Picture Credit score: AFP
MELBOURNE: Australia’s second largest metropolis was making ready to enter a contemporary lockdown Thursday, as international locations the world over wrestle to quash surges in COVID-19 circumstances propelled by the extremely infectious Delta variant.
The coronavirus continues to unfold havoc from Asia to Africa and the battle towards the illness is being hampered by new strains corresponding to Delta, which was first seen in India.
The virus has reappeared in locations lengthy believed to have dodged the worst of the pandemic, with Australia — lauded for its profitable “COVID zero” technique – going through a resurgence that has grown to nearly 1,000 circumstances nationwide in a month.
About 12 million Australians will probably be underneath stay-at-home orders by late Thursday because the nation’s second greatest metropolis Melbourne goes right into a “arduous and quick” lockdown, becoming a member of Sydney.
State premier Dan Andrews stated he took the choice to return the town – and surrounding Victoria – to its fifth lockdown “with a heavy coronary heart” nevertheless it was an “absolute necessity”.
“Nothing about this virus is honest,” he stated.
In Tokyo – now simply over every week away from the opening ceremony of the virus-postponed Olympics – native authorities recorded 1,308 new circumstances, the best quantity since January.
The virus is posing a singular problem for Video games organisers, who’ve been compelled to ban spectators from nearly all occasions and impose strict guidelines on visiting athletes.
Additional dampening the Olympic spirit, organisers Thursday confirmed that an athlete in Japan and 5 Olympic employees, largely contractors, had examined optimistic for COVID-19.
Nations the place healthcare infrastructure – and vaccine rollout capabilities – stay restricted are underneath explicit stress, with Rwanda set to enter a brand new lockdown on Saturday as circumstances skyrocket.
The East African nation had beforehand averted the worst of the pandemic by imposing among the strictest containment measures on the continent.
However hospitals have been overwhelmed because the nation battles extra virulent variants, together with Delta, in current weeks, with a crucial scarcity of beds and medicines.
Asia’s epicentre
In Asia, Indonesia Thursday posted a document 56,757 every day infections, because the Delta variant spreads by the world’s fourth-most populous nation, which is overtaking India because the area’s Covid-19 epicentre.
The China-based Asian Infrastructure Funding Financial institution stated it was loaning the Southeast Asian nation $500 million to spice up its response as Indonesia’s deadliest wave but brings scores of hospitals to the brink of collapse.
Vaccine doses are flowing into the hard-hit nation by the tens of millions, together with from Japan and america, whereas Jakarta on Thursday permitted the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for emergency use. Indonesia has stated it’s on monitor to obtain about 50 million doses of the collectively made jab by this yr.
Additionally going through continual shortages of medical provides is Myanmar, the place residents throughout the coup-hit nation’s greatest metropolis defied a army curfew in a determined seek for oxygen to maintain their family members with Covid respiration.
Hundreds of thousands in Yangon and the second metropolis of Mandalay have been ordered to remain dwelling, however the dying toll continues to rise and volunteer groups are stepping in to take away the our bodies of victims from their neighbourhoods.
Residents informed AFP that they had slipped out at the hours of darkness to safe spots in strains to refill oxygen cylinders – dismissing claims from the nation’s army rulers that there’s greater than sufficient to go round.
Portray a extra optimistic image regardless of rising caseloads of its personal is neighbouring Thailand, the place three extra islands opened to vaccinated overseas vacationers Thursday as a part of the dominion’s push to revive its battered tourism business.
The nation launched a “sandbox” scheme on July 1, permitting vaccinated travellers to go to Phuket island. Vacationers should not have to quarantine in a lodge however can’t go away the island for 2 weeks.
