The Wall Street Journal - 07.04.2020

(coco) #1

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Tuesday, April 7, 2020 |A


aren’t mandatory.
South Korea, which has
been seen as a model of how
to tackle the pandemic with
widespread testing, is doing
more to limit public gather-
ings as the weather warms.
In Seoul, bus stops on
streets lined with cherry blos-
soms were closed over the
weekend to keep people from
flocking to see the flowers.
Last week, the northeast-
ern city of Samcheok used
tractors to dig up a display of
bright-yellow rapeseed flow-
ers that was the size of eight
soccer fields. Visitors came to
see it despite signs saying the
annual flower festival was
canceled, according to a city
official.
“If the people had partici-
pated in social distancing
more actively, we would have
seen much better results,”
South Korea’s vice health min-
ister, Kim Gang-lip, said Mon-
day.
Although the number of
new cases in South Korea fell
Monday to the lowest level
since February, officials were
worried about a possible sec-

ond sharp rise. Movement
among citizens increased by
20% over the weekend com-
pared with late February—
when infections shot up—ac-
cording to South Korea’s
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
East Asian countries were
among the first to report new

coronavirus cases given their
proximity to China. They took
various steps to limit the vi-
rus’s spread—Japan closed
most schools in early March—
but stopped short of trying to
keep the entire country at
home all day.
Mr. Abe hesitated to de-
clare a state of emergency,

which economists said was
likely to cause the economy to
shrink more rapidly. On Mon-
day, he said he was planning
to propose an economic pack-
age worth about $1 trillion,
equivalent to 20% of Japan’s
annual output, including more
than $50 billion in direct cash
payments to families.
Singapore has used sophis-
ticated tracing operations to
identify people who might
have been exposed, isolate
them and prevent emerging
clusters from growing. The
country’s strategy kept the
disease from spreading widely
for two months without large-
scale disruptions to everyday
life.
South Korea had a surge in
infections that quickly made it
the most seriously affected
country by the virus in Asia
after China. Instead of impos-
ing social controls, it imple-
mented a broad program of
testing for the virus and
tracking techniques like Sing-
apore that helped it bring the
infection rate under control.
—Suryatapa Bhattacharya
contributed to this article.

Countries in Asia that had
avoided harsh restrictions on
activity are now tightening
controls after new infections
and lax observance of volun-
tary curbs threatened their
successes in restraining the
new coronavirus.


On Monday, Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
said he would declare a state
of emergency in major popu-
lation centers after an accel-
eration of virus cases in re-
cent days, particularly in
Tokyo, the center of the
world’s most populous urban
region.
The declaration, expected
Tuesday, will ask people to
stay home unless absolutely
necessary and call for all pub-
lic gatherings to be suspended
for about a month. Mr. Abe
said the move is necessary be-
cause infections are increas-
ing rapidly and hospitals are
facing a crisis.
Singapore also has experi-
enced a surge in new virus
cases, prompting the govern-
ment on Friday to announce
significantly tighter restric-
tions that are set to last
through May 4. The city-state
recorded 120 new coronavirus
cases Sunday, its highest sin-
gle-day increase. More than
half haven’t been linked to ex-
isting cases or clusters of in-
fection.
“The elderly like to hang


ByAlastair Gale,
Niharika Mandhana
andDasl Yoon

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC


out in the hawker centers”—
open-air food courts—“and
coffee shops with their
friends. The young people like
to go out with their buddies
and their friends in malls,”
said Lawrence Wong, co-chair
of Singapore’s task force to
fight the virus. “But all of this
cannot be tolerated anymore.”
Japan and Singapore are
among several Asian nations
that have avoided the thou-
sands of deaths experienced
in the U.S. and many countries
in Europe. Both had hoped to
avoid stricter measures that
could cripple their economies.
That became more difficult
in recent days when it became
clear that normal daily life
was contributing to the
spread of the virus. Tokyo
Gov. Yuriko Koike urged Mr.
Abe to declare an emergency
as infections in the capital
surged past 1,000 cases, about
a third of the national total.
Like in Singapore, it isn’t
known in many of those cases
how people got infected.
“Tokyo is certainly a dan-
gerous place right now,” said
Kentaro Iwata, an infectious-
disease specialist at Kobe Uni-
versity in western Japan.
In Singapore, most work-
places will close Tuesday and
employees must either work
from home or stop working
altogether. Schools will move
online the following day. Sin-
gaporeans have been asked to
leave their homes only if they
need to buy food or other gro-
ceries and to exercise alone or
with a family member.
Japan will ask shops and
businesses that have many
customers, such as movie the-
aters and hotels, to close in
major urban areas. Trains will
continue to run, and most of
the government requests

Asian Nations


Now Adding


Strict Curbs


Facing a new wave of


coronavirus cases,


some countries are


ordering shutdowns


Tokyo’s Kabuki-cho entertainment district, which has seen a disproportionately high number of coronavirus infections, was bustling on
Monday. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, below, said he would declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and other centers as cases rise.

CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES

FRANCK ROBICHON/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Staying home


saves lives.


For more information, visit


coronavirus.gov

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