People wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus walk on a street in Tokyo, Aug 17, 2021.
(KOJI SASAHARA/AP)
PHNOM PENH / NEW DELHI / JERUSALEM / TOKYO / VIENTIANE / ULAN BATOR / ISLAMABAD / SEOUL / COLOMBO / MANILA / ANKARA – Japan on Tuesday extended its state of emergency in Tokyo and other regions and announced new measures covering seven more prefectures to counter a spike in COVID-19 cases threatening the medical system.
The current state of emergency, the fifth of the pandemic so far, was due to expire on Aug 31 but will now last until Sept 12. Tokyo announced 4,377 new cases on Tuesday, after a record 5,773 on Friday.
"The Delta variant raging across the world is causing unprecedented cases in our country," Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said. "Serious cases are increasing rapidly and severely burdening the medical system, particularly in the capital region."
The state of emergency will now cover nearly 60 percent of Japan's population, as the prefectures of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma,
Shizuoka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka are included. Less strict "quasi-emergency" measures will be applied to a further 10
prefectures.
Restaurants will be asked to close early and stop serving alcohol in exchange for a subsidy. Suga said the government would also request occupancy limits at department stores and ask people to reduce by half the times they go to crowded areas.
Afghanistan
The World Health Organization (WHO) is worried about the spread of the coronavirus in Afghanistan as the upheaval caused by the Taliban advance and seizure of power has slowed vaccinations, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.
WHO mobile health teams have been on hold in the capital for the past 24 hours due to the insecurity and the unpredictable situation, spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said. Chaos at Kabul airport, where thousands of people have been seeking to flee the Taliban, was slowing deliveries of medical supplies, worsening existing shortages.
Jasarevic said the WHO, like those of other UN agencies, was committed to remain in the country.
UAE
Abu Dhabi has made booster shots available for those who were vaccinated against COVID-19 at least six months ago.
Pfizer and Sinopharm booster shots are available in over 100 centers in the emirate for citizens and residents, the city’s media office said in a tweet on Tuesday.
The United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, has one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world, with 73 percent of its population of about 10 million already fully inoculated. The seven-day average of daily cases has fallen to about 1,200 from 2,200 in late June.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh is all set to start locally manufacturing China's Sinopharm COVID-19 inactivated vaccine as an agreement on co-production of the Chinese jab was signed via video with relevant authorities.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between China's Sinopharm Group, Bangladesh's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Incepta Vaccine Ltd, a leading local vaccine manufacturing company, on Monday afternoon.
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming said that the successful signing of the MoU will be a successful model for cooperation between China and South Asian countries. He emphasized that vaccine cooperation requires full mobilization and joint efforts from the government and enterprises.
Shoppers lineup to enter a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand, Aug 17, 2021. (JASON OXENHAM / NEW ZEALAND HERALD VIA AP)
New Zealand
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put the nation under strict lockdown on Tuesday after one new case of the coronavirus was reported in its largest city of Auckland, the country's first in six months.
All of New Zealand will be in lockdown for three days from Wednesday while Auckland and Coromandel, a coastal town that the infected person had also spent time in, will be in lockdown for seven days.
Imposing its toughest level 4 lockdown rules, schools, offices and all businesses will be shut down and only essential services will be operational.
"The best thing we can do to get out of this as quickly as we can is to go hard," Ardern told a news conference.
"We have made the decision on the basis that it is better to start high and go down levels rather than to go low, not contain the virus and see it move quickly," she said.
Ardern said authorities were assuming the new case was a Delta variant infection although this has not been confirmed. There may be other cases, she said.
The last reported community case of COVID-19 in New Zealand was in February.
New Zealand has followed a go-hard-and-early strategy that has helped it virtually eliminate COVID-19 domestically, allowing people to live without restrictions although its international borders remain largely closed.
The country has reported about 2,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 26 related deaths.
Earlier New Zealand officials said they are investigating the new case of COVID-19, prompting some investors to pare bets on an interest-rate increase from the central bank.
The case was identified early Tuesday afternoon, the Ministry of Health said in an emailed statement. A link between the case and the border or managed isolation is yet to be established, it said. It made no comment on whether the case is the delta variant.The last case of community transmission was in February.
The case comes on the eve of the Reserve Bank’s review of the official cash rate, with the majority of economists forecasting a quarter percentage point hike in response to an overheating economy. An outbreak of the highly infectious delta strain of the virus could alter the economic outlook. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said the country should expect a swift lockdown response if there were signs that delta had got into the community.
A man carries his shopping home in Melbourne on Aug 16, 2021. (WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
Australia
Australia’s delta outbreak continues to spread despite more than half the nation’s 26 million people being placed into lockdown. New South Wales state recorded 452 new cases on Tuesday, down from the record of 478 set the previous day, with the vast bulk of those infections detected in Sydney. Melbourne and national capital Canberra are also enforcing stay-at-home orders, and on Tuesday recorded 24 and 17 new cases respectively.
Authorities are increasingly concerned that the outbreak’s spreading into the continent’s interior is threatening vulnerable Indigenous populations. On Monday, the tropical city of Darwin was placed into a snap lockdown, while on Tuesday it was confirmed the virus had reached the Outback town of Broken Hill.
Cambodia
Cambodians nationwide have been required to wear face masks as the Southeast Asian nation reported 556 new COVID-19 cases and 14 more deaths on Tuesday.
In a statement released late on Monday, Health Minister Mam Bunheng imposed a mandatory mask-wearing rule in additional 15 provinces, bringing all of the kingdom's 25 cities and provinces under the rule.
ALSO READ: Iran imposes tougher curbs as daily virus toll hits record high
India
India administered more than 8.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the past 24 hours, government data showed on Tuesday, close to its all-time record and speeding up a campaign to inoculate all eligible adults by December.
The surge in inoculations came alongside a sharp decline in daily new infections that fell to 25,166, the lowest since March 16, health ministry said.
India has undertaken one of the world's largest COVID-19 vaccination drives and has so far administered 554 million doses, giving at least one dose to about 46 percent of its estimated 944 million adults. Only about 13 percent of the population have had the required two doses.
After hitting a record high of 9.2 million doses on June 21, the pace of daily inoculations had dropped to around 4.2 million on an average in July, according to data compiled from the government's CoWIN website.
In the first two weeks of August, India administered about 5 million doses on an average everyday.
Experts have said India needs to administer 10 million doses a day to achieve its aim of inoculating all adults by December.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 32,250,679 on Tuesday, as 25,166 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
It was the lowest single-day spike in the past 154 days, according to the ministry.
Besides, 437 deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 432,079.
Indonesia
Indonesia reported 17,384 confirmed infections on Monday, the least since June 23. One in five people tested were found to have the virus, a sign of insufficient testing. Indonesia continues to top the world’s tally of daily deaths, with 1,245 fatalities reported on Monday.
More cities on Java and Bali islands will be allowed to reopen shopping malls for people who are vaccinated with capacity limits, as the government extends virus curbs until Aug 23.
Indonesia will also allow some export-oriented companies to operate with 100 percent workforce on site using two shifts and strict health protocol, in a bid to find a way to reopen the economy without worsening its coronavirus outbreak. That program will involve 390,000 workers.
The government is preparing roadmaps to reopen other sectors, including education and tourism, as it gears up to live with the virus for a few more years. It will focus on accelerating vaccination, stepping up testing and tracing, while enforcing mask mandates. Indonesia aims to administer 100 million total vaccine doses as of the end of the month, from 83 million so far.
Indonesia will also lower the maximum price for real-time polymerase chain reaction testing.
Israel
Israel's Ministry of Health reported 9,379 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the tally of infections in the country to 948,058.
The death toll from the coronavirus in Israel rose by 19 to 6,687. The number of active cases increased to 53,169, the ministry said.
The total recoveries from the virus in Israel climbed to 888,202 after 3,866 newly recovered cases were added.
Iran
Iran reported a record number of daily cases, with new infections surpassing 50,000 for the first time. The country had 50,228 cases and 625 deaths overnight, according to the Health Ministry, bringing the total figures to more than 4.5 million infections and 99,100 fatalities.
Laos
The Ministry of Health of Laos announced on Tuesday that the ministry had detected two cases of the Delta plus variant of COVID-19 in Laos.
Deputy Director General of the Department of Communicable Diseases Control under the Lao Ministry of Health, Sisavath Soutthaniraxay, told a press conference in Lao capital Vientiane on Tuesday that the two cases of Delta plus variant of COVID-19 were detected among returning workers from neighboring countries.
The Delta plus variant is a mutant version of the Delta strain.
Sisavath suggested that people should not panic over the Delta plus variant and should continue their efforts in implementing the preventive measures and adapt to the new normal to contain the spread of the virus.
He added that 207 new cases of COVID-19 had been recorded over the past 24 hours, including 184 imported cases and 23 local transmissions.
Mongolia
Mongolia's COVID-19 tally rose to 184,950 after 1,298 new cases had been registered over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said Tuesday.
Four more deaths were reported, bringing the national count to 884, said the ministry.
Pakistan
Pakistan recorded 3,221 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Tuesday.
The country reported a COVID-19 positivity rate of 6.69 percent on Monday.
The NCOC, a department leading Pakistan's campaign against the pandemic, said that the country's number of overall confirmed cases has risen to 1,105,300.
Over the last 24 hours, 4,291 patients have recovered from COVID-19, bringing the total number of recoveries to 993,304, said the NCOC.
Another 95 people lost their lives due to coronavirus over the last 24 hours in Pakistan, taking the overall death toll to 24,573, the NCOC said, adding that 4,896 are in critical condition.
People cross Robinson Road in the financial business district in Singapore on Aug 16, 2021. (ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)
Singapore
Singapore is considering pilot programs to allow groups of vaccinated travelers to enter the country on carefully controlled itineraries as it moves toward reopening its border, according to the trade minister.
“We continue to look at countries including the US, UK, Australia and so on to explore possibilities of opening up,” Gan Kim Yong, Singapore’s trade and industry minister, told Haslinda Amin in a Bloomberg Television interview Tuesday. The country may start with pilot arrangements for travelers “bubble wrapped to prevent transmission of the disease,” particularly for vaccinated visitors.
A more extensive reopening, however, would depend on countries around the world controlling the pandemic, he cautioned.
“It will also require the whole world’s infection to come under control because Singapore is an open economy,” Gan said, when asked when the country can have bigger gathering sizes and longer opening hours for restaurants. “It’s important for us to bear in mind that infections will continue until the whole world is safe, and also we have to bear in mind that vaccines today, although it is very effective against severe diseases, it is somewhat less effective to prevent transmission.”
The city-state aims to relax more virus curbs, including starting to allow quarantine-free travel in September, when 80 percent of its population is expected to be fully vaccinated. The high inoculation rate will allow authorities to ease measures, officials have said.
Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 53 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the total tally in the country to 66,225.
The new infections included 48 locally transmitted cases. As many as 32 are linked to previous cases and have already been placed under quarantine. Seven are linked to previous cases and were detected through surveillance, while nine are currently unlinked.
There are five imported cases, who have already been placed under Stay-Home Notice or isolated upon arrival in Singapore.
South Korea
South Korea confirmed a total of 2,111 "breakthrough" COVID-19 infections, which refer to people who tested positive after a full vaccination, the health authorities said Tuesday.
The number of the fully vaccinated people who were infected with the COVID-19 was 2,111 as of Aug 12, up from 1,540 a week earlier, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
It equals to 29.8 in every 100,000 people who got fully vaccinated. As of Aug 12, the number of the fully inoculated people was 7,080,356.
It is known that people can be protected from the virus two weeks after the full vaccination. The breakthrough case refers to people infected with the virus two weeks after the full inoculation.
Among the total, 363 were infected with the Delta variant, 25 with Alpha, one with Beta and one with Gamma.
Nineteen were serious cases, and two deaths were found from the breakthrough infections.
Relatives of a COVID-19 victim, transport a coffin on an auto rickshaw to a mortuary in Colombo on Aug 16, 2021. (ISHARA S KODIKARA / AFP)
Sri Lanka
Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech would soon set up a COVID-19 vaccine plant in Sri Lanka, India's English daily Hindustan Times has reported.
"It will be set up in the dedicated pharmaceutical manufacturing zone in Hambantota," the main town in Hambantota District, Southern Province, the Indian daily quoted Sri Lankan Ambassador to China Palitha Kohona as saying.
The newspaper reported on Sunday that Sri Lanka's State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) had approached the Chinese government about setting up a vaccine plant in the zone earlier this year given the rising demand for COVID-19 vaccines in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said the Sri Lankan government has planned to vaccinate children over 12 years old against the COVID-19 step by step, local media reported Monday.
Rajapaksa said children with various complications will be given priority in the vaccination program.
Presently the government is vaccinating all citizens above the age of 30 years against the COVID-19 with China's Sinopharm vaccine being the leading vaccine administered across the country. Others are AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sputnik V and Moderna vaccines.
The Philippines
he Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported 10,035 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 1,765,675.
The death toll climbed to 30,462 after 96 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH added.
Exhausted by the COVID-19 workload, Loui quit her job as an intensive care unit nurse at a private hospital in the Philippines earlier this year.
The 30-year-old, who declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals, is among thousands of medical workers who have resigned during the pandemic, complaining of low pay and poor working conditions. Others have sought better jobs abroad.
"We can't even take a proper day off because we are often called back to cover for other staff who were in quarantine or resigned," said Loui, who was earning 20,000 pesos (US$394) a month, including overtime, before she quit in March.
Hospitals fear the desertions have reached a critical point just as the Delta variant sends the number of cases soaring, as it has done elsewhere in Southeast Asia and worldwide.
The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPi)estimated that 40 percent of private hospital nurses resigned last year, but more followed new waves of infections this year. Public hospitals are facing similar challenges.
"If we want to increase bed capacity, that is easy, but the problem is the nursing component," PHAPi's president, Jose Rene de Grano, told Reuters.
More than a year and a half into the pandemic, reported coronavirus infections in the Philippines have soared to more than 1.75 million, the second highest in Southeast Asia, while deaths have exceeded 30,000.
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Thailand
Thailand will purchase an additional 12 million doses of Sinovac's coronavirus vaccine to try to expedite its rollout.
Thailand's strategy had planned to use mainly locally produced AstraZeneca vaccines but with supply short of the government's target, Sinovac shots are being used in a mix-and-match approach to inoculate the population faster.
The mass vaccination campaign started in June but the rollout is being hastened by Thailand's worst coronavirus wave so far, which is challenging Bangkok's healthcare system at a time when just 7.3 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.
Sinovac's inactivated virus vaccine will be used as a first dose and AstraZeneca's viral vector vaccine the second, a mix that officials say protects against the Delta variant.
Thailand on Tuesday reported 239 new COVID-19 fatalities, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began last year, raising the total number of fatalities to 7,973, according to the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).
The CCSA also reported 20,128 new cases and 20,791 recoveries, bringing the total number of infections to 948,442 while that of recoveries to 730,656.
Thailand’s central bank governor called for an additional 1 trillion baht (US$30 billion) in government spending to counter coronavirus, saying the blow to the economy from the pandemic is greater than from the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
Meanwhile, Thailand will extend the closure of non-essential businesses and movement controls in its virus hotspots, including the capital Bangkok, until the COVID-19 outbreak shows clear signs of easing.
Turkey
Turkey on Monday reported 18,163 new COVID-19 cases, raising its tally of infections to 6,096,816, according to its health ministry.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 165 to 53,324, while 16,642 more people recovered in the last 24 hours.