A youth receives the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic in Phnom Penh on Aug 1, 2021. (PRING SAMRANG / AFP)
MELBOURNE / ADEN / PHNOM PENH / NEW DELHI / TEHRAN / BAGHDAD / JERUSALEM / ULAN BATOR / ISLAMABAD / SINGAPORE / COLOMBO / BANGKOK / MANILA – Cambodia will begin offering a third dose or booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine to frontline health workers, civil servants and armed forces in seven provinces along the Cambodia-Thailand border on Sunday, a health ministry's spokesperson said on Saturday.
Those provinces include Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Pailin, Koh Kong, Oddar Meanchey, Pursat and Preah Vihear, health ministry's secretary of state and spokeswoman Or Vandine said in a statement.
"The move is to fight against COVID-19, particularly the Delta variant, which may spread into our community on a large scale if we all have not taken timely measures to prevent it," she said.
Vandine said Britain's AstraZeneca vaccine will be used as the booster shots for those who had already been vaccinated with China's Sinovac or Sinopharm vaccines in their first two doses.
Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said last Sunday that the country decided to mix Sinovac or Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccine shots as boosters, meaning that those who had been vaccinated with Sinovac or Sinopharm vaccine would be given AstraZeneca jab as the third dose, and vice versa.
Cambodia on Saturday reported a daily record of 522 COVID-19 cases including 135 imported cases, pushing the national caseload to 81,335, the ministry said, adding that 11 more fatalities were recorded, bringing the death toll to 1,537.
A health worker takes a swab sample at a COVID-19 drive-through testing site in western Sydney on Aug 7, 2021. (SAEED KHAN / AFP)
Australia
The delta outbreak worsened across Australia’s biggest cities, with cases in Sydney and Melbourne hitting fresh highs for the current outbreak.
Sydney recorded 319 new cases, New South Wales state’s Minister for Health Brad Hazzard told reporters on Saturday. There were 5 deaths.
Victoria had 29 new cases, according to a tweet from the state’s health department, the most in the current wave of infections. Queensland added 13, the state’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Jeannette Young said.
Since the highly contagious variant leaked into Sydney’s community in mid-June, the delta strain has caused havoc on Australia’s eastern coast, its most populated area. About two-thirds of the country’s population is in lockdown, including its three largest cities.
Delta is placing increased pressure on the nation’s so-called “COVID-zero” strategy, which has relied on closed international borders and rigorous testing to eliminate community transmission of the virus. Even as other developed nations such as the US and UK open up, Australia’s economy – particularly the domestic tourism and retail sectors – is increasingly being hit by the outbreaks.
The central bank estimates household spending dropped about 15 percent during the lockdown and has acknowledged the economy will likely contract this quarter. Still, it expects a robust recovery to resume, and this week decided to stick with plans to taper bond purchases.
Plans to reopen have been hampered by a tardy vaccine roll-out. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been criticized by health experts and the main Labor opposition, amid accusations he botched the nation’s good start to managing the pandemic by refusing to adjust a fragile hotel-quarantine system that’s seeing more leaks due to delta, along with failing to quickly secure vaccine contracts with a broad range of suppliers.
Morrison last week said the country would begin reopening and start to avoid snap lockdowns once 70 percent of the entire adult population had been fully vaccinated.
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India
India has approved Johnson & Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Saturday, health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a tweet.
The pharmaceutical giant had applied for emergency use approval of its vaccine, the company had said on Friday. The shot will be brought to India through a supply agreement with homegrown vaccine maker Biological E Ltd, J&J had said.
Indian health authorities have so far approved the use of vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Bharat Biotech, Russia's Gamaleya Institute and Moderna.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 31,895,385 on Saturday as 38,628 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
Besides, as many as 617 deaths were recorded since Friday morning, taking the death toll to 427,371.
Indonesia
Coronavirus cases are starting to ease in Indonesia’s main Java island but are spreading fast in its outer regions, spurring a rush for vaccination amid a limited supply.
Almost half of new daily cases are now found outside of the most populated island of Java, which is home to about 60 percent of Indonesians and has the largest concentration of wealth. The nation already tops the world’s daily count of COVID-19 deaths.
Iran
The Iranian health ministry reported on Friday 34,913 new COVID-19 cases, taking the country's total infections to 4,092,671.
The pandemic has so far claimed 93,086 lives in Iran, up by 458 in the past 24 hours, the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education said in a briefing published on the ministry's official website.
Iraq
The Iraqi Ministry of Health reported on Friday 11,435 new COVID-19 cases and 87 deaths, the highest daily fatalities this year, taking its nationwide death toll to 19,087.
The caseload of the coronavirus in Iraq increased to 1,696,390, while the total recoveries in the country climbed by 8,667 to 1,510,888, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
An ultra-orthodox Jewish man wearing a prayer shawl and medical mask reads a booklet at a market in the centre of Jerusalem on Aug 5, 2021. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)
Israel
Israel's Ministry of Health reported 3,994 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the tally of infections in the country to 893,105.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Israel rose by seven to 6,516, the ministry said.
The number of active cases rose to 28,329, the highest since March 13, while the number of patients in serious condition decreased from 262 to 257, the ministry added.
Mongolia
Mongolia's COVID-19 tally rose to 172,069 after 972 more local infections were recorded over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said Saturday.
A total of 5,758 samples were tested across the country in the past day.
Meanwhile, five more COVID-19 related deaths were reported in the past day, bringing the national tally to 873, the ministry said in a statement.
Pakistan
Pakistan on Friday confirmed 4,720 new COVID-19 cases, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Saturday.
The NCOC, a department leading Pakistan's campaign against the pandemic, said that the country's number of overall confirmed cases had risen to 1,063,125, including 959,491 recoveries.
Singapore
Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 97 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total tally in the country to 65,605.
The new infections included 93 locally transmitted cases, of which 56 were linked to previous cases and have already been placed on quarantine, eight were linked to previous cases and were detected through surveillance, and 29 were currently unlinked.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's Army Chief and Head of the National Operations Center for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak General Shavendra Silva said on Friday that a countrywide lockdown would not be imposed in the wake of a spike in COVID-19 cases but restrictions on public gatherings would come into immediate effect.
Silva said in an announcement that following a meeting with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in which stakeholders briefed the president on the current situation of COVID-19 spread, it was decided that a countrywide lockdown was not required but the number of people attending weddings, funerals, and other public events should be limited.
Accordingly, wedding attendees at places where the capacity is over 500 will be limited to 150 guests while the places of less than 500 capacity will be limited to 100 guests.
Also, a maximum of 25 people will be allowed to attend funerals at any given time with effect from midnight Saturday.
Silva said all state festivals will also be postponed until Sept 1 while the attendance of government servants should be decided by the head of the institution.
Sri Lanka is in the midst of a third wave of the pandemic with medical officials warning that the Delta Variant may be spreading beyond control.
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Thailand
Thailand on Saturday saw record new daily coronavirus infections as the highly-contagious delta variant continues to spread across the country.
The Southeast Asian nation added 21,838 new infections while it saw 212 deaths, the first time the daily total surpassed 200. About 60 percent of Thailand’s new coronavirus cases in recent days have been reported from outside the capital and its surrounding provinces, the current epicenter of the outbreak.
The Bank of Thailand earlier this week cut its 2021 gross domestic product growth forecast to 0.7 percent from 1.8 percent due to the latest outbreak and restrictive measures such as curfews and business closures to contain it.
The Philippines
The Philippines' health ministry recorded on Saturday 11,021 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day case increase in almost four months, and 162 additional deaths.
In a bulletin, the ministry said total confirmed infections in the Philippines have increased to almost 1.65 million, while deaths have reached 28,835.
"We are already feeling the effects of the Delta variant in our country," health ministry undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told a public briefing on Saturday. "Based on our projections, these cases will continue to rise."
In this July 7, 2021 photo, a man receives a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre on the outskirts of Yemen's embattled province of Marib in the country's northeast. (PHOTO / AFP)
Yemen
Yemen's internationally-recognized government reported on Friday a new rise of the daily COVID-19 cases following a relative decline during the past weeks.
In the government-controlled Yemeni provinces, the health authorities officially recorded 27 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the southern port city of Aden and neighboring towns.
The health ministry said that 15 new cases were officially detected in Aden, five in Hadramout province, three in Shabwa province, two in Taiz province, and two in Lahj province, bringing the total confirmed cases to 7,131.
It said that the medical teams recorded one death in the country's southeastern province of Hadramout, raising the death toll from the virus to 1,384.
Last week, the United Nations warned that COVID-19 cases have increased in Yemen over recent days, triggering fears that the war-torn Arab country is facing the third wave of the pandemic.
So far, just over 310,000 vaccine doses have been administered in Yemen, meaning that only 1 percent of its population have got their first dose. This takes place against a backdrop of dire humanitarian needs, conflict and the threat of famine, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).