Eighteen firefighters and a forestry worker were killed in the early hours of this morning while battling a forest fire in the mountainous Liangshan district of Sichuan, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported today.

While the number of workplace accidents in China has fallen significantly since the start of the coronavirus (covid-19) epidemic, there have already been several cases of covid-19 infections in enterprises that resumed production without taking the necessary precautions to protect workers.

After a month in which there were virtually no worker protests in China because much of the country was on lockdown, workers are beginning to take collective action again. Many protests have been related to the economic distress caused by the covid-19 epidemic.

Hubei, the province at the centre of the covid-19 epidemic in China, is scheduled to resume normal production on Wednesday 11 March. However, it is still unclear exactly how that resumption will be coordinated.

The majority of medical staff in China’s hospitals are women, and during the coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak, it has been women who have been at the forefront of the battle to contain the epidemic.