A Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games banner is displayed on the wall of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building in Tokyo on April 13, 2021. (Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
SYDNEY / BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN / TEHRAN / BAGHDAD / JAKARTA / VIENTIANE / BEIRUT / MALE / ULAN BATOR / KATHMANDU / WELLINGTON / DOHA / SINGAPORE / SEOUL / COLOMBO / BANGKOK / ANKARA / HANOI – A top medical organization has thrown its weight behind calls to cancel the Tokyo Olympics saying hospitals are already overwhelmed as the country battles a spike in coronavirus infections less than three months from the start of the Games.
The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association representing about 6,000 primary care doctors said hospitals in the Games host city "have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity" amid a surge in infections.
"We strongly request that the authorities convince the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that holding the Olympics is difficult and obtain its decision to cancel the Games," the association said in a May 14 open letter to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga which was posted to its website on Monday.
A jump in infections has stoked alarm amid a shortage of medical staff and hospital beds in some areas of the Japanese capital, promoting the government to extend a third state of emergency in Tokyo and several other prefectures until May 31.
Singapore
Singapore has authorised the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for those aged 12 to 15 years old in a bid to extend protection to more groups as the country tackles a recent increase of infections, officials said on Tuesday.
“The data showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated high efficacy consistent with that observed in the adult population,” the health ministry said in a statement, adding “its safety profile is also consistent with the known safety profile in the adult population”.
The government will also extend the interval between two-dose COVID-19 vaccines to six to eight weeks, from three to four weeks currently, it said.
Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 28 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, including 21 locally-transmitted cases and seven imported ones, bringing the total tally to 61,613.
Of the local cases, 10 are linked to previous cases and 11 are currently unlinked.
Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 32 in the week before to 149 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from seven in the week before to 42 in the past week.
Palestine
The main COVID-19 testing center in Gaza city was damaged due to intensive Israeli fighter jet strikes waged on the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian health official said Tuesday.
Yousef Abu al-Reesh, health ministry director-general in Gaza, told reporters that the COVID-19 testing center in the Remal neighborhood in western Gaza city has completely stopped operating due to the Israeli airstrikes on the area.
He added that a compound, which includes a laboratory, health ministry offices and an outpatient clinic, was badly damaged after several buildings surrounding the compound were completely destroyed by the airstrikes.
He also said that several doctors and health ministry staff were injured following the Israeli destruction of the buildings on Monday night.
The senior health official called on the international community, mainly the World Health Organization, to ensure full protection of the health ministry facilities in the Gaza Strip.
India
India’s total coronavirus cases surged past the 25 million mark on Tuesday, boosted by 263,533 new infections over the last 24 hours, while deaths from COVID-19 rose by a record 4,329.
India becomes the world’s second nation, after the United States, to pass the grim milestone. The country’s total case load is now at 25.23 million, while the death toll is at 278,719, according to health ministry data.
Australia
A team of Australian and American scientists have developed an experimental direct-acting antiviral therapy to treat COVID-19, which has a 99.9 percent success rate on infected mice.
Scientists from the Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ), based at Griffith University, and the City of Hope cancer research centre in California published their findings in Molecular Therapy this week.
They claimed that compared to traditional antivirals, which aimed at reducing symptoms and helping patients recover earlier, the new therapy targets the virus genetically and directly.
The scientists experimented with gene-silencing RNA technology called siRNA to attack the virus' genome and stop it from replicating.
In the trials, scientists used specially designed lipid nanoparticles to deliver siRNA to the lungs of SARS-Cov-2 infected mice.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday said it was still not safe to allow residents fully-vaccinated for COVID-19 to travel overseas, as industries hit hard by the pandemic press for a faster reopening of international borders.
“I understand that everyone is keen to get back to a time that we once knew. But the reality is we are living this year in a pandemic that is worse than last year,” Morrison told reporters.
Morrison said any plans to relax border rules for vaccinated travellers could be implemented “only when it is safe to do so”.
Australia plans to reopen borders to the rest of the world from the middle of 2022 even as the federal budget unveiled last week hopes to fully vaccinate its near 26 million population by the end of this year.
Airlines, tourism operators and universities – reeling from the impact of border bans – have been urging the federal government to fast track the opening of borders.
People queue up for COVID-19 testing in Melbourne on May 12, 2021, after a man tested positive to COVID-19 in the first community case in the city for two months. (WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
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Brunei
The Brunei government on Monday announced the temporary suspension of entry for foreign nationals from four more South Asian countries over COVID-19 concerns.
Brunei has earlier imposed a travel ban on India.
According to a press release from Brunei's Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the temporary suspension on traveling to and from India, imposed on April 27, will be extended until June 13 and will cover four more countries, namely Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Indonesia
Indonesia on Tuesday kicked off a private COVID-19 vaccination program using Chinese vaccines with a mutual cooperation scheme locally known as "gotong royong" in 19 private manufacturing companies in West Java province.
President Joko Widodo said that through this scheme, companies or legal entities can pay for the COVID-19 vaccines for their employees to get injected for free to help achieve herd immunity.
"We hope herd immunity can be awakened soon, thus the spread of COVID-19 can be stopped in this country," said Widodo while observing the vaccination implementation in the Jababeka Industrial Estate in Cikarang area of West Java province.
The president also hoped that with the vaccination efforts, productivity in the industrial sector would recover soon and the country's economy would improve in the second quarter of this year.
The private inoculation scheme uses vaccines produced by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm.
Iran
Iran reported on Monday 14,319 new COVID-19 cases, raising the country's total number to 2,765,485.
The pandemic has so far claimed 77,222 lives in Iran, up by 286 in the past 24 hours, the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education said, official IRNA news agency reported.
Iraq
An Iraqi Ministry of Health official said on Monday that Iraq is still in danger despite the recent decline in daily COVID-19 infections.
"The danger exists and we may witness the spread of other strains of coronavirus, which could make us face greater challenges," Ruba Falah, head of the ministry's media office, said in a press release.
Falah's comment came as a ministry statement reported 3,552 new COVID-19 cases during the past 24 hours, raising the total nationwide number to 1,142,925.
The ministry also reported 41 new COVID-19 deaths, raising the death toll in Iraq to 15,995, while the total recoveries climbed by 5,447 to 1,050,687.
Laos
The Lao government is speeding up the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program to ensure 50 percent of the Lao population is inoculated by the end of 2021.
Vaccination is one of the best ways to contain the spread of COVID-19, Viengkhan Phixay, director of the Mother and Child Health Center under the Lao Ministry of Health, was quoted by local daily Vientiane Times as saying on Tuesday.
Lebanon
Lebanon registered on Monday 201 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections to 535,954, the Health Ministry said.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths from the virus went up by 11 to 7,631.
Maldives
The Maldives' Health Protection Agency (HPA) has detected 1,433 new cases of COVID-19 while 101 have died due to complications from the virus, local media reported on Tuesday.
The new cases detected on Monday raised the country's total number of active cases to 16,997.
Meanwhile, four additional deaths were recorded, raising the total death toll from the virus to 101. According to local media SunOnline, 24 deaths were recorded in the last two weeks, making the month of May the most fatal so far in the Maldives' struggle against the pandemic.
Mongolia
Mongolia's COVID-19 tally rose to 49,524 as 349 new cases were registered over the last 24 hours, the country's health ministry said Tuesday.
Seven more deaths and 877 more recoveries were reported, bringing the national counts to 233 and 42,721 respectively, the ministry said in a statement.
A man wearing PPE suit (Personal Protection Equipment) sits as a body of a COVID-19 fatality is kept at a crematorium in Kathmandu on May 14, 2021. (PRAKASH MATHEMA / AFP)
Nepal
Nepal is getting more oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies from China on Monday as the Himalayan country is battling against COVID-19 amid an acute shortage of medical oxygen and hospital beds.
"A total of 2,500 cylinders brought by Nepali private companies arrived at bordering Tatopani customs points on Monday," Narad Gautam, chief customs officer at the Tatopani customs, told Xinhua. "It is for the first time that oxygen cylinders have arrived through this border point since the second wave of coronavirus hit Nepal last month."
Trade between Nepal and China has been ongoing through two border points, namely Tatopani-Zhangmu and Rasuwagadhi-Geelong.
Nepali customs officials and logistics companies said more oxygen cylinders and other medical goods are arriving in Nepal through the land routes.
New Zealand
New Zealand reported one new case of COVID-19 in managed isolation and no new cases in the community on Tuesday.
The newly imported case came from Indonesia and has remained in a managed isolation and quarantine facility in Auckland, according to the Ministry of Health.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is one, said a ministry statement.
Qatar
The Qatari health ministry on Monday announced 302 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total confirmed number in the Gulf state to 213,485, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
South Korea
Genexine Inc has signed a manufacturing deal for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate with Hanmi Pharm Co Ltd as it prepares to seek emergency use approval of the shot in South Korea and Indonesia, Genexine said on Tuesday.
Hanmi will begin producing 10 million doses of Genexine's experimental COVID-19 vaccine in its biotech plant in Pyeongtaek, with an aim to gradually ramp up production capacity to millions of doses by 2022, Genexine said in a statement.
Hanmi said in a separate statement that the contract was worth 24.5 billion won (US$22 million) and will be followed by additional supply deals.
Genexine is running a Phase 2a clinical trial of the experimental vaccine in South Korea on 150 healthy participants and plans global trials starting in Indonesia, the company said.
South Korea reported 247 more cases of COVID-19 variants for the past week, bringing the total number of such cases to 1,113, the health authorities said Tuesday.
Among the new cases spotted since May 11, 52 were imported from overseas while the remaining 195 were locally transmitted, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka will receive 185,000 Sputnik V vaccines from Russia next week as the country looks to vaccinate its citizens against the coronavirus, a minister said on Tuesday.
State Minister of Pharmaceutical Production, Supply and Regulation, Channa Jayasumana said Sri Lanka will receive the COVID-19 vaccine consignment by May 25, which will be administered to the public immediately.
Jayasumana said Sri Lanka received the first batch of Sputnik V vaccines containing 15,000 doses purchased from Russia on May 4, which have been administered to 14,699 people so far.
Thailand
Thailand reported on Tuesday 35 new coronavirus deaths, a record daily number that included the country's youngest victim up to now, a two-month-old baby, as authorities struggle to contain a third wave of infections.
The Southeast Asian country's latest COVID-19 outbreak has seen infections more than triple and deaths increase six fold since it started in April, following a year of success in containing earlier outbreaks.
The new deaths included a two-month-old baby with a heart condition, the COVID-19 task force said.
Bangkok, the epicentre of the current outbreak, recorded 876 new infections on Monday, still the highest among the country's provinces.
Thailand, already facing its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic, is considering cutting its prison population by as much as 16 percent to counter the rapid spread of infections among inmates and workers in overcrowded facilities.
More than 10,000 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in about a dozen densely-packed Thai prisons.
The outbreak in the correctional system reflects conditions in many parts of metropolitan Bangkok, where infections have spread quickly in dense slums, crowded construction sites and even a government-housing complex. The slow rate of vaccinations has added to the challenge facing authorities.
A healthcare worker prepares Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) mass vaccination site at Portland International Airport (PDX) in Portland, Oregon, US, May 17, 2021. (ALISHA JUCEVIC / BLOOMBERG)
The Philippines
The Philippines ordered 40 million coronavirus vaccine doses from Pfizer Inc, the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest supply agreement as it fights one of the region’s worst outbreaks.
The term sheet for the order has been signed, Carlito Galvez, who leads the nation’s vaccination program, said in a mobile-phone message on Monday evening.
The deal gives a boost to the Philippines, which is targeting to achieve herd immunity this year to help an economy that remained in recession last quarter.
But while the country expects more than 200 million vaccine doses to arrive this year, recruiting as many as 50,000 health workers to administer shots in key cities poses a challenge, Galvez said in a briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte. Most doctors and nurses are still treating COVID-19 patients in hospitals, Galvez said, following a surge in infections that started mid-March.
The government plans to hire midwives, pharmacists, paramedics and medicals students to administer the vaccines, Galvez said. Inoculating workers and the poor will start this month, he said.
The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported 4,487 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 1,154,388.
The death toll climbed to 19,372 after 110 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH said.
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A man fishes on the Galata Bridge in Istanbul on May 17, 2021 after a seventeen days nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19. (OZAN KOSE / AFP)
Turkey
Turkey again brought COVID-19 infection "under control to a great extent" after lockdowns and restrictions during the holy month of Ramadan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.
"We are speeding up vaccination activities as much as the supply program allows. I hope that such comprehensive measures will not be needed from now on," he said at a press conference after the cabinet meeting.
Turkey had imposed a 17-day lockdown since April 29 and the government on Monday launched a gradual easing period in measures until June 1.
Turkey on Monday confirmed 10,174 new COVID-19 cases, including 923 symptomatic patients, raising the total number of cases in the country to 5,127,548, according to its health ministry.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 223 to 44,983, while the total recoveries climbed to 4,961,120 after 13,864 more people recovered in the last 24 hours.
Vietnam
Vietnam has instructed Foxconn Technology Group and Luxshare Precision Industry Co. to temporarily shut their factories amid a virus surge in the northern region, said Le Anh Duong, chairman of the People’s Committee of Bac Giang Province.
“They are implementing our request to temporarily close down entire factories and we will send health officials in to help them reorganize to be able to quickly resume operations and restrain the virus’ spread at the same time,” he said by phone. “We hope to resume operations of these factories in two weeks to limit disruptions to the global supply chain.”
Representatives of Luxshare and Foxconn did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
Four industrial parks – Van Trung, Quang Chau, Dinh Tram and Song Khe-Noi Hoang – were ordered closed starting Tuesday, according to a statement on the provincial government’s website.
Vietnam reported 19 new COVID-19 cases from 6 p.m. local time Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, raising the total confirmed cases in the country to 4,378, according to its Ministry of Health.
The new cases were all local transmissions detected in northern localities, including 13 in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, three in Ha Nam province, two in Dien Bien province and one in Son La province.
All of them are contacts of previously confirmed patients or linked to the clusters of infections in the localities.