Iranian women cross a street in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 20, 2021, amid restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)SYDNEY / COLOMBO / ANKARA / ULAN BATOR / PHNOM PENH / ISLAMABAD / WELLINGTON / NEW DELHI / MANILA / SEOUL / VIENTIANE / HANOI / BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN / SUVA / KUALA LUMPUR / JAKARTA / DUBAI – One person is now dying from COVID-19 every two minutes in Iran, state TV reported on Monday, as the Middle East’s worst-hit nation reported a new record daily toll of 588 fatalities.
With authorities complaining of poor social distancing, state media report hospitals in several cities have run out of beds for new patients. Some social media users have criticized the clerical establishment over slow vaccinations, with only about 4 percent of the 83 million population fully inoculated.
Total deaths have reached 94,603, the ministry said, while cases rose by 40,808 in the past 24 hours to 4,199,537 in a fifth wave blamed on the highly transmissible Delta variant.
"Every two seconds one person gets infected in Iran and almost every two minutes one person dies from the coronavirus," state TV reported, adding that most of Iran's 31 provinces have moved from the lower risk orange level to red alert.
That compares to a reported rate of about one death per three minutes a month ago.
Iran's new President Ebrahim Raisi, who received his first dose of a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine in public on Sunday, has urged officials to speed up vaccinations and to use "all necessary means" for curbing the pandemic, state media reported.
Australia
Australia expanded a COVID-19 lockdown to a rural town and the coastal region of Byron Bay on Monday, as fears grew that the virus has spread from Sydney to the northern tip of the country's most populous state.
Tamworth, a farming town 414 km northwest of Sydney, and Byron Bay, a tourist spot about 770 km north of Sydney, will both enter a seven-day lockdown, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Neither Tamworth nor Byron Bay has yet recorded a COVID-19 case, but Berejiklian said two infected people had contravened travel bans and traveled there.
New South Wales reported 283 locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, up from 262 cases a day earlier.
Neighboring Victoria state said it would ease restrictions after reporting 11 new COVID-19 cases, the same as the previous day.
Melbourne would remain in lockdown – for the sixth time since the pandemic begun – until at least Aug 12.
In Brisbane, capital of Queensland, authorities reported four new local cases on Monday, the first day after the city came out of stay-at-home restrictions.
Australia has reported about 36,250 cases and 939 deaths, including a woman in her 90s whose death in Sydney was reported on Monday.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said all Australians over 16 will be offered a vaccine by the end of the year, with prospects for achieving that boosted on Monday when the pharmaceutical regulator gave provisional approval for the Moderna shot.
READ MORE: Australian PM's popularity slumps amid lockdowns
India
India's COVID-19 tally on Monday rose to 31,969,954 on Monday as 35,499 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, according to the latest data provided by the federal health ministry.
The death toll went up by 447 to 428,309 while the number of active cases stood at 402,188, down 4,634 compared to the past day, according to the data.
Mumbai will allow fully vaccinated citizens to travel my train from Aug 15.
Addressing the citizens over webcast late Sunday, Uddhav Thackeray, Chief Minister of India's western state of Maharashtra, which has Mumbai as its political capital said, "There will be an app for this where the person can get the pass to travel. There is also a system for those who don't have smartphones. We will have an offline system too."
The state government has also made an appeal to corporate offices in the city to stagger working hours and allow those who can continue to work from home.
Spread over 390 km, Mumbai Railway operates 2,342 train services carrying 7.5 million commuters daily and is the busiest commuter rail system in the world. It is spread across three corridors, Western, Central and Harbor lines.
People wait to be monitored for possible side effects after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination center in Seoul, South Korea, Aug 5, 2021. (AHN YOUNG-JOON / AP)
South Korea
South Korea's Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol apologized for COVID-19 vaccine shortages on Monday, saying US drugmaker Moderna Inc would deliver less than half the 8.5 million doses it had been due to ship in August due to production issues.
Kwon said the government had complained to Moderna, and a high-level delegation would be visiting the company to discuss how best to remedy the situation.
Earlier Monday, South Korea began opening COVID-19 vaccine reservations for all adults over 18 for the first time, as the country scrambles to stave off a rise in sporadic outbreaks, many of them among young, unvaccinated residents.
South Korea was praised for its handling of the virus in the beginning of the pandemic with thorough tracing and testing, but a slow vaccination uptake has overlapped with surge in more transmissible variants.
Some 45 percent of South Korea's 52 million population have had at least one dose of vaccine, while just 15 percent have been fully vaccinated as of Sunday midnight.
The country reported 1,492 new cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Sunday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 212,448.
Meanwhile, four more deaths were confirmed, taking the death toll to 2,125.
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's Health Ministry on Sunday received a new batch of Sinopharm vaccine from China as a mass scale vaccination program against the COVID-19 is underway in the country.
The vaccines arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport, onboard two Sri Lankan Airlines flights that flew in from Beijing.
Sri Lanka is presently in the midst of a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with over 500 deaths reported during the past 10 days alone.
The total COVID-19 active patient count has reached 28,664 while the total death toll has reached 5,017.
According to the Health Ministry, Sri Lanka has administered over 10 million vaccines to date with over 8.7 million Sinopharm doses administered as the first jabs. Out of this, over 1.9 million had been administered with their second jabs as well.
The other vaccines being administered countrywide are Sputnik V, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and the Moderna vaccines.
Turkey
Turkey on Sunday registered 22,699 new COVID-19 cases, raising its tally of infections to 5,918,540, according to its health ministry.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 108 to 52,196, while 5,835 more people recovered in the last 24 hours.
READ MORE: S. Korea to compensate nurse paralysed after COVID-19 shot
Lebanon
Lebanon registered on Sunday 1,552 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of cases to 571,650, the Health Ministry reported.
Meanwhile, death toll from the virus went up by five cases to 7,943.
Around 21 percent of the people in Lebanon have already administered their both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Health experts have been urging people to register for vaccination amid a resurgence in infections.
Lebanon has been fighting against the pandemic since Feb 21, 2020.
In this photo taken on March 4, 2021, vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 are seen as elderly people are inoculated amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, at the Belisario Porras school San Francisco neighbourhood in Panama City. (LUIS ACOSTA / AFP)
Israel
Most people who received a third dose of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine felt similar or fewer side effects than they did after receiving the second shot, according to an initial survey in Israel.
Israel began offering the booster shots about 10 days ago to people over age 60 as part of efforts to slow the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. That effectively turned Israel into a testing ground for a third dose before approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit, said on Sunday it had administered a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to more than 240,000 people.
Israel's Ministry of Health reported 2,594 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the tally of infections in the country to 899,920.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Israel rose by six to 6,541, the ministry said.
The number of active cases decreased to 30,111, while the number of patients in serious condition increased from 324 to 363, the ministry added.
The total recoveries from the virus in Israel climbed to 863,268 after 4,213 newly recovered cases were added.
Brunei
Brunei reported 17 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, including 15 local infections and two imported cases, bringing the national tally to 364.
According to Brunei's Ministry of Health, five of the new cases were classified as the Al-Falah Cluster and seven of the new cases belonged to the TOTAL Cluster. All 12 patients are close contacts of earlier infections detected on Saturday.
Investigation is currently ongoing to identify the source of infection for the rest of three local cases, who have mild symptoms but no overseas traveling history.
Meanwhile, the imported cases are two men who arrived in the country on Aug. 4 from Manila, the Philippines.
The health ministry said that contact tracing for all these new cases is still actively running.
Thailand
Thailand reported 19,603 new COVID-19 cases and 149 deaths, close to the record daily infections of more than 20,000 at the weekend.
The number of total daily recoveries were 19,819, according to government data.
Mongolia
Mongolia registered 1,071 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the tally to 174,603, the health ministry said Monday.
Five more deaths were reported, taking the total death toll to 884, the ministry said.
So far, 67.7 percent of the country's total population has received their first dose while 61.4 percent has been fully vaccinated, according to the ministry.
Cambodia
Cambodia on Monday confirmed 508 new COVID-19 cases, including 121 imported ones, raising the tally to 82,399, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The death toll rose by 23 to 1,585 while the number of recoveries increased by 660 to 76,155, the ministry said.
As of Sunday, the country has inoculated 8.15 million people, including 7.87 million adults and 279,077 adolescents, accounting for 50.95 percent of the total population, according to ministry spokeswoman Or Vandine.
Pakistan
Pakistan on Sunday reported 4,040 new COVID-19 cases, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Monday.
The country's tally now stands at 1,071,620, including 964,404 recoveries.
The number of active cases has risen to 83,298, including 3,805 critical patients.
Meanwhile, the death toll went up by 53 to 23,918, according to the NCOC.
As of Sunday night, the country has administered 37,424,706 vaccine doses and has fully vaccinated 7,635,391 people, the NCOC said.
Indonesia
Indonesia will extend "level 4" mobility restrictions in several areas of Java and Bali until Aug 16, but will ease them in other places on those islands where COVID-19 cases have dropped, senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan said.
Outside of Java and Bali, those restrictions – the strictest in the government's scale – will be extended until Aug 23, coordinating minister of economic affairs Airlangga Hartarto said.
In Jakarta, there are plans to open malls with 25 percent of capacity for vaccinated people.
The health ministry reported on Monday 20,709 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the tally to 3,686,740. Deaths rose by 1,475 to 108,571.
To date, at least 24.21 million people in the country have received two shots of vaccines, while 50.63 million people have received one shot, the ministry said.
People wait to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at the Vodafone Events Center, south of Auckland, New Zealand, on July 31, 2021. (ZHAO GANG / XINHUA)
New Zealand
Under pressure from businesses and public sectors facing a worker shortage that policymakers fear will fuel inflation, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to unveil plans this week to reopen the country's borders.
Ardern garnered global praise for containing local transmission of COVID-19 via an elimination strategy, imposing tough lockdowns and slamming New Zealand's international border shut in March 2020.
However, that tactic is now straining an economy heavily reliant on an immigrant workforce, leading to higher costs and lower output.
The dairy, horticulture, housing, services, health and broader public sector have all reported acute staff shortages, and called on the government to raise border blocks.
The pressures were visible on Monday when around 1,500 hospital midwives walked off the job, citing overwork due to "critical shortages". More than 30,000 nurses are due to strike later this month for the second time since June, seeking better pay and working conditions amid the staff shortages.
The hospitality sector has been similarly stretched. About 2,000 eateries stopped service and turned off lights last month as part of a two-month campaign to draw the government's attention to the severe shortages chefs and other skilled labor.
Ardern has indicated she will remain cautious when she outlines her government's six-month plan for public health and border control on Thursday.
So far, more than 2.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in New Zealand, according to the Ministry of Health on Monday.
The ministry reported on the same day two new imported cases. The two patients came from Iraq and have remained in managed isolation and quarantine facilities in Auckland.
Also on Monday, New Zealand, which has not seen a community case since February, said that 11 of the 21 crew on a container ship, the Rio De La Plata, off the north coast had tested positive for COVID-19.
As a precaution, 94 port workers who spent time on the vessel while it was in port are being contacted and stood down until negative test results are returned.
Philippines
Nearly a fifth of hospitals in the Philippines are close to full capacity as a surge in COVID-19 infections, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus, spreads across the Southeast Asian country, the health ministry said on Monday.
Coronavirus cases in the Philippines, a country of 110 million, have been growing at a rate of around 8,000 to 10,000 infections a day over recent weeks, above the daily average of 5,700 cases reported last month, according to official data.
Average infections in the capital in the past two weeks have more than doubled from mid-July, the delta variant has been detected in 13 of 17 regions, and working-age persons are seeing the highest rise in infections.
On Monday, the Philippines reported 8,900 new cases, bringing the tally to 1,667,714. Deaths rose by six to 29,128.
COVID-19 cases in the Philippines are expected to rise in coming days, and even after the two-week lockdown of the capital through Aug 20, the ministry said.
Of the 1,291 hospitals in the Philippines, 236 have reached "critical levels" of over 85 percent occupancy because of the rise in cases, ministry spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said. Hospitals in the capital region, the epicenter of the current outbreak, were facing a similar situation with 25 of 159 facilities nearing full capacity, she added.
The ministry said it would not recommend booster shots and vaccines for kids and teens yet due to tight supply.
Laos
Lao's health ministry on Monday reported 170 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the cumulative caseload to 8,561, including eight deaths.
Of the new cases, 149 were imported while the rest were spread through local transmissions, according to Deputy Director General of the Department of Communicable Diseases Control under the Ministry of Health, Phonepaserd Sayamoungkhoun.
As of Monday, a total of 4,461 COVID-19 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovery.
Malaysia
Malaysia’s health ministry on Monday reported 17,236 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the national tally to 1,279,776.
Another 212 more deaths were also reported, taking the death toll to 10,961.
Some 15,187 patients have been released after recovery, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1,041,585, or 81.4 percent of all cases.
Of the remaining 227,230 active cases, 1,095 were in intensive care units and 579 of those were in need of assisted breathing.
Fiji
Fiji reported 603 new COVID-19 cases and 18 deaths in the past 24 hours, Permanent Secretary for Health James Fong said on Monday.
A total of 293 new recoveries were reported since the last update, taking the number of active cases to 24,420.
Overall, Fiji has recorded 37,582 confirmed cases, 317 deaths and 12,677 recoveries.
As of Sunday, 512,282 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 178,606 have received both doses.
Vietnam
Vietnam reported 9,340 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, including 9,323 locally transmitted cases and 17 imported ones, according to the Ministry of Health.
The new infections brought the tally to 219,745, along with 3,757 deaths, the ministry said.
As many as 75,920 patients have so far recovered, up 4,423 from Sunday, while 9.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered nationwide, according to the ministry.
Brunei
Brunei reported 42 new coronavirus cases on Monday, a record daily tally, following the detection over the weekend of the Southeast Asian country's first locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in 15 months.
Brunei has implemented strict quarantine rules for inbound travelers and reported 406 infections since the onset of the pandemic. One cluster in the current outbreak was linked to a hotel quarantine centre, Health Minister Mohd Isham Jaafar said.
"Compared to the (outbreak) last year, we don't know the sources of many cases this time around," he said at a press conference on Monday.
The outbreak was causing quarantine centres to quickly fill up, and authorities were also investigating the possibility illegal border crossings between Brunei and Malaysia were the source of the latest infections, he said
Around 33 percent of Brunei's total population of 450,000 have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to government data published on Sunday.