A notice of temporary closure is displayed on a closed shutter of a restaurant at restaurant and bar area Ikebukuro in Tokyo on April 26, 2021. (Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP)
NEW DELHI / MANILA / SYDNEY / DHAKA / BAGHDAD / JERUSALEM / AMMAN / ULAN BATOR / KATHMANDU / DOHA / SEOUL / COLOMBO – Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Monday said that focusing on tackling the increasingly serious COVID-19 situation in the country is his "top priority" ahead of plans to dissolve the lower house of parliament for a general election.
Suga's remarks came a day after his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) took a pummeling in the first national elections held since he took office last September.
The elections, won by three candidates backed by opposition parties, are seen as a litmus test for the general election that must be held before the current four-year terms of lower house members end on Oct. 21.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan reported 210 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Monday, raising its national tally to 59,225, including 4,107 active cases, the country's Ministry of Public Health said.
"Laboratories conducted 1,616 tests during the past 24 hours, out of the total tests, 210 were positive COVID-19 cases in 17 provinces of Afghanistan's 34 provinces," the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, 31 people recovered during the cited period, taking the overall number of recoveries to 52,520, and six deaths were reported, raising the death toll to 2,598, according to the statement.
Australia
The government of Western Australia state said it will lift a three-day COVID-19 lockdown in Perth and neighbouring Peel region as planned from midnight on Monday after no new cases were found in the past two days.
Perth and the Peel region were placed into a hard lockdown from Saturday after an infected traveller from overseas, who likely contracted the novel coronavirus during his two-week quarantine in a Perth hotel, visited several venues while unknowingly infectious.
Two million people in Perth and Peel’s near 150,000 residents were ordered to stay home until 12:01 am on Tuesday, except for essential work, healthcare, grocery shopping or exercise.
People can leave their homes when the lockdown ends but will have to wear masks at all times. Home gatherings will be limited to 20 guests while restaurants and supermarkets will need to follow strict social-distancing rules.
Bangladesh
The Bangladeshi government is planing to extend the ongoing lockdown for another week.
The country's State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain announced the decision Monday after an inter-ministerial meeting, saying "the final decision regarding extension of the lockdown will be taken at another meeting on Tuesday." He, however, said shops and malls will remain open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. despite the extension of the lockdown.
Amid its second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh has imposed a ban on the entry of travellers from India via land ports.
Bangladesh's Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen announced the COVID-19 border restriction on Sunday.
According to him, the ban applies to the personnel travel from India to Bangladesh and will last 14 days from Monday, but trade between the two countries will continue as usual.
Relatives and municipal workers prepare to bury the body of a person who died of COVID-19 in Gauhati, India, April 25, 2021. (ANUPAM NATH / AP)
India
The ongoing second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India is projected to come to its peak in the middle of May, local media reported on Sunday.
Projections presented at a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of the worst affected Indian states by COVID-19 showed that after the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the national capital New Delhi, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh would be a major hotspot with over 190,000 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 to be reported every day, according to the media reports.
When reaching the peak time, the daily COVID-19 cases in the Asian country are expected to rise to 500,000 and may subside between June and July.
The Madras high court in the southern state of Tamil Nadu Monday said the Election Commission of India (ECI) was singularly responsible for spreading the ongoing second wave of COVID-19 and "murder charges" should probably be imposed on it for its "irresponsible" behavior.
According to the media reports, the projections were presented by a senior federal government official at the meeting on Sunday, at which officials agreed that "heavily populated states are at particular risk; and, health infrastructure in states is not adequate enough to cope with the present serious scenario."
The COVID-19 figures continue to surge in India every day, as the federal government has ruled out imposing a complete lockdown to contain the worsening situation.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Monday that his government will vaccinate all above 18 years of age free of cost at public hospitals in the Indian capital.
India on Monday set a global record for a rise in daily coronavirus cases for a fifth straight day, while deaths from COVID-19 also jumped by an all-time high over the last 24 hours.
With 352,991 new cases, India’s total caseload has crossed 17 million. Deaths rose by a record 2,812 to reach a total of 195,123, according to health ministry data.
Indonesia
China’s President Xi Jinping agreed to provide additional supplies of Sinovac vaccine for Indonesia in a phone call with President Joko Widodo, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin told a virtual briefing on Monday.
Indonesia will get an additional 10 to 15 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine in April and May while 3.8 million AstraZeneca vaccines are expected to arrive Monday night and another 3.8 million in May.
Iran
Iran’s death toll crossed 70,000 on Monday as the country’s daily fatalities hit an all-time high of 496. The number of new cases rose by 21,026, up from 19,165 on Sunday, reaching a total of 2.42 million, the health ministry said. It also recorded the highest number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in one day, at 3,734.
Iraq
The Iraqi Ministry of Health reported on Sunday 6,034 new coronavirus cases, raising the total nationwide number to 1,031,322, a day after a huge fire killed dozens in a hospital treating coronavirus patients in the capital Baghdad.
A statement by the ministry also reported 40 new COVID-19 deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 15,257, while the total recoveries in Iraq climbed by 7,335 to 905,301.
Israel
Israel’s Health Ministry said on Sunday it is examining a small number of cases of heart inflammation in people who had received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, though it has not yet drawn any conclusions.
Pfizer said it has not observed a higher rate of the condition than would normally be expected in the general population.
Israel’s pandemic response coordinator, Nachman Ash, said that a preliminary study showed “tens of incidents” of myocarditis occurring among more than 5 million vaccinated people, primarily after the second dose.
Ash said it was unclear whether this was unusually high and whether it was connected to the vaccine.
Most of the cases were reported among people up to age 30.
Jordan
Jordan on Sunday received a batch of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Chinese government as part of the anti-pandemic cooperation between the two countries.
The Chinese Ambassador to Jordan Chen Chuandong and Jordanian Minister of Health Firas Hawari signed the handover certificate of the donation at Queen Alia International Airport in the capital Amman.
In this March 11, 2021 photo, a medical staff member administers the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a health personnel at Sunway Medical Center in Subang Jaya, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. (MOHD RASFAN / AFP)
Malaysia
Malaysia reported 2,776 new COVID-19 infections, the Health Ministry said on Monday, bringing the national total to 395,718.
Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press statement that three of the new cases are imported and 2,773 are local transmissions.
Another 13 more deaths have been reported, bringing the death toll to 1,449.
Some 1,803 patients have been released after recovery, bringing the total number of cured and discharged to 369,556 or 93.4 percent of all cases.
Malaysia has approved AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine for people age 60 or older.
The approval comes as the nation’s health ministry asks parents not to send their children to school if they, or the parents, show Covid symptoms.
Cases among schoolchildren have increased with more than 23,000 children below the age of 12 testing positive so far this year, Health Minister Adham Baba told reporters on Monday. Daily new COVID-19 cases in Malaysia rose about 27 percent from April 18 to 24, compared with April 11-to-17 period, he said.
Mongolia
Mongolia reported 856 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing its national tally to 31,339, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Monday.
Of the latest confirmed cases, 744 were detected in the country's capital Ulan Bator, which is the country's hardest hit city by COVID-19, the NCCD said in a statement.
The disease has so far claimed 80 lives in the country.
A health worker inoculates a man with the dose of Covishield vaccine against the COVID-19 coronavirus at a health post near Lukla, Nepal, on April 23, 2021. (PRAKASH MATHEMA / AFP)
Nepal
Authorities in Nepal were grappling to contain the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases with experts fearing that thousands of people in the Himalayan state have caught the more infectious mutant strains emerging out of India.
Nepal, which shares a long porous border with India, reported 3,032 new infections on Sunday, the highest daily surge recorded this year. It took the total caseload since the pandemic first struck Nepal to 300,119, and there have so far been 3,164 deaths, according to government data.
"We have detected the UK variant and the double mutant variant detected in India," Krishna Prasad Paudel, the director of Nepal's Epidemiology and Disease Control Department Paudel told Reuters, adding that experts were checking for other variants too.
Nepal reported 28 new deaths from the coronavirus epidemic on Sunday, a record high in nearly five months.
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Pakistan
The third batch of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Chinese government was handed over to the Pakistani side during a ceremony here on Monday.
Addressing the handover ceremony, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Omar Ayub Khan, on behalf of the Pakistani government, thanked the Chinese government and people for providing the vaccine aid.
Protecting life and the livelihood of the people is of the utmost importance for the Pakistani government, Khan said, adding that Pakistan is facing a serious third wave of COVID-19 and the newly-arrived vaccine doses will help the country to build immunity amongst its society to save life.
The Pakistani minister said that Pakistan and China are "iron brothers," and the special friendship is between the two governments as well as the two peoples.
Qatar
The Qatari health ministry on Sunday announced 705 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 202,201, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
Singapore
Singapore proposed setting up a travel bubble with Taiwan and mutual recognition of each others’ vaccination certificates, Taipei-based Central News Agency reported, citing Singapore Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung. Taiwan’s government is studying the proposal, Ong said.
South Korea
South Korea reported 500 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Sunday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 119,387.
The daily caseload was down from 644 in the previous day, falling below 600 in six days due mainly to fewer virus tests over the weekend
The daily number of infections hovered in triple figures since Nov. 8 last year due to small cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said vaccinating citizens is the only way out amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Local media reported Monday.
The president also said that people must strictly follow all rules and regulations as they did during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Only a vaccine can end the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has a systematic and strong program in place to vaccinate the public. The government has made arrangements to import four of the COVID-19 vaccines currently approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) and to be approved in the near future by the WHO," the Presidential Media Division said in a press release.
The press statement said the first imported AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered to 925,242 people. The second dose of vaccines are scheduled to be given in the first week of May.
Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria's President Bashar al-Assad discussed Russian vaccine supplies to Syria and cooperation against COVID-19 during a phone call on Monday, the Kremlin said.
In a readout of the call, the Kremlin also said Assad had told Putin about preparations ahead of a presidential election in May.
A health worker performs a COVID-19 test on a man at a hospital in Manila, Philippines on Monday, April 26, 2021. (AARON FAVILA / AP)
Thailand
Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha was fined 6,000 baht (US$190) on Monday for breaching rules aimed at containing the coronavirus by not wearing a face mask, the governor of Bangkok said.
Thailand has suspended issuing travel documents from India over concerns of imported coronavirus cases, as more venues were closed in Bangkok on Monday as part of efforts to contain a third wave of infections in the Southeast Asian nation.
The Thai embassy in New Delhi said in a statement that certificates of entry for non-Thai nationals travelling from India will be suspended until further notice.
The government has ordered parks, gyms, cinemas and day-care centres in its capital, the epicentre of the latest wave of infections, to shut from April 26 until May 9.
It has also introduced a fine of up to 20,000 baht (US$635) for not wearing masks in public, with even the prime minister falling foul of mask-wearing rules.
Thailand is dealing with its own outbreak and reported 2,048 new cases on Monday, bringing its total infections to 57,508 and 148 coronavirus-related fatalities.
The Philippines
The Philippines announced on Monday that the total number of coronavirus cases it had recorded had exceeded one million as it continued to record thousands of new infections in the capital region, the epicentre of its latest outbreak.
The health ministry said it recorded 8,929 COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the total to more than one million, while fatalities increased to 16,853 after it recorded 70 new deaths.
The Philippines has the second highest number of cases and casualties in Southeast Asia, next to Indonesia.
US drugmaker Moderna Inc on Monday filed an application for emergency use authorisation of its COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines, Food and Drug Administration chief Rolando Enrique Domingo told reporters.
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Asian Development Bank
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday said it approved US$18.9 million in grants to help four developing member countries in the Pacific in rolling out safe and effective vaccines against the COVID-19.
The Manila-based bank said the grants to Samoa (US$8 million), Tonga (US$5.5 million), Tuvalu (US$1.5 million), and Vanuatu (US$3.9 million) will support their COVID-19 vaccination programs for a combined population of almost 600,000 people.
"These countries have incurred considerable costs in preventing COVID-19 transmission, and their health systems have been put under extreme pressure," ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said in a statement.
"These grants will provide a platform to introduce safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in these countries, strengthen health systems to receive and administer the vaccines, and raise community awareness about vaccination timetables," he added.
As of March 2021, the ADB had committed more than US$750 million, including co-financing and technical assistance, to support Pacific countries' response to the pandemic.
Turkey
Turkish pharmaceutical firm Viscoran İlaç will produce Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine at its plants, with production to launch in upcoming months, the company said in a joint statement with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) on Monday.
Turkey's cabinet will discuss adopting a tighter lockdown on Monday as President Tayyip Erdogan tries to prevent a second lost year of tourism revenues, officials said.
After the last cabinet meeting two weeks ago, as coronavirus cases surged, Erdogan reined in social activities and travel. Total daily cases then peaked above 63,000 on April 16 before dropping sharply to below 39,000 on Sunday.
But government officials said the fall was not enough and ministers would look into imposing new measures to last through a May 13-15 holiday at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, in a way that does not hit economic production.
Vietnam
Vietnam recorded nine new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, raising the total confirmed cases in the country to 2,852, according to the country's Ministry of Health.
The new cases included two foreigners and seven Vietnamese citizens who recently entered the country from abroad and were quarantined upon arrival, said the ministry.
As many as 2,516 patients have recovered as of Monday, the ministry said, adding that over 41,600 people are being quarantined and monitored.