China sends masks, experts abroad

Beijing, March 21: As the fight against a new virus shifts to Europe and beyond, China is supplying millions of masks and other desperately needed items to struggling governments, hoping to build political ties and defuse criticism that it allowed the disease to spread early on.

Serbia’s president plans to be at the airport this weekend to welcome a shipment of medical supplies from his “brother and friend,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Xi’s government has flown gloves and protective clothing to Liberia. It is sending 100,000 test kits to the Philippines. More than 10 flights carrying millions of masks and other supplies are bound for the Czech Republic this week.

China, said Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamacek, is “the only country capable of supplying Europe with such amounts.”

It’s part of an effort by the Communist Party to reshape the narrative, from one of early missteps to a nation that acted decisively to bring the outbreak under control. China is touting its deliveries of ventilators and masks overseas and dispatching its medical experts to share the lessons of its success.

China hopes to benefit from a realisation in the West of how difficult it is to bring the virus under control, said Julian Ku, a law professor at Hofstra University in New York.

“The Chinese government’s failures... will be less harshly viewed in light of the failures of other governments to respond effectively as well,” he said.

— AFP A woman on her balcony reaches out to catch a rose delivered to her via a drone on Mothers Day, in the Lebanese coastal city of Jounieh, north of the capital Beirut on Saturday, as people remain indoors in an effort to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Three young Lebanese came up with the idea of delivering roses attached to drones, offered to mothers by their children as a surprise gift. The funds collected from this initiative will be donated to the Lebanese Red Cross to help fight against the CIVID-19 pandemic. Lebanon has been under a general lockdown order for several days, and has reported 206 cases.