The Wall Street Journal - 04.04.2020 - 05.04.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, April 4 - 5, 2020 |A

SINGAPORE—This city-state

ordered most workplaces to

shut and schools to shift on-

line starting next week, ramp-

ing up restrictions as it faces a

rise in novel coronavirus cases

after it beat back the first

wave of infections.

The number of confirmed in-

fections in Singapore crossed

1,100 Friday, doubling in the

past 10 days. Much of that spike

came from imported cases as

students, professionals and

travelers overseas returned. In

recent days, infections transmit-

ted locally also began climbing,

worrying officials that the con-

tagion could spread uncontrolla-

bly among the local population.

Singapore’s announcement

signals that even countries that

acted early and whose strate-

gies are seen as the best in the

world might have to turn to

lockdown-like measures as the

pandemic grows. Singaporean

officials have warned the crisis

likely would last through the

end of the year and perhaps

into 2021, with new waves of

infection emerging as countries

tighten and loosen restrictions.

“Looking at the trend, I am

worried that unless we take fur-

ther steps, things will gradually

get worse or another big cluster

may push things over the edge,”

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong

said in an address. “We have

decided that instead of tighten-

ing incrementally over the next

few weeks, we should make a

decisive move now to pre-empt

escalating infections.”

The effective lockdown will

last at least four weeks,

through two complete incuba-

tion cycles of the virus, but

could extend further if the sit-

uation doesn’t improve. Only

essential businesses and some

sectors that are critical to lo-

cal and global supply chains

can remain open. The govern-

ment has advised residents to

go out only if necessary.

One of the first countries

outside China to report cases of

the virus in January, Singapore

managed to contain the first

wave of infections that swept

through Asia and reached Eu-

rope. For weeks, case counts

went up in small numbers only,

and the city-state avoided the

kind of explosive growth in in-

fections that occurred in parts

of South Korea, Italy and the

U.S. Its containment plan has

won global praise.

In recent weeks as coun-

tries ordered lockdowns, in-

cluding Malaysia and India in

the region, Singapore avoided

sweeping, drastic measures,

opting instead for a series of

what officials described as

brakes to slow the spread.

That included new restrictions

on air travel and limits on how

many people could gather in

one place.

But restaurants remained

open, with seats and tables

marked with tape to indicate

from the start has been sprawl-

ing investigative work to track

where among the city’s nearly

six million people the virus is

spreading.

Health workers and sleuths

trace each individual infection

to try to find its source, or to

uncover links to other cases.

They have identified webs of

connections between most of

the country’s cases, mapped

around churches, bars, old-age

homes and other spots.

Authorities rely on this

data to attack emerging clus-

ters to halt the transmission.

The reason for their recent

alarm: a rise in unlinked cases.

These are cases where investi-

gators can’t figure out where a

sickened person contracted

the infection, nor connect it to

other cases or clusters. That

number is still relatively small,

but has grown in recent days.

“This suggests that there

are more people out there who

are infected but who have not

been identified,” Mr. Lee said.

“And they may be passing the

virus unknowingly to others.”

WORLD WATCH

PAKISTAN

Order Blocks Release

In Daniel Pearl Killing

Pakistani authorities issued an
emergency order to prevent the
release of prisoners who had their
convictions for kidnapping and kill-
ing Wall Street Journal reporter
Daniel Pearl overturned by an ap-
peals court earlier this week.
The order is intended to keep
British national Omar Saeed
Sheikh, convicted of the 2002
murder that same year, and
three Pakistanis convicted as ac-
complices, in jail for three
months while prosecutors seek a
suspension of the appeals court
ruling until it is reviewed by the
Supreme Court.
Judea Pearl, father of the slain
journalist, called the ruling to
overturn the convictions “repre-
hensible” in a tweet after the de-
cision. International attention
should be focused on ensuring
the prisoners aren’t released be-
fore the Supreme Court reviews
the ruling, he said in an emailed
comment.
On Friday, Pakistani Foreign
Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi
said that the court ruling had
undermined the effort and sacri-
fices Pakistan has made fighting
terrorism, as well as its contri-
bution to the peace process next
door in Afghanistan.
—Saeed Shah

POLAND

Presidential Election

Could Be Delayed

Uncertainty deepened in Po-

land on Friday over how and

when the country can move for-

ward with a presidential election

scheduled for May amid the cor-

onavirus pandemic.

President Andrzej Duda has

been leading polls as he vies for a

second five-year term in the vote,

which was initially set for May

10. The governing conservative
    Law and Justice party—which
    supports Mr. Duda—has been in-
    sisting on going ahead with the
    voting, and proposed mail-in vot-
    ing for the entire nation as a way
    of sticking to schedule.
    Parliament had been set to
    vote Friday on the idea for postal
    voting. However, those plans
    were thrown into disarray when
    Jaroslaw Gowin, a deputy prime
    minister who leads a faction in
    the conservative governing coali-
    tion, said his group refused to ac-
    cept any kind of May election.
    He proposed holding the elec-
    tion in two years, a solution that
    would give Mr. Duda a single
    seven-year term that would have
    to be his last. The constitution
    foresees a maximum of two five-
    year terms for a president and it
    would have to be changed for his
    proposal to take effect.
    —Associated Press

RUSSIA

Last Flight Before

Air Ban Is Canceled

The last plane out of Moscow

before a suspension of air traffic

was meant to take hold was can-

celed just before take off Friday,

with passengers forced to evacu-

ate the plane meant to return a

batch of Americans to the U.S.

Additional measures are ex-

pected to come into force by

midnight on Friday, ending air

traffic in and out of the country

completely, a person close to the

country’s flagship air carrier said.

The moves tightened movement

further after Prime Minister

Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree

outlining conduct if a state of

emergency were to be declared.

Aeroflot canceled a flight to

New York on Friday. A video

from inside the plane was

posted to the Instagram account

of ballet dancer Julian Mackay,

who said passengers were asked

to leave the aircraft just before

takeoff. He said he was traveling

home to see his father in Mon-

tana who is suffering from

stage four cancer.

Russia had previously ended

most international air traffic,

though some flights were still

taking place to repatriate Rus-

sians and foreigners.

—Thomas Grove

FATAL ACCIDENT: A freight-train driver was killed Friday in Freiburg, Germany, when a bridge’s concrete slab fell on the tracks.

PATRICK SEEGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

appropriate seating distances.

People could go to offices,

though the government recom-

mended they work from home.

Explaining their new move,

officials said cases in places

such as foreign-worker dormi-

tories and a nursing home had

raised concerns that a single

infection could turn into a

massive cluster or more.

“At today’s level of infec-

tion, our hospitals’ capacity is

still able to cope with the

cases coming in, but we do not

want to wait for a situation

where cases rise sharply and

we get overwhelmed,” said

Lawrence Wong, the minister

for national development.

Core to Singapore’s strategy

After beating back

an initial wave of the

virus, there is a new

increase in cases.

BYNIHARIKAMANDHANA

ANDFELIZSOLOMON

Singapore Restrictions Escalate

more ability to move, others

less, and that creates problems

for the whole architecture.”

Borrowing with European

Central Bank help may not be

ROME—The euro survived
its debt crisis, but the wounds
never fully healed. The coro-
navirus is threatening to re-
open them.
Fighting the pandemic is
causing deep plunges in eco-
nomic activity around the
world and pushing up govern-
ment deficits. Stable access to
borrowing is vital for countries
that know they will have to
cope with a surge in debt for
the second time since 2008.
In Europe’s common cur-
rency zone, that is exposing an
old gap: between financially
secure northern countries
such as Germany and the
Netherlands, and southern
countries whose ability to bor-

BYMARCUSWALKER

row money jointly and spend it

where it is needed most. That

would mean Italy’s debts rise

by less than the money it re-

ceives. But northern countries

fear it would set a precedent

for a European fiscal union in

which their taxpayers subsi-

dize other nations. That is as

unpalatable in Germany as EU-

imposed austerity is in Italy.

If Europe doesn’t share the

debt burden from this emer-

gency, the ECB may have to buy

up southern countries’ extra

borrowing and sit on it forever.

“The debt would remain in na-

tional statistics, but as long as

the central bank holds it, it

ceases to be of economic signif-

icance,” said Paul De Grauwe,

professor of European political

economy at the London School

of Economics. “There can be is-

sues of inflation when central

banks monetize the debt, but

the problem in Europe now will

be how to stop a spiral of defla-

tion,” he says.

enough, say many economists.

“Leaving it only to the ECB

makes the situation more frag-

ile,” said Guntram Wolff, direc-

tor of Bruegel, a nonpartisan

think tank in Brussels. “The

bigger this gets, the more ECB

purchases can become politi-

cally contested, and there can

be legal challenges to the ECB

in Germany,” said Mr. Wolff,

who is German. “There needs

to be a political acknowledg-

ment that we sit in the same

boat. If Italy can’t afford a suf-

ficient fiscal response, it’s not

just a matter for Italy, it’s a

major issue for Germany.”

To put emergency deficit

spending on stronger political

ground and make it work for the

eurozone economy as a whole,

said Mr. Wolff, Europe needs “a

fiscal vehicle that sits between

national responses and the ECB.”

Italy, Spain, France and sev-

eral other countries want a

bolder form of burden sharing:

for eurozone nations to bor-

many’s mass-circulation Bild

newspaper proclaimed in a

message of sympathy for Italy

on Wednesday.

While France and the Euro-

pean Union’s executive have

tried to offer compromise pro-

posals, the specter of a divided

eurozone remains. Unless the

economic shock of lockdowns is

quickly overcome, Italy and

Spain are in danger of emerging

from the crisis as poorer coun-

tries. A renewed depression in

Southern Europe also would be

bad news for northern nations,

whose industries and banks

profit from the overall health of

the region’s economy.

“The eurozone has a suprana-

tional central bank but national

fiscal authorities. Coordinating

between those two is much

more difficult than in the U.K. or

U.S.,” said Mujtaba Rahman, Eu-

ropean head of political-risk

consulting firm Eurasia Group.

“Eurozone fiscal authorities are

willing to act but some have

row is more fragile, such as It-

aly and Spain. Southern euro-

zone nations have less money

to prop up their households

and businesses during the

health emergency, risking

greater economic damage and

a weaker recovery afterward.

The gap is leading to clash-

ing proposals for European fi-

nancial support. Northern of-

fers of loans with strings

attached strike the south as

punitive and inadequate.

Southern clamor to issue joint

bonds sound to the north like a

demand to use its credit card.

Recriminations in March

have given way this week to a

greater understanding in

Northern Europe for the loss

caused by the pandemic. Italy

and Spain have between them

suffered at least 25,000 deaths

from the virus, and their strict

lockdowns are pummeling

economies that still bear scars

from the last financial crisis.

“We are with you,” Ger-

WORLD NEWS

Pandemic Throws Open Eurozone’s Divide

A lasting economic

and political rift looms

unless there is a

strong fiscal response

Yields on eurozone countries’

10-year government bonds

Source: Tullett Prebon

4%

• 
  

0

1

2

3

March April

Greece

Italy

Spain

France

Netherlands

Germany

ECBannounces€750-billion

emergencybond-buyingprogram

Workers in Singapore’s Central Business District. Starting next week, most workplaces will close.

HOW HWEE YOUNG/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Wendy Richards picked the
perfect business for a busy
mom when she took over a
company called the Nappy Lady
about a decade ago. Selling
cloth diapers to Britain’s most
ecoconscious parents, her small
retail operation filled a niche.
In the past three weeks, her
niche has gone mainstream.
Moms and dads, spooked by
shortages of disposable diapers
at supermarkets, are flocking
to her website and turning the
Nappy Lady into a near round-
the-clock operation.
“I have been working 15-
hour days,” the 40-year-old re-
tailer said. “I hate having a
mother at the end of the
phone and can’t help them.”
In the second week of March,
her daily revenue more than
tripled to £19,000 ($23,000).
Recently, she has fielded
pleas from desperate mothers
who can’t get hold of dispos-
able nappies. She has dis-
pensed advice on how to make
diapers out of burp cloths for
those caught short.
“Back in the day, it was the
crunchy hippie,” said Ms. Rich-
ards, a mother of three. That
trend was changing even before
the pandemic. Interest in cloth
diapers ticked up in the after-
math of the financial crisis as
cost-conscious parents turned
to the reusable alternative.
More recently, growing con-
cerns among parents about Wendy Richards

NAPPY LADY

the plastic waste generated by

disposable diapers has grown

her customer base.

This latest surge, however,

is unprecedented.

The U.K. sharply tightened

measures to ensure people

stay home as much as possi-

ble, sparking a wave of panic-

buying in supermarkets.

Some of her longstanding

customers are what Ms. Rich-

ards calls “hard-core environ-

mentalists” who only buy dia-

pers that don’t contain

synthetic or animal-derived

fabrics. But her newest pa-

trons are just interested in

quickly finding alternatives to

disposable diapers.

“In the last two weeks, I ha-

ven’t heard any of that,” she

says, referring to ethical con-

cerns. “No one has given a

monkey’s if it’s organic cotton,

they just want it to be cheap

and on their baby’s bottom.”

Ms. Richards already has

torn through much of her nor-

mally well-stocked ware-

house—where she keeps six to

eight weeks’ inventory. Re-

plenishing that will be a chal-

lenge, she says, as many of her

suppliers are small.

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. For
earlier articles in the series,
visit wsj.com/makingitwork.
BYDENISEROLAND

Fears Boost Business

For the Diaper Lady