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China Medicine Transportation

Coronavirus Crisis Disrupting Flow of Mail Into China (cbsnews.com) 45

Posted by BeauHD from the technical-difficulties dept.
According to The Associated Press, the U.S. Postal Service said on Tuesday that it is "experiencing significant difficulties" in dispatching letters, parcels and express mail to China, including Hong Kong and Macau, "because most of its supplier airlines have suspended their flights" to those destinations. As a consequence and "starting immediately," USPS said it can no longer accept items destined for China, Hong Kong and Macao "until sufficient transport capacity becomes available." CBS News reports: Likewise, in another, separate note seen by the AP, Singapore Post told its global counterparts that it is no longer accepting letters, parcels and express mail items destined for China, "until sufficient transport capacity becomes available." The notes were shared with postal services around the world via the Universal Postal Union, a U.N. agency headquartered in Switzerland that is a main forum for postal cooperation between its 192 member countries.

In a statement to the AP, the UPU said that the suspension of flights because of the virus "is going to impact the delivery of mail for the foreseeable future." "But it is hopefully temporary. The Universal Postal Union is carefully monitoring the operational situation, and is in constant contact with postal operators to ensure any backlog is cleared in the shortest possible time," it said. The Chinese mail service, China Post, said it is disinfecting postal offices, processing centers, and vehicles to ensure the virus doesn't travel via the mail and to protect postal staff. The virus does "not survive for long on objects. It is therefore safe to receive postal items from China," said a China Post noted transmitted via the UPU. Letters, parcels and express mail that do still make it to China will be delivered "via non-face-to-face methods," the note said.
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Coronavirus Crisis Disrupting Flow of Mail Into China More

Coronavirus Crisis Disrupting Flow of Mail Into China

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  • DRY mail... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @03:16AM (#59718736) Journal

    The virus does "not survive for long on objects. It is therefore safe to receive postal items from China," said a China Post noted transmitted via the UPU.

    If it's like other coronaviruses (and it seems to be), it can be expected to survive about three hours on a dry surface.

    (This is why I haven't been too concerned about our company's current production hardware and prototypes, which are manufactured in Shenzhen and normally pass through Hong Cong. Any virus that got onto them in China should be dead by the time they get to our site. Even if a crewman was infected and shedding virus they'll still have several hours of ground travel before arriving at our site.)

    But if it gets into something wet, and stays wet, it should be good for at least a week. (And I bet for a lot longer if it's refrigerated. If it doesn't get killed by freezing it should be good for years on ice, too.) So food and drink from China won't be on my menu (or anywhere I have to handle it.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Alwin Henseler ( 640539 )

      It's not facts that matter... It's perception of risks that matter. If accepting parcels from China is perceived to carry risks, that is what will decide policy.

      Also personnel on the planes can carry the virus. The fly in, may pick up the virus, and fly out. Regardless whether plane is bringing or flying out packages. Or passengers. Or both. Again it's the perception of risks that matters.

      Bottom line: trade with China will decline as long as the Coronavirus is a thing because people + companies want to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        In this case, we're not talking about that kind of panic reaction yet. We can't get mail INTO China because of the general disruption in internal Chinese transport.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      But the human pilots flying in are wet, and remain so for significantly longer than 3 days.

      The issue isn't the mail being infected, but the humans going to and from a quarantine zone to deliver it.

  • Which conspiracy is it? (Score:3)

    by Albinoman ( 584294 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @03:19AM (#59718744)
    My guess is it was released by the Chinese government to stop public protests OR by a drone manufacturer down on their luck from new regulations who is trying to spur deliveries by drone. It's probably both.

    • Donning my most conspiratorial tin foil hat I could find I came up with this:

      Based on news reports that this might disrupt global supply chains as well as conspiracy theories from other people on the internet with equally valid (delusion-inducing) tin foil hats, China engineered this just so they could show Donald Trump and the rest of the world just how important China is to the global economy.

      They already have the cure and/or a vaccine which they plan to release when they decide the time is right so they

    • Tin-foil hats aside, why can't it just be God punishing China for Huawei's past security issues.

      I mean, that's if you need an more satisfying explanation than Hubei's preference for bat meat, which I personally do not.
      • Well, if you want to go there, bats are not "clean" to eat (kosher), thus they are not to be eaten.

        Pangolins, another potential source of coronavirus, are illegally trafficked, for the more secular observer. Whether it falls among other non-kosher shelled animals, I'd have to research. I don't eat practice kosher.

        More likely than Huwaei's security sins, though, is the progressive march of China to "social credit" and a totalitarian surveillance state, i.e. the mark of the beast.

        If you want to go

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Don't forget regulatory capture. China is a country with a lot of rules on its books that are pretty much ignored. After all, freedom of speech is guaranteed by their Constitution. They have tough anti-pollution laws that you are free to ignore if you don't create trouble for the Party.

          China is a major breeding ground for emergent viruses, not just because they're *big*, but because everything is *politicized*. John Adams famously defined a "republic" as a "government of laws, not men," by which he meant

          • After all, freedom of speech is guaranteed by their Constitution.

            Agreed. And agreed overall. It isn't how something looks, it's how it actually is.

          • Nope, the reason is: you don't have life animal markets were hundreds of species are traded that are infected but imune and exchange virus particles amoung each other.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hey! ( 33014 )

              And we don't have things like that because?

              • Because it is not in our culture, or simply forbidden, no idea, you tell me. Or do you eat bats or lizards? I don't ...

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hey! ( 33014 )

                  Because we have public health regulations and public health agencies (municipal, county level, state and federal) who intervene. I know, I worked in that field for many years.

                  • But nobody raised in the culture of the west wants to eat bugs, bats, snakes, moneys, or dogs anyway. So such markets would never spring up to need shutting down.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )
              For all the racism around that, the truth is that the virus was taken into the food market by a human, and spread by a human. If it had been a vegan market or whatever your favorite food, it wouldn't have mattered. A human came in and shed virus all over the place. It's not where it crossed into humans, but where the first outbreak occurred. Before that, there were just a few isolated incidents, going back for weeks or months before the market made it impossible to ignore.

              Racism over 'bat soup" or what

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by hey! ( 33014 )

                It actually doesn't follow that a vegetable market could not play a role in spreading this. It spreads by human to human contact.

                It is true that a vegetable market is less likely to be involved in the index case for a zoonosis.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AK Marc ( 707885 )
                  A human walking through a market of any kind, then coughing and sneezing on things will spread a disease. Whether it's a vegetable lasagna or meat lasagna won't matter.

        • Why are bats not kosher?

          • Because an omniscient God knew they weren't beneficial to eat. Seems there's issues like coronavirus involved. That you didn't know this, doesn't mean God didn't. Rather like HIV risk behavior.

            Alternately, you can think of it as eating choices intended to reinforce one's worldview, as a personal practice. Rather like vegetarianism. Except without the omniscient part.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        Well, you can't *disprove* that, can you? So you're welcome to believe it, but in reality the world with seven billion people at the top of the food chain is a microbe's feast.

    • Except that it backfired since virtually everyone in Chinese cities now wear face masks, rendering the face recognition tracking useless.

  • Cliff Clayvin (Score:4)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @03:36AM (#59718756)

    "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

  • INTO China??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @05:49AM (#59718920)

    What about OUT of China?

    I've been waiting for my crap to ship from AliExpress for weeks now. C'mon, where else am I going to get my Navel Paste Affixed To The South Division Moxibustion Sticks Longan Ai Ye Pepper Ai Ai Paste Warm Palace Paste???

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by piojo ( 995934 )

      What about OUT of China?

      I've been waiting for my crap to ship from AliExpress for weeks now. C'mon, where else am I going to get my Navel Paste Affixed To The South Division Moxibustion Sticks Longan Ai Ye Pepper Ai Ai Paste Warm Palace Paste???

      The Chinese New Year slowdown just finished. Most taobao sellers were also not shipping anything until a few days ago. This happens every year.

      • Does the entire country just shut down for a month?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Does the entire country just shut down for a month?

          Yes.

          Chinese New Year is huge, and most people get around 2 weeks off for it (a week before and a week after for travel time back to their home towns).

          You have to remember, they basically are getting the only vacation of the year all at once and are working otherwise.

          Everyone plans around it - Chinese New Year shuts down China, Taiwan and Hong Kong for at least a couple of weeks. Covid-19 has however caused many parts of China to close down even lower Appl

    • Try some habanero powder, it is a miracle cure.

    • You joke, but there is a lot of useful stuff that you can only really get from China. I was in the market for a POST card the other week and I'm convinced that they're no longer manufacturered outside of China. Same deal with most of the game console and handheld hacking tools I've bought, though some of that may be because US manufacturers might get drowned in lawyers.
  • I haven't ordered goods from China for a long time. There are manufacturers and suppliers from other countries. So the product for the end consumer is even cheaper. I have a small business. There is a website for selling home goods and there are affiliate programs that bring me good profits.Now vape is in great demand. I have an affiliate program on Vawoo.co.uk https://vawoo.co.uk/affiliates [vawoo.co.uk]. This requires minimal technical knowledge and does not require the approval of third-party advertisers. I got a aff
    • You are not getting it, take apart any appliance, say a microwave oven to it's bare components. How many parts do you have? How many of them come from China? If you as a small business owner order some module to put in a larger device how many parts does that have? How many of them come from China? A freaking motherboard or any reasonably complicated piece of electronics, how many different parts does it have? Hundreds at least. Something is guaranteed to come from China. A large machine can have bill of ma
  • My guess for the reason many supply chain problems both for manufacturers and retail haven't really been seen/impactful yet is because anyone who has done business with China for any amount of time knows this time of year things grind to a near halt due to the Chinese new year. They likely stocked up on anything needed months ago to carry them though the Chinese new year, now that we are at the time when that ends. The state side stocks are probably starting to dwindle. Likely if things dont get moving agai
    • Takes about a month for cargo ship to get from China to Europe or US, that's why you haven't seen supply issues on bulk products yet. And yes, taking CNY into account is obviously a thing. Also because it takes so long for cargo ships to get from China to anywhere, the crews aren't really an issue, they are basically on floating quarantines plenty long enough.

  • ... this is the one that makes it to /.?

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