Australia’s worst-hit state of Victoria reported 15 coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, including a man in his 30s, making it the country’s deadliest day of the pandemic to date. An outbreak in Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city and the capital of Victoria, has seen hundreds of new cases recorded daily in recent weeks, including 725 on Wednesday. The epidemic surge continued even though Melbourne has been under a stay-at-home lockdown for nearly a month. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told a press conference that the latest fatalities included one man in his 30s and 12 other deaths linked to care homes for the elderly. The virus has spread rapidly through nursing homes in the city, with almost 1,500 active infections now linked to the facilities. Authorities imposed an overnight curfew in Melbourne from Monday, have closed non-essential businesses and ordered mandatory mask-wearing as authorities try to bring the outbreak under control. Andrews said all but the most urgent elective surgeries would now be postponed “until further notice” to ease the strain on hospitals. “The sickest patients must get treated quickest,” he said. “This is a regrettable decision but it is very important one in order to preserve sufficient capacity in our entire health system.” Australia has now recorded more than 19,000 cases of coronavirus and 247 deaths from the virus. Victoria has been effectively sealed off from the rest of the country, with residents banned from visiting leaving except in limited circumstances. Other states are imposing new restrictions of their own to prevent any spillover form Victoria and an even bigger hit to the national economy, which has plunged into its first recession in nearly three decades. Australia’s Victoria imposes US$3,559 curfew fines Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has already shut her northeastern state’s border to Victorians, said travellers from New South Wales and the capital Canberra also would be barred from Saturday. “We have seen that Victoria is not getting better, and we’re not going to wait for New South Wales to get worse. We need to act,” Palaszczuk said. After two months of no community transmission in the state, two travellers who returned to Queensland from Melbourne last month tested positive to the virus and there have been at least three cases of local transmission, the state’s deputy premier said. “It is clear now that Australia is experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 and we cannot afford to have that second wave here in Queensland,” Deputy Premier Steven Miles said. Queensland reported one new and 11 active cases on Wednesday. In another blow to the economy, Australia’s number two airline, Virgin Australia Holdings, said on Wednesday it would axe 3,000 jobs under its prospective new owner Bain Capital. In neighbouring New Zealand , the director general of health has warned the country must prepare for another local outbreak of the coronavirus. It’s inevitable that there will be a case of community transmission of Covid-19, Ashley Bloomfield told Radio New Zealand on Wednesday. “It’s a matter of when, not if,” he said. “We are working on the basis it could be any time, of course coupled with doing everything we can to intercept the virus at the border.” New Zealand achieved the rare feat of eliminating the virus and has so far managed to catch and isolate any infected people coming into the country as they arrive at the border. There are currently 22 active cases in quarantine. It’s been 95 days since the last case of Covid-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source, according to the ministry of health. Still, with Australia struggling to contain an outbreak in Victoria, New Zealand’s government remains on high alert and is urging people not to be complacent. A return of the virus could cause significant economic damage and potentially influence the outcome of the September 19 election. Bloomfield encouraged the public to use the government’s contact-tracing app so that any new cases can be quickly contained and the country can avoid having to go into another lockdown. If an outbreak occurred and became established, the health ministry’s view was that mask wearing should become compulsory “early rather than late, because it’s going to help reduce the transmission of the virus,” he said. Stranded honeymoon couple hitch 9,200km ride from Falkland on boat Elsewhere, Japan’s tally of Covid-19 infections is shooting up faster than ever, and support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is sinking to new lows. While Japan’s total death toll remains close to the number the US sees in a day, the public fears Japan may be sitting on a ticking time bomb. Abe’s approval slid to a record low of 35.4 per cent in a poll published by JNN on Monday. More than 60 per cent of respondents said Abe should declare a second state of emergency to bring infections under control – something his ministers have rejected. Abe has come under fire for failing to hold a press briefing since June, although his main spokesman said he was in good health. After years of consolidating power, Abe may be starting to let go: Speculation over an early election has all but ended, and it looks like he is letting potential successors vie for attention before his term as party leader ends in September 2021. Asked on Tuesday if he should address the media, Abe deferred to others in his cabinet. “He no longer appears to be indispensable, the only one who can keep Japan safe,” said Tobias Harris, an analyst at advisory firm Teneo. “Instead, he has appeared indecisive, several steps behind events, and unable to communicate directly with the public.” That has left the country in a political limbo. No one in Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has stood out as a likely successor, while opposition parties are mired in single-digit support rates. Local leaders who have gained support for their virus management, such as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, don’t have the political machine to win a national election. After dwindling in late May, coronavirus cases have ballooned in the wake of what many saw as a hasty reopening of the economy, as the government sought to save struggling businesses. The seven-day average of daily new infections is now more than 1,000, almost twice a previous peak seen in April. Tokyo’s metropolitan government on Wednesday reported 263 new cases, down from the previous day’s 309, bringing the capital’s tally of infections to 14,285. Although Abe has bounced back from blows to his approval ratings since taking office in 2012, his average support has now been drifting down for about a year, hurt by a series of scandals. Japan’s young people can’t resist the nightlife – or Covid-19 “If he got the virus under control, he would have a chance of recovering,” said Harukata Takenaka, a professor of political science at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “But, taking effective measures to control the virus is awkward for the cabinet, because of fears about damaging the economy.” Meanwhile, a governor in Japan drew sceptical criticism after he touted a gargling product as effective against the coronavirus, an assertion that, despite its dubiousness, emptied some store shelves of the medicine. Shares of Shionogi & Co. and Meiji Holdings Co., which make Isojin, soared in Tokyo on Tuesday trading after Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura made the comments. Yoshimura referred to a study carried out by the Osaka regional government on a sample of just 41 people. Experts said such a study is inconclusive. A new outbreak in Vietnam spread to two more provinces on Wednesday, the country’s health minister said, as the Covid-19 task force declared the contagion “under control” in the central city of Da Nang where the outbreak began. Aggressive contact-tracing, targeted testing and strict quarantining had helped Vietnam contain earlier outbreaks, but it is now battling infections in at least 10 cities and provinces, after going more than three months without domestic transmission. The health ministry confirmed two new cases on Wednesday, bringing Vietnam’s total infections to 672, with eight deaths. The new outbreak was first reported on July 25 in the tourist resort city of Da Nang and has spread to major urban centres like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which have since closed entertainment venues, restricted gatherings and tested tens of thousands of people. Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told state media on Wednesday the outbreak had expanded to the provinces of Bac Giang near Hanoi and Lang Son, bordering China, both linked to the Da Nang infections. Indonesia’s economy contracted in the second quarter for the first time in more than two decades as it was slammed by coronavirus restrictions, with warnings that the recovery could be among the weakest in Southeast Asia. Output in the region’s biggest economy slumped 5.3 per cent on-year in April-June, the statistics agency said. That marked Indonesia’s first contraction since the first quarter of 1999 during the Asian financial crisis and puts it on course for its first recession since then. “Economic activity in Indonesia collapsed in the second quarter,” research house Capital Economics said in note after the figures were published. “A failure to contain the virus effectively and inadequate policy support means the recovery is likely to be one of the slowest in the region,” it added. The archipelago has been easing movement restrictions in a bid to head off economic collapse but Covid-19 infections are mounting, with cases topping 115,000 with and more than 5,300 deaths. Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Bloomberg and Associated Press