The Asian Reporter Pacific Northwest News q Volume 31 Number 4 q April 5, 2021 q www.asianreporter.com Indians gather for Holi celebrations as virus cases surge COLORFUL CELEBRATION. Indians smeared in color participate in Holi festival celebrations in Gauhati, India, on March 29, 2021. Hindus threw colored powder and sprayed water during massive Holi celebrations despite many Indian states restricting gatherings to try to contain a coronavirus resurgence rippling across the country. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) By Sheikh Saaliq to stay at home to avoid turning the authorities have tightened travel situation can be controlled if vaccination is The Associated Press festivities into superspreader events amid restrictions and imposed night curfews. It opened up for more people and COVID-19 the latest virus surge. is considering a strict lockdown. protocols are strictly followed. EW DELHI — Hindus threw India’s confirmed infections have Cases are also rising in the capital of India, with a population of more than 1.3 colored powder and sprayed water exceeded 60,000 daily over the past week New Delhi and the states of Punjab, billion, has vaccinated around 60 million Nin massive Holi celebrations from a low of about 10,000 in February. Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, people, of which only 9 million have despite many Indian states restricting The health ministry reported 68,020 new Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh. received both doses of vaccine so far. gatherings to try to contain a corona- cases on March 29, the sharpest daily rise The surge coincides with multi-stage However, more than 60 million doses virus resurgence rippling across the since October last year. It took the state elections marked by large gatherings manufactured in India have been exported country. nationwide tally to more than 12 and roadshows, and the Kumbh Mela, or abroad, prompting widespread criticism Holi marks the advent of spring and is million. pitcher festival, celebrated in northern that domestic needs should be catered to widely celebrated throughout Hindu- Daily deaths rose by 291 and the virus Haridwar city, where tens of thousands of first. majority India. Most years, millions of has so far killed more than 164,000 people Hindu devotees daily take a holy dip into The government said last week that people throw colored powder at each other in the country. the Ganges river. there would be no immediate increase in in outdoor celebrations. But for the second The latest surge is centered in the Health experts worry that unchecked exports. It said vaccines would be given to consecutive year, people were encouraged western state of Maharashtra where gatherings can lead to clusters, adding the everyone over age 45 starting April 1. The Asian Reporter 922 N. Killingsworth St. Please report all Portland, OR 97217 USA hate crimes committed The Asian Reporter is published on the first Monday each month. against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. <www.stopaapihate.org> <www.doj.state.or.us> <www.ReportHatePDX.com> Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER ASIA / PACIFIC April 5, 2021 China vaccinating entire city in 5 days after outbreak BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese border city hit by a fresh outbreak of COVID-19 began a five-day drive on April 2 to vaccinate its entire population of 300,000 people. State broadcaster CCTV showed people lining up and getting vaccinated in Ruili, where 16 cases were confirmed in just days. Twelve are Chinese and the other four are nationals of Myanmar, which lies across the border. A city Communist Party official told CCTV the previous day that 159,000 doses of vaccine had arrived in the city. Television footage showed vacant streets as ARTISTIC ARCHIVING. Chinese artist Yang Qian uses dots to re-create an aerial view of Wuhan, China while under officials ordered people to home quarantine and closed non-essential businesses. lockdown, at her studio in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province. Yang, who worked as a volunteer delivering vital sup- The city has also said it would tighten controls around the porous border to try to plies to hospitals and residents during the city’s 76-day pandemic lockdown, is using her artwork to make sure that history stop anyone crossing illegally from Myanmar. China has largely eradicated local is not forgotten. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) transmission of COVID-19 and quickly rolls out strict measures whenever a new cluster emerges. This is the first time China has tried to vaccinate an entire city One Good Thing: An artist preserves in response to a new outbreak. The move comes as the government is ramping up a nationwide vaccination drive. Wuhan’s COVID memories Indonesia’s Merapi volcano spews ash, debris By Emily Wang Fujiyama masks. YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted The Associated Press As she made her rounds, she took on again, releasing plumes of ash high into the air and sending streams of lava and requests from residents and strangers, UHAN, China — Scribbled debris down its slopes. No casualties were reported. An avalanche of rocks delivering much needed supplies from instructions for incoming patients spilled down Mount Merapi’s slopes before dawn and clouds of hot ash shot 656 medicine and disinfectant to food. Sleep was at plastered on the window of a silent feet into the air as the mountain groaned and rumbled, said Hanik Humaida, W a premium as deliveries at times ran into the hospital reception counter. A lone worker in a the head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center. early morning hours. hazmat suit, steadily spraying disinfectant in The volcano unleashed hot clouds of ash as well as a series of pyroclastic flows — Her first post-pandemic artwork, an empty hospital hallway. a mixture of rock, debris, lava, and gasses — that reached nearly 1.2 miles down “Reception,” grew out of the experience of Such scenes from the height of the its slopes, Humaida said. The 9,737-foot-high volcano is on densely populated accompanying a mother and daughter to a coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan — moments Java island near the ancient city of Yogyakarta. It is the most active of dozens of hospital in early February. The two had of fear and desperation as well as unity and Indonesian volcanoes and has repeatedly erupted recently. Indonesia’s developed COVID-19 symptoms after the resilience — are etched in the mind of artist Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center advised villagers living father died at home from the disease and, Yang Qian. on Merapi’s slopes to stay 3.1 miles from its crater and be aware of the peril of desperate, took to social media for help. lava. Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people. Indonesia, an One year on, she is channelling those Yang saw the post and found a hospital archipelago of 270 million people, sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a memories into artwork to preserve the willing to accept the pair, but was told that no horseshoe-shaped area along the edge of the ocean that is prone to earthquakes memory of the central Chinese city’s 76-day ambulances were available. and volcanic activity. lockdown that upturned the lives of some 11 With public transportation closed, the only million people. In a way, that’s an extension of Japan’s Toyota, Isuzu, Hino join in truck technology tie up solution was to bicycle to the hospital, with her work as a volunteer delivering vital Yang leading the way. TOKYO (AP) — Japanese automakers Toyota, Isuzu, and Hino say they are supplies to hospitals and residents during the At the reception desk, she saw instructions setting up a partnership in commercial vehicles to work together in electric, traumatic period, while also reflecting the for new patients haphazardly taped on its hydrogen, connected, and autonomous driving technologies. Under the deal, pride many residents take in having window, some scribbled by hand. Stretched to Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s top automaker, and truckmaker Isuzu Motors will weathered the outbreak and draconian their limit, hospital staff would point to the each take a 4.6% stake in each other, the three companies said in a joint measures taken to bring it under control. window instead of answering questions. statement. Hino Motors is Toyota’s truck division and had been Isuzu’s rival. “To express what I’ve seen in a realistic way, “It made me feel a kind of oppression, a kind The 39 million shares of Isuzu common stock that Toyota is acquiring are worth this is the responsibility I’ve given myself. I of fear,” Yang said. “Everyone, especially the 42.8 billion yen, or about $400 million. Isuzu will acquire Toyota shares worth also hope that much of the history should not doctors, are spending time only to rescue the same value, they said. The three companies combined control 80% of the be forgotten,” Yang said. patients.” Japanese truck market. Toyota, which makes the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid, A painter by trade, she felt helpless in the She meticulously reproduced the scene in an and Lexus luxury models, sold off in 2018 a 5.9% stake in Isuzu it had bought in face of an unknown virus ravaging her beloved oil painting, right down to its torn papers and 2006. Earlier, Isuzu had a capital tie-up with U.S. automaker General Motors. hometown in January 2020. Fear gripped the scribbled notices. The cooperation among Toyota, Isuzu, and Hino is designed to reduce emissions city as authorities abruptly shut its residents by building hydrogen infrastructure, and to help solve the nation’s shortage of A second oil painting followed based on a in their homes and froze transport links on drivers by sharing information online and making deliveries more efficient.