Asia urges vigilance as pandemic shifts away from its original epicenter

With fears increasing that the pandemic will depress U.S. economic growth, the Federal Reserve took emergency action by slashing its benchmark interest rate to near zero and deciding to buy $700 billion in Treasury and mortgage bonds.

Maybe Powell will keep his job for awhile longer now.

Serrano: You May have a good point of the Powell served at the pleasure of the president, but he doesn’t.

China, where the virus was first detected in December, now accounts for less than half of the world's 169,000 cases, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. China has also been surpassed in deaths

That’s at least their version from what they tell us.

If vigilance = testing, Japan can't hear you Asia.

bass4funk:

That’s at least their version from what they tell us.

Well, given how little testing is taking place in countries like USA and Japan, I guess everything cancels out.

Why is Taiwan not mentioned with a word in the article? The country is very successful among Asian neighbors in curbing the outbreak within its territory (67 confirmed; 1 death; 20 recovered, as of Mar. 15), despite closer geography & active human mobility across the Strait. Taiwan is not yet a member of WHO due to Beijing harassment... but that may have worked positively this time; everybody have been confused and misled by WHO's erroneous statements, in favor of CCP.

Well, given how little testing is taking place in countries like USA and Japan, I guess everything cancels out.

The US is doing far more when it comes to testing, distributing kits and screening and treatment compared to Japan that is taking more of a let’s just wait and see approach day to day moments.

This virus gonna stay longer in North America and Europe. The governance systems and civil disobedience of these two regions will make it harder to curb the spreading.

Clearly the freedom of movement afforded to the members of the Schengen Area has played a major role in the spread of the virus within Europe. The lack of a coordinated EU response led to most member states implementing a variety of protocols based on their own specific take on the situation and overall the response was slow and erratic. Maybe one incident best illustrates the issues in Europe. When Italy first started getting pounded, they appealed to the EU's Emergency Response Coordination Centre for assistance with medical supplies and equipment. The ERCC then passed on the appeal to the member states. Not a single member state responded to the appeal. The only outside aid Italy has received is from the Chinese.

In the US the testing was delayed, a definite setback. But it's cranking up now. National guard units trained in emergency response are being activated in a number of states to assist in the local response. The number of test sites have been increased with drive through testing available at a number of locations. The US has incredible resources to bring to bear and once they get their act together they can achieve a lot. Unfortunately the combined effects of social media and the sensationalizing of the situation by broadcast media have led to a disturbing level of mass hysteria that is scary to see. A significant number of Americans have a really high sense of entitlement and what is important to them is all that is important. These are the people that will make everything way more difficult than it has to be and make recovery that much harder for everybody else.

The US is far behind South Korea in dealing with this issue because Donny refused to take it seriously and continues to downplay it. Not to mention he gutted the CDC, etc. Dear lord!