IT,”
tweeted Bukele, who de-
nounced Mexican officials as
“irresponsible” for allowing
the dozen “confirmed pos-
itive” individuals to travel
freely.
“Those who board the
flight are putting their fam-
ilies’ lives at grave risk,” the
Salvadoran president wrote.
“The crew is also at risk....
These patients should be
isolated, not circulating in
the airport.”
Provocative — but “abso-
lutely false,” said Hugo
López-Gatell, Mexico’s dep-
uty health secretary.
The episode, he said, was
a lamentable example of
misinformation and rumor
trumping facts as panic
mounts about the virus.
“Completely distorted,”
López-Gatell said of the Sal-
vadoran president’s ac-
count.
None of the travelers
were suffering from
COVID-19, according to an
“exhaustive and careful
medical inspection” of the 12,
López-Gatell told reporters
in Mexico City late Monday.
The 12 Salvadorans ar-
rived Monday morning at
Mexico City’s airport from
Chicago, intending to trans-
fer to an Avianca flight to
San Salvador, according to
Mexican officials. They all
wore protective masks.

Avianca canceled the

connecting flight to San Sal-

vador after the Salvadoran

president’s Twitter warn-

ings and thanked Bukele

“for alerting us about the pa-

tients with COVID-19 in-

tending to board the flight.”

The social media-savvy

Salvadoran president —

with 1.4 million Twitter fol-

lowers — never offered proof

of his Twitter assertions

that the 12 were “confirmed”

cases of COVID-19. The alle-

gation apparently blind-

sided Mexican officials and

sent medical authorities

scrambling to examine the

12 at Mexico City’s airport.

In a testy exchange with

Marcelo Ebrard, the Mexi-

can foreign secretary,

Bukele cast doubt on Mexi-

co’s denials. “It’s impossible

that in 1 hour to have exam-

ined 12 people for COVID-

when ... you would have had

to wait 7 hours for results,”

Bukele wrote.

Mexican authorities in-

sisted that Bukele’s charac-

terization of the 12 as “con-

firmed” cases was baseless.

“They never had ... any

reason to be tested for

COVID, which makes it im-

possible to speak of con-

firmed cases,” said the Mexi-

can deputy health secretary.

The Salvadoran presi-

dent offered to send a “spe-

cial plane” to Mexico City to

transport the 12 back to El

Salvador. “These young peo-

ple are Salvadorans, they

are our responsibility,”

Bukele wrote. “What I can-

not allow is that they board

along with 200 other passen-

gers and crew.”

He ordered the closing of

the San Salvador airport

Monday to passenger air-

craft. Bukele later reopened

the facility, though all flights

from Mexico remained sus-

pended, he said.

The 12 travelers appar-

ently remained in Mexico

City on Monday night. It was

unclear when or how they

would be able to continue

their trip home.

Special correspondent

Cecilia Sánchez contributed

to this report.

Mexico, El Salvador clash over virus claim

A PASSENGER gets her temperature taken last week at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City.

Pedro PardoAFP/Getty Images

By Patrick J.
McDonnell

SINGAPORE — At the

end of last month, thou-

sands of Muslim missionar-

ies from two dozen countries

congregated at a sprawling

mosque complex outside the

Malaysian capital for a week-

end of prayer.

Now authorities in multi-

ple countries are searching

for people who attended the

event, a key driver of a surge

in coronavirus cases across

Southeast Asia that has

prompted sweeping new

travel restrictions and social

distancing measures.

Malaysian health offi-

cials said Tuesday that they

had traced more than 400 in-

fections — and one death —

to the four-day gathering at

the Seri Petaling mosque

outside Kuala Lumpur from

Feb. 27 to March 1. The gath-

ering is the source of more

than half of the country’s

nearly 700 recorded cases of

COVID-19, the most in

Southeast Asia.

Experts worry that many

more infections could still

emerge: As of Monday respi-

ratory samples had been col-

lected from fewer than one-

quarter of the roughly 14,

Malaysians who attended

the event. Almost 6,000 peo-

ple were yet to be located.

An additional 1,500 at-

tendees came from overseas.

Five countries — Singapore,

Thailand, Cambodia, Indo-

nesia and Brunei — have

identified coronavirus infec-

tions in citizens who at-

tended the gathering.

The mosque event, held

before Muslim-majority

Malaysia had announced

any significant social dis-

tancing measures, has accel-

erated a second wave of in-

fections across a closely

connected Southeast Asian

region that until now has

managed to keep a lid on the

epidemic.

Mosque leaders at first

resisted the idea that the

gathering was connected to

the spread of the virus, with

one official quoted as saying

he didn’t want the institu-

tion’s name “tied to all sorts

of perceptions.” Health offi-

cials also said for days that

5,000 Malaysians had at-

tended the event, before

raising the latest estimate to

nearly three times that num-

ber.

At the time, “Malaysians

were still in a state of

relative complacency about

the need for social distanc-

ing,” said Khor Swee Kheng,

a Malaysian physician and

public health specialist.

No longer: Malaysia an-

nounced Monday that it

was closing its borders for

two weeks, barring its citi-

zens from traveling abroad

and shuttering all religious

institutions, government of-

fices, schools and busi-

nesses. Organizers of the

missionary gathering this

week urged attendees to get

screened.

Prime Minister Muhyid-

din Yassin said “drastic

moves” were needed to stop

the virus’ spread.

The decision is expected

to have immediate repercus-

sions in neighboring Singa-

pore, the wealthy city-state

where hundreds of thou-

sands of Malaysians work,

many commuting across the

border daily. Singapore,

which has won praise for

managing its outbreak while

avoiding the large-scale

shutdowns seen in the U.S.

and elsewhere, has recorded

an uptick in infections in re-

cent days. Most of the new

cases are residents who are

believed to have been ex-

posed to the virus while

overseas, including at least

five who were at the mosque

event in Malaysia.

After Singaporean au-

thorities traced the move-

ments of the five infected

people and found they had

visited at least 10 mosques

after they returned, the

country’s Islamic Religious

Council said it would sus-

pend activities at all

mosques for two weeks.

The Singaporean govern-

ment this week ordered trav-

elers returning from other

Southeast Asian countries

to isolate themselves at

home for 14 days. Malaysia

was exempted from the or-

der because of the close

economic ties between the

countries, but officials said

this week that they had not

ruled out stricter measures.

“The increasing number

of cases from the religious

meeting in Malaysia is a con-

cern, but the control strate-

gy remains the same,” said

Ooi Eng Eong, deputy direc-

tor of the emerging infec-

tious diseases program at

Duke-NUS Medical School

in Singapore.

“We will not be able to

undo the transmission that

has happened, but we can

minimize the likelihood of

new chains of transmission

from forming.”

The mosque event went

relatively unnoticed until

March 9, when a 53-year-old

man tested positive for the

coronavirus in his home

country of Brunei. Author-

ities there said he had re-

turned from Kuala Lumpur

on March 3 and begun show-

ing symptoms four days lat-

er — the first coronavirus

case in the small, oil-rich na-

tion on the island of Borneo.

By Tuesday, Brunei had

recorded 54 cases, most

linked to the Malaysian

gathering.

Cambodia said that of 33

people infected, 22 had at-

tended the mosque event.

Officials in Thailand said

that two Thais who attended

the event had tested positive

for the coronavirus, but they

were still searching for some

of the kingdom’s 132 partici-

pants.

Provincial religious af-

fairs committees have been

urged to help locate attend-

ees and get them to report to

health authorities.

The rise in cases has

spread worry across a region

of tightly packed urban

areas and limited medical

infrastructure. As one of the

more economically devel-

oped countries in Southeast

Asia, Malaysia is seen to

have better testing capacity

than its regional neighbors.

“It is inevitable that the

number of cases in Malaysia

will continue to rise,” Khor

said.

“However, with the range

of movement restrictions

announced by the govern-

ment, complacency in

Malaysian society could be

broken, leading everyone to

take the outbreak more seri-

ously and adopt social dis-

tancing measures.”

Mosque event sends cases soaring in Asia

By Shashank Bengali

CORONAVIRUS