A year ago, the Chinese government locked down the city of Wuhan. For weeks beforehand officials had maintained that the outbreak was under control - just a few dozen cases linked to a live animal market. But in fact the virus had been spreading throughout the city and around China.

This is the story of five critical days early in the outbreak.

By 30 December, several people had been admitted to hospitals in the central city of Wuhan, having fallen ill with high fever and pneumonia. The first known case was a man in his 70s who had fallen ill on 1 December. Many of those were connected to a sprawling live animal market, Huanan Seafood Market, and doctors had begun to suspect this wasn't regular pneumonia.

Samples from infected lungs had been sent to genetic sequencing companies to identify the cause of the disease, and preliminary results had indicated a novel coronavirus similar to Sars. The local health authorities and the country's Center for Disease Control (CDC) had already been notified, but nothing had been said to the public.

Although no-one knew it at the time, between 2,300 and 4,000 people were by now likely infected, according to a recent model by MOBS Lab at Northeastern University in Boston. Cases the outbreak was also thought to be doubling in size every few days. Epidemiologists say that at this early part of an outbreak, each day and even each hour is critical.

30 December 2019: Virus alert

At around 16:00 on 30 December, the head of the Emergency Department at Wuhan Central Hospital was handed the results of a test carried out by sequencing lab Capital Bio Medicals in Beijing.

She went into a cold sweat as she read the report, according to an interview given later to Chinese state media.

At the top were the alarming words: "SARS CORONAVIRUS". She circled them in bright red, and passed it on to colleagues over the Chinese messaging site WeChat.

Within an hour and a half, the grainy image with its large red circle reached a doctor in the hospital's ophthalmology department, Li Wenliang. He shared it with his hundreds-strong university class group, adding the warning, "Don't circulate the message outside this group. Get your family and loved ones to take precautions."

When Sars spread through southern China in late 2002 and 2003, Beijing covered up the outbreak, insisting that everything was under control. This allowed the virus to spread around the world. Beijing's response invoked international criticism and - worryingly for a regime deeply concerned about stability - anger and protests within China. Between 2002 and 2004, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) went on to infect more than 8,000 people and kill almost 800 worldwide.

ver the coming hours, screen shots of Li's message spread widely online. Across China, millions of people began talking about Sars online.

It would turn out that the sequencers made a mistake - this was not Sars, but a new coronavirus very similar to it. But this was a critical moment. News of a possible outbreak had escaped.

The Wuhan Health Commission was already aware that there was something going on in the city's hospitals. That day, officials from the National Health Commission in Beijing arrived, and lung samples were sent to at least five state labs in Wuhan and Beijing to sequence the virus in parallel.

ow, as messages suggesting the possible return of Sars began flying over Chinese social media, the Wuhan Health Commission sent two orders out to hospitals. It instructed them to report all cases direct to the Health Commission, and told them not to make anything public without authorisation.

Within 12 minutes, these orders were leaked online.

It might have taken a couple more days for the online chatter to make the leap from Chinese-speaking social media to the wider world if it wasn't for the efforts of veteran epidemiologist Marjorie Pollack.

The deputy editor of ProMed-mail, an organisation which sends out alerts on disease outbreaks worldwide, received an email from a contact in Taiwan, asking if she knew anything about the chatter online.

Back in February 2003, ProMed had been the first to break the news of Sars. Now, Pollack had deja vu. "My reaction was: 'We're in trouble,'" she told the BBC.

Three hours later, she had finished writing an emergency post, requesting more information on the new outbreak. It was sent out to ProMed's approximately 80,000 subscribers at one minute to midnight.

31 December: Offers of help

As word began to spread, Professor George F Gao, director general of China's Center for Disease Control [CDC], was receiving offers of help from contacts around the world.

China revamped its infectious disease infrastructure after Sars - and in 2019, Gao had promised that China's vast online surveillance system would be able to prevent another outbreak like it.

But two scientists who contacted Gao say the CDC head did not seem alarmed.

"I sent a really long text to George Gao, offering to send a team out and do anything to support them," Dr Peter Daszak, the president of New York-based infectious diseases research group EcoHealth Alliance, told the BBC. But he says that all he received in reply was a short message wishing him Happy New Year.

Epidemiologist Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York was also trying to reach Gao. Just as he was having dinner to ring in the New Year, Gao returned his call. The details Lipkin reveals about their conversation offer new insights into what leading Chinese officials were prepared to say at this critical point.

"He had identified the virus. It was a new coronavirus. And it was not highly transmissible. This didn't really resonate with me because I'd heard that many, many people had been infected," Lipkin told the BBC. "I don't think he was duplicitous, I think he was just wrong."

Lipkin says he thinks Gao should have released the sequences they had already obtained. My view is that you get it out. This is too important to hesitate."

Gao, who refused the BBC's requests for an interview, has told state media that the sequences were released as soon as possible, and that he never said publicly that there was no human-to-human transmission.

That day, the Wuhan Health Commission issued a press release stating that 27 cases of viral pneumonia had been identified, but that there was no clear evidence of human to human transmission.

It would be a further 12 days before China shared the genetic sequences with the international community.

The Chinese government refused multiple interview requests by the BBC. Instead, it gave us detailed statements on China's response, which state that in the fight against Covid-19 China "has always acted with openness, transparency and responsibility, and … in a timely manner."

1 January 2020: International frustration

International law stipulates that new infectious disease outbreaks of global concern be reported to the World Health Organization within 24 hours. But on 1 January the WHO still had not had official notification of the outbreak. The previous day, officials there had spotted the ProMed post and reports online, so they contacted China's National Health Commission.

"It was reportable," says Professor Lawrence Gostin, Director of the WHO Collaborating Center on national and global health law at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and a member of the International Health Regulations roster of experts. "The failure to report clearly was a violation of the International Health Regulations."

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist who would become the agency's Covid-19 technical lead, joined the first of many emergency conference calls in the middle of the night on 1 January.

"We had the assumptions initially that it may be a new coronavirus. For us it wasn't a matter of if human to human transmission was happening, it was what is the extent of it and where is that happening."

It was two days before China responded to the WHO. But what they revealed was vague - that there were now 44 cases of viral pneumonia of unknown cause.

China says that it communicated regularly and fully with the WHO from 3 January. But recordings of internal WHO meetings obtained by the Associated Press (AP) news agency some of which were shared with PBS Frontline and the BBC, paint a different picture, revealing the frustration that senior WHO officials felt by the following week.

"'There's been no evidence of human to human transmission' is not good enough. We need to see the data," Mike Ryan WHO's health emergencies programme director is heard saying

The WHO was legally required to state the information it had been provided by China. Although they suspected human to human transmission, the WHO were not able to confirm this for a further three weeks.

"Those concerns are not something they ever aired publicly. Instead, they basically deferred to China," says AP's Dake Kang. "Ultimately, the impression that the rest of the world got was just what the Chinese authorities wanted. Which is that everything was under control. Which of course it wasn't."

2 January: Silencing the doctors

The number of people infected by the virus was doubling in size every few days, and more and more people were turning up at Wuhan's hospitals.

But now - instead of allowing doctors to share their concerns publicly - state media began a campaign that effectively silenced them.

On 2 January, China Central Television ran a story about the doctors who spread the news about an outbreak four days earlier. The doctors, referred to only as "rumour mongers" and "internet users", were brought in for questioning by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau and 'dealt with' 'in accordance with the law'.

One of the doctors was Li Wenliang, the eye doctor whose warning had gone viral. He signed a confession. In February, the doctor died of Covid-19.

The Chinese government says that this is not evidence that it was trying to suppress news of the outbreak, and that doctors like Li were being urged not to spread unconfirmed information.

But the impact of this public dressing down was critical. For though it was becoming apparent to doctors that there was, in fact, human-to-human transmission, they were prevented from going public.

A health worker from Li's hospital, Wuhan Central, told us that over the next few days "there were so many people who had a fever. It was out of control. We started to panic. [But] The hospital told us that we were not allowed to speak to anyone."

The Chinese government told us that "it takes a rigorous scientific process to determine if a new virus can be transmitted from person to person".

The authorities would continue to maintain for a further 18 days that there was no human-to-human transmission.

3 January: Secret memo

Labs across the country were racing to map the complete genetic sequence of the virus. Among them was a renowned virologist in Shanghai, Professor Zhang Yongzhen who began sequencing on 3 January.

After having worked for two days straight, he obtained a complete sequence. His results revealed a virus that was similar to Sars, and therefore likely transmissible.

On 5 January, Zhang's office wrote to the National Health Commission advising taking precautionary measures in public places.

"On that very day, he was working to try and get information released as soon as possible, so the rest of the world could see what it was and so we could get diagnostics going", says Zhang's research partner, Professor Edward Holmes an evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney.

But Zhang could not make his findings public. On January 3, the National Health Commission had sent a secret memorandum to labs banning unauthorised scientists from working on the virus and disclosing the information to the public.

"What the notice effectively did," says AP's Dake Kang, "is it silenced individual scientists and laboratories from revealing information about this virus and potentially allowing word of it to leak out to the outside world and alarm people."

None of the labs went public with the genetic sequence of the virus. China continued to maintain it was viral pneumonia with no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.

It would be six days before it announced that the new virus was a coronavirus, and even then, it did not share any genetic sequences to allow other countries to develop tests and begin tracing the spread of the virus.

Three days later, on 11 January, Zhang decided it was time to put his neck on the line. As he boarded a plane between Beijing and Shanghai, he authorised Holmes to release the sequence.

The decision came at a personal cost - his lab was closed the next day for "rectification" - but his action broke the deadlock. The next day state scientists released the sequences they had obtained. The international scientific community swung into action, and a toolkit for a diagnostic test was publicly available by 13 January.

Despite the evidence from scientists and doctors, China would not confirm there was human-to-human transmission until 20 January.

At the beginning of any emerging disease outbreak, says health law expert Lawrence Gostin, it's always chaotic. "It was always going to be very difficult to control this virus, from day one. But by the time we knew [the international community] it was transmissible human to human, I think the cat was already out the bag, it already spread.

"That was the shot we had, and we lost it."

As Wang Linfa, a bat virologist at Duke-Nus Medical School in Singapore, says: "January 20th is the dividing line, before that the Chinese could have done much better. After that, the rest of the world should be really on high alert and do much better."

Malaysia had proposed to remove an assets company

 The Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project was terminated because Malaysia had proposed to remove an assets company that had previously been agreed on, Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday (Jan 4), Mr Ong said that the original agreement between Singapore and Malaysia on the HSR had included the setting up of an assets company to act as a systems supplier and network operator of the HSR service, which would, in turn, ensure that the interests of both countries were protected.When Malaysia proposed to remove the assets company, Singapore was unable to agree to this “particularly significant change”, which constitutes a “fundamental departure” from the HSR bilateral agreement signed by the two neighbours in 2016, Mr Ong said.Mr Ong was responding to a question from Workers’ Party Member of Parliament (MP) Louis Chua, who had asked the minister to specify the substantive points of differences that had led to the HSR’s cancellation. The project was terminated on Jan 1, after both countries failed to reach an agreement on changes proposed by Malaysia by the deadline of Dec 

Secrecy clause prevents disclosure of HSR payoff for Singapore, says M'sia ministerMr Ong said: “As the HSR is a cross-border service, it must be a single-train system operating between Singapore and KL, and Malaysia.“Because neither country has the experience and expertise in operating a HSR, we agreed under the HSR (bilateral agreement) to appoint a best-in-class industry player through an open and transparent international tender to assume the role of the assets company.”

Once appointed, the assets company would supply the train system, operate the network, ensure that appropriate priority is given to cross-border HSR service vis-a-vis Malaysia’s domestic service, he added.Pointing out that the assets company would be accountable to both countries, Mr Ong added: “To Singapore, (the) assets (company) is the centrepiece of the HSR project. It is necessary to ensure that the interests of both countries are protected.“This will minimise the possibility of future disagreements and disputes over the long duration of the project lasting decades.”

Notwithstanding the termination of the project, Mr Ong said that Singapore will be willing to discuss any new proposals relating to the HSR from Malaysia in good faith. Such a discussion, however, would have to start from a clean slate, after Malaysia compensates Singapore in accordance with the parties former agreement, he said.The compensation would include costs already incurred by Singapore in fulfilling its obligations under the HSR bilateral agreement, such as the setting up of SG HSR, an infrastructure company that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Land Transport Authority.

Mr Ong said he is unable to reveal the exact amount of compensation that Malaysia will have to pay Singapore, due to confidentiality obligations under the HSR agreement, but he revealed that Singapore had so far spent more than S$270 million on the project.This sum includes abortive costs for various components, such as the consultancy services, design of infrastructure and manpower hired to deliver the HSR project, but it does not include land acquisition costs as the value of the land can be recovered, he said.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/failed-hsr-project-msia-wanted-remove-assetsco-which-was-needed-protect-both-countries

 

 

Better luck next time. our dearest brother did not get the position and he has to try it, starting everything from the beginning.

it is of course, not easy in this tough time but he must not give up, keep on trying and trying. there is no other way.

With finger crossed, hope for the best for our dearest brother to get the job he had been waiting for this year.

All the best wishes.

Indeed, it must be a very long winter this year, especially when he was retrenched. We are in the same shoes many years ago and learned our lessons well, never take things for granted.

There are things best left unsaid, better to leave them alone.

 José Mourinho refused to be drawn into discussions about whether Harry Kane and Son Heung-min form the best duo he has managed as Tottenham prepared for their match against Crystal Palace on Sunday. Instead, Mourinho affirmed his two most prolific attacking players were “world class”.

“I don’t like to compare players, and some weeks ago I saw in some special media like I had chosen my all-time team,” Mourinho said. “It’s completely fake because it’s something I always refuse to do. Never.

I owe so much to my players that I would never say: ‘This is my favourite keeper, this is my favourite centre-back, this is my favourite striker.’ Never. I never do that. I don’t compare players. I’m just grateful to players that gave everything for me. Sonny and Kane, without comparing them with other players, they are, I repeat, world-class players. World-class players. I’m not telling anything different than that.”

Kane has eight league goals and 12 assists and he has engineered eight of Son’s 10 goals. The quality of their performances and synergy on the pitch have helped to drive Tottenham to the top of the league, culminating in Mourinho being announced on Friday as manager of the month for November. It is the fourth time he has achieved the distinction.

Although Mourinho is notorious for often speaking about his achievements and titles in singular form, he notably chose to recognise his squad when asked to comment on his latest distinction. It was a reflection of the strong collective culture he has succeeded in fostering at Tottenham, which he is understandably focused on maintaining.

“It is not about me, it is about the team and if it was about me it would have to be the coaching staff of the month because without the other guys it would not be possible. This kind of thing I never feel it as an individual award, I always feel that it belongs to the team and the results we did. If we don’t have three victories and one draw at Stamford Bridge in November, for sure we wouldn’t have any chance to win it. It is about the team.”

I forgive my employer

 She was an Indonesian domestic helper who earned S$600 (£345) a month working for an extremely wealthy Singaporean family.

He was her employer, a titan of Singapore's business establishment and the chairman of some of the country's biggest companies.

One day, his family accused her of stealing from them. They reported her to the police - triggering what would become a high-profile court case that would grip the country with its accusations of pilfered luxury handbags, a DVD player, and even claims of cross-dressing.

Earlier this month, Parti Liyani was finally acquitted.

"I'm so glad I'm finally free," she told reporters through an interpreter. "I've been fighting for four years."

But her case has prompted questions about inequality and access to justice in Singapore, with many asking how she could have been found guilty in the first place.

Ms Parti first began working in Mr Liew Mun Leong's home in 2007, where several family members including his son Karl lived.

In March 2016, Mr Karl Liew and his family moved out of the home and lived elsewhere.

Court documents that detail the sequence of events say that Ms Parti was asked to clean his new house and office on "multiple occasions" - which breaks local labour regulations, and which she had previously complained about.

A few months later, the Liew family told Ms Parti she was fired, on the suspicion that she was stealing from them.

But when Mr Karl Liew told Parti that her employment was terminated, she reportedly told him: "I know why. You are angry because I refused to clean up your toilet."

She was given two hours to pack her belongings into several boxes which the family would ship to Indonesia. She flew back home on the same day.

While packing, she threatened to complain to the Singapore authorities about being asked to clean Mr Karl Liew's house.

The Liew family decided to check the boxes after Ms Parti's departure, and claimed they found items inside that belonged to them. Mr Liew Mun Leong and his son filed a police report on 30 October.

Ms Parti said had no idea about this - until five weeks later when she flew to Singapore to seek new employment, and was arrested upon arrival.

Unable to work as she was the subject of criminal proceedings, she stayed in a migrant workers' shelter and relied on them for financial assistance as the case dragged on.

Ms Parti was accused of stealing various items from the Liews including 115 pieces of clothing, luxury handbags, a DVD player and a Gerald Genta watch.

Altogether the items were said to be worth S$34,000.

During the trial, she argued that these alleged stolen items were either her belongings, discarded objects that she found, or things that she had not packed into the boxes themselves.

In 2019, a district judge found her guilty and sentenced her to two years and two months' jail. Ms Parti decided to appeal against the ruling. The case dragged on further until earlier this month when Singapore's High Court finally acquitted her.

Justice Chan Seng Onn concluded the family had an "improper motive" in filing charges against her, but also flagged up several issues with how the police, the prosecutors and even the district judge had handled the case.

He said there was reason to believe the Liew family had filed their police report against her to stop her from lodging a complaint about being illegally sent to clean Mr Karl Liew's house.

The judge noted that many items that were allegedly stolen by Ms Parti were in fact already damaged - such as the watch which had a missing button-knob, and two iPhones that were not working - and said it was "unusual" to steal items that were mostly broken.

In one instance, Ms Parti was accused of stealing a DVD player, which she said had been thrown away by the family because it did not work.

Prosecutors later admitted they knew the machine could not play DVDs, but did not disclose this during the trial when it was produced as evidence and shown to have worked in another way. This earned criticism from Justice Chan that they used a "sleight-of-hand technique… [that] was particularly prejudicial to the accused".

In addition, Justice Chan also questioned the credibility of Mr Karl Liew as a witness.

The younger Mr Liew accused Ms Parti of stealing a pink knife which he allegedly bought in the UK and brought back to Singapore in 2002. But he later admitted the knife had a modern design that could not have been produced in Britain before 2002.

He also claimed that various items of clothing, including women's clothes, found in Ms Parti's possession were actually his - but later could not remember if he owned some of them. When asked during the trial why he owned women's clothing, he said he liked to cross-dress - a claim that Justice Chan found "highly unbelievable".

Justice Chan also questioned the actions taken by police - who did not visit or view the scene of the offences until about five weeks after the initial police report was made.

The police also failed to offer her an interpreter who spoke Indonesian, and instead offered one who spoke Malay, a different language which Ms Parti was not used to speaking.

"It was very worrying conduct by the police in the way they handled the investigations," Eugene Tan, Professor of Law at Singapore Management University told BBC News.

"The district judge appeared to have prejudged the case and failed to pick out where the police and prosecutors fell short."

The case has touched a nerve in Singapore where much of the outrage has centred on Mr Liew and his family.

Many have perceived the case as an example of the rich and elite bullying the poor and powerless, and living by their own set of rules.

Although justice ultimately prevailed, among some Singaporeans it has rattled a long-held belief in the fairness and impartiality of the system.

"There hasn't been a case like this in recent memory," said Prof Tan.

"The apparent systemic failures in this case have caused a public disquiet. The question that went through many people's minds were: What if I was in her shoes? Will it be fairly investigated… and judged impartially?

That the Liews were able to have the police and the lower court fall for the false allegations have raised legitimate questions about whether the checks and balances were adequate."

Following the public outcry, Mr Liew Mun Leong announced he was retiring from his position as chairman of several prestigious companies.

In a statement, he said he "respected" the decision of the High Court and had faith in Singapore's legal system. But he also defended his decision to make a police report, saying: "I genuinely believed that if there were suspicions of wrongdoing, it is our civic duty to report the matter to the police".

Mr Karl Liew has remained silent and has not released any statement on the matter.

The case has triggered a review of police and prosecutorial processes. Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam admitted "something has gone wrong in the chain of events".

What the government does next will be watched very closely. If it fails to address Singaporeans' demands for "greater accountability and systemic fairness", this may lead to "a gnawing perception that the elite puts its interests above that of society's," wrote Singapore commentator Donald Low in a recent essay.

"The heart of the debate [is] whether elitism has seeped into the system and exposed a decay in our moral system," former journalist PN Balji said in a separate commentary.

"If this is not addressed to satisfaction, then the work of the helper, lawyer, activists and judge will be wasted."

The case has also highlighted the issue of migrant workers' access to justice.

Ms Parti was able to stay in Singapore and fight her case due to the support of the non-governmental organisation Home, and lawyer Anil Balchandani, who acted pro bono but estimated his legal fees would have otherwise come up to S$150,000.

Singapore does provide legal resources to migrant workers, but as they are usually their families' sole breadwinners, many of those who face legal action often decide not to fight their case, as they do not have the luxury of going for months if not years without income, according to Home.

"Parti was represented steadfastly by her lawyer who… fought doggedly against the might of the state. The legal resource asymmetry was just so stark," said Prof Tan.

"It was a David versus Goliath battle - with the Davids emerging triumphant."

As for Ms Parti, she has said that she will now be returning home.

"Now that my problems are gone, I want to return to Indonesia," she said in media interviews.

"I forgive my employer. I just wish to tell them not to do the same thing to other workers."