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Police patrol a mass vaccination centre in Melbourne. Photo: AFP

Coronavirus: cases in Australia’s Victoria shoot up; Indian cities ease restrictions

  • Australian authorities reported 11 new cases, up from just two a day earlier, but noted that all were linked to existing clusters
  • Elsewhere, Japan to issue vaccine passports; Singapore’s cases drop, and Thailand began its mass vaccination drive
Agencies
Australia’s Victoria state on Monday reported its biggest rise in new locally acquired Covid-19 cases in nearly a week as authorities scramble to track the source of the highly infectious Delta variant found among infections.

Authorities reported 11 new cases, up from just two a day earlier, but noted that all were linked to existing clusters, as residents of state capital Melbourne wait to hear if an extended snap lockdown will end as planned on Thursday night.

“Nothing is on or off the table,” Victoria state Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton told reporters in Melbourne, when asked if some areas of the city could remain locked down while other areas start to ease curbs.

Melbourne entered its 11th day of a hard lockdown on Monday after officials on Friday found the Delta virus variant, which they said was likely to spread more easily than many other strains, for the first time among infections.

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The source for the Delta variant infections has yet to be identified and there has been no genomic match so far with any other cases in Australia.

The new case numbers take the total number of locally acquired infections in the latest outbreak in Victoria to 83.

Monday’s data includes two cases announced on Sunday which were recorded after the midnight cut-off deadline.

All of Monday’s locally acquired cases are linked to existing clusters, officials said, with eight being close contacts who were isolating while infectious.

Australia has largely reined in prior outbreaks with snap lockdowns, regional border restrictions and tough social distancing rules keeping virus numbers relatively low with just over 30,150 cases and 910 deaths.

India reports 100,636 new infections, restrictions eased

India ’s capital New Delhi and financial hub Mumbai began a gradual easing of restrictions on Monday as coronavirus infections in the country fell to a two-month low.

Hospitals in the megacities – which have a combined population of some 40 million – were overwhelmed by a deadly Covid-19 wave in April and May, with severe shortages of oxygen and other critical medicines.

The huge spike saw India report record-breaking numbers of cases and deaths to become the second worst-hit nation after the United States with just under 29 million infections. Authorities in Delhi and Mumbai, as well as other cities and states, imposed restrictions on movement and activities to combat the surge.

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“We have to stay safe from corona infection and also bring the economy back on track,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted on Monday as some shops and malls reopened. Delhi Metro services were allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity. The northern city was reporting an average of 25,000 daily cases during its peak. It fell to 381 infections on Sunday, officials said.

Maharashtra, India’s richest state of which Mumbai is the capital, eased restrictions based on infection rates and hospital bed occupancy. In Mumbai – where the caseload soared to 11,163 in early April – there were just 794 new infections on Sunday. Malls were allowed to reopen in the city with restrictions, but were reopened fully in cities with lower infection rates such as Nagpur and Aurangabad.

India on Monday reported just over 100,000 fresh infections – after several days of 400,000-plus cases in May – and nearly 2,500 deaths.

The health ministry said total deaths were just under 347,000 so far, although experts warn the actual toll could be much higher and there have been claims of undercounting.

Japan to issue vaccine passports

Japan intends to issue Covid-19 vaccine passports this summer to inoculated residents travelling abroad to boost travel and other economic activities, Nikkei reported.

An inter-agency team is discussing a plan to issue a paper certificate this summer for businesspeople and others, followed by a digital version by the end of the year, the newspaper said, without disclosing where it got the information.

Meanwhile, Okinawa’s governor Denny Tamaki said the prefecture is closing many schools to contain the nation’s worst per capita rate of coronavirus infections.

Tamaki said closing schools could curb the spread since roughly one in three cases were among people younger than 30.

Primary and secondary schools in 22 hotspot towns on Okinawa will be closed until June 20. The island and nine other regions of Japan are under a state of emergency, but Okinawa’s infections have been near record-highs and hospital beds are occupied at almost full capacity.

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Okinawa’s health experts have indicated that an influx of tourists during the early May holiday week triggered the surge, which raises further concerns about how the Tokyo Olympics might affect Japan’s virus situation. The Games are all but certain to be held, despite discouragement from medical professionals and opposition by the Japanese public.

Across Japan, daily infections stand between 2,000 and 3,000 in the past few days, down from the recent peak of over 7,000 in early May. More than 13,000 have died of Covid-19 in the country.

Japan has so far fully vaccinated about 4 million people or 3 per cent of its population.

Singapore cases drop

Singapore authorities detected five new coronavirus cases in the community, marking the lowest daily total since the government tightened restrictions on May 16 for a month following an outbreak.

All five of these Covid-19 cases were linked to earlier infections, government data showed on Monday. No new cases were discovered in the foreign worker dormitories, while nine imported cases were already under quarantine.

The decline in cases comes ahead of a possible easing of restrictions after June 13. It is unlikely, however, that recent measures will be fully removed as the easing will be done in a controlled manner, government officials have said.

WHO’s Sinovac nod gives some Singapore residents a shot of confidence

On Sunday, the Ministry of Health said a hospital cluster, one of the biggest during a recent outbreak driven by more infectious variants, has been closed after no new cases were linked to them for 28 days.

“We are heading in the right direction because of the contribution of everyone,” Health Minister Ong Ye Kung, who also co-chairs the virus task force, said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Ong said the proportion of untraceable cases “have fallen from 18 per cent to 15 per cent” since the start of the curbs last month.

Thailand begins mass vaccination

Thailand began its mass vaccination drive with a target of inoculating 70 per cent of its residents before the end of this year to prepare the tourism-reliant nation for a wider reopening next year.

The Southeast Asian nation plans to administer about 500,000 shots per day starting on Monday, compared to about 100,000 daily average over the past week, according to health ministry officials. The target population in the initial phase of the nationwide roll-out include residents in Bangkok, the epicentre of the current outbreak, and those in Phuket, which is expected to test the reopening for vaccinated tourists from July 1, they said.

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Thailand is ramping up its pace of vaccine roll-out to contain the country’s worst wave of infections that began in April, causing a sixfold jump in cases and a surge in deaths. New clusters of infections have also emerged in its factories in recent weeks, threatening the nation’s manufacturing and exports sector, a key economic engine.

Thailand’s pace of vaccine roll-out over the past three months was restricted by limited supplies from Sinovac Biotech and AstraZeneca. To date, about 4.2 million doses of shots have been administered, covering about 3 per cent of the population.

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Philippines to expand jab drive

The Philippines will open up its vaccination drive this week to include around 35 million people working outside their homes, such as public transport staff, in a bid to help curb Covid-19 transmission and to open up the economy, officials said.

The next phase in the roll-out that started in March comes after vaccines were initially targeted at health care workers, senior citizens and people with existing health conditions.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said those eligible to join the new phase, which includes workers in the informal sector, will be able to register from Wednesday, with the country expecting more vaccines to arrive in the second half.

The Philippines has so far received more than nine million doses, mostly supplied by China’s Sinovac Biotech, but has a long way to go to meet its goal of immunising 70 million people this year out of a population of 110 million.

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The country is also lagging some neighbours, with only 4.4 million people having received their first dose and more than 1.5 million two shots so far.

Opening the vaccination campaign to more people will allow the “process of reopening [the economy] to continue,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez told the same media briefing.

“This is a shot in the arm needed by our economic frontliners and our economy so the signs of recovery will continue.”

To help shore up confidence in the vaccine programme and tackle vaccine hesitancy, local celebrities were among 50 people vaccinated in an inoculation ceremony on Monday.

The Philippines has reported 1.27 million infections and almost 22,000 deaths, with some provinces outside the capital region emerging as new hotspots for Covid-19.

Alcohol sharing blamed for Fiji surge

Fiji has recorded a surge in Covid-19, with 83 new cases reported on Sunday from the day before, according to the Fiji Times.

The majority of the infections were from known clusters or areas already under containment or lockdown protocols, with only 11 fresh cases of unknown origin, the newspaper said, citing health authorities.

The new tally is a record high for the Pacific Islands nation, where only 0.33 per cent of the population have been fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Fiji, which had seemingly eliminated community transmission two months ago, saw cases begin to spike in late May, with 244 recorded in the week to June 5, that data shows.

Officials believe that kava consumption has contributed to the surge, with the virus spreading as people share bowls of the intoxicating drink, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported last week.

The main hospital in the tourism town of Nadi has been shut down. Parts of the country’s major hospital in the capital, Suva, have also been closed after cases were detected there, the broadcaster said.

Reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Australia’s Victoria state reports biggest rise in new local cases in a week
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