
Coronavirus: Philippines stops nurses from working abroad; Vietnam PM wants eased restrictions
- The Philippines, which sends thousands of medical staff overseas to work every year, is seeking to reinforce its health system as virus cases surge
- Some provinces in Vietnam have slapped extreme measures that have hit business activities, putting supply chains at risk of disruption
The processing of permits for the medical workers has been suspended immediately, Bernard Olalia, head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said in a June 1 statement posted on the agency’s website.
The Philippines, which sends thousands of medical staff overseas to work every year, is seeking to reinforce its health care system as local coronavirus cases surge.
The nation added 6,955 cases on Saturday, bringing the total to more than 1.2 million.
Health care staff who have been issued employment certificates to work overseas will still be allowed to leave, according to the statement.
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Vietnam braces itself from discovery of new hybrid Covid-19 variant fuelling its worst outbreak
Vietnam PM tells provinces to ease curbs
Vietnam is currently battling its worst Covid-19 outbreak, with about 5,500 cases reported in 39 out of 63 provinces and cities since late April. Several centres, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, have put social distancing measures in place to curtail the virus while others have imposed controls on returnees from affected areas, Chinh said in a statement.
“Some locations, however, have slapped rigid and extreme measures that have hit production and business activities, putting supply chains and large-scale production at risk of disruption,” the premier said. He told authorities nationwide to ensure they are putting the correct people in quarantine and are not blocking transport and banning trade.
The directive came on the same day that Ho Chi Minh City asked officials in bordering Dong Nai province to adopt a virus-control plan that creates favourable conditions for goods transport and the movement of workers between the city and the province.
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Authorities in Dong Nai, home to 32 industrial estates, have been widely criticised over the province’s 21-day mandatory self-quarantine, or paid quarantine at hotels, for people who return from Ho Chi Minh City from June 5. State media reported national roads linking the city and Dong Nai on Saturday were congested with goods trucks, passenger buses and motorbikes, with many cancelling Dong Nai trips to avoid quarantine.
More than 6,000 people working at Ho Chi Minh City’s 17 industrial estates live in Dong Nai and a large number of Ho Chi Minh residents work in the neighbouring province, according to city authorities.
Ho Chi Minh City imposed social distancing measures from May 31 for 15 days, including shutting non-essential businesses and restricting gatherings of more than 10 people in public places. It also locked down one district. At least 15 provinces and cities have mandated quarantines of 14 to 21 days for returnees from Ho Chi Minh City and other virus-hit localities, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported on Friday.
Ho Chi Minh City, which has a population of almost 10 million, has reported 355 local virus cases and one death from May 18, with most infected people tied to a religious group. The worst-affected areas are Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces where global electronics makers have factories, and Hanoi, according to the health ministry.
India cases hit 2-month low
The country’s total case tally stands at 28.8 million while 346,759 people have died.
A second wave of the coronavirus that has largely battered India’s rural interiors is yet to abate but New Delhi and other cities are working towards allowing more businesses to operate and movement rules to be relaxed from Monday onwards.
The western state of Maharashtra, which has suffered the most infections during the second wave, plans to start this week easing in stages a strict lockdown imposed in April.
Scientists have warned of a third wave of the coronavirus that could hit India later in the year, likely impacting children more.
While the country has ramped up its vaccination drive in the past few weeks after a slow start, a majority of its 1.3 billion people are expected to remain unvaccinated by the time a potential third wave hits.
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Apec ministers agree on faster vaccine access
Ministers responsible for trade in the Asia-Pacific region said they would work to expedite the distribution and flow of vaccines and other essential medical supplies between economies to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation which includes the US, China and Japan said they would “consider removing unnecessary barriers to trade in services, particularly those services that expedite and facilitate the flow of essential goods,” according to a statement late on Saturday. The trade ministers stopped short of making a broad commitment to remove tariffs.
Trade barriers surrounding the import and export of vaccines have been highlighted as one of the key factors inhibiting a wider spread of inoculation in developing countries. The day before the Apec trade ministers meeting, they held a dialogue with Rachel Taulelei, the 2021 chair of the Apec Business Advisory Council, who advocated unrestricted trade of vaccines and essential medical supplies.
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Victoria logs four new local cases
Two other new cases were reported on Sunday by an aged care home, but the state had yet to confirm them.
The four new local infections bring Victoria’s total cases to 74, including two recovered cases, in the outbreak that began in late May after a man who tested negative in hotel quarantine in Adelaide returned to Melbourne and tested positive.
The daily rise was down from five new cases reported on Saturday. All four new cases were linked to existing clusters.
Officials said that Melbourne’s restrictions would probably be eased on Thursday.
“If we can, we will lift it early, but at this stage our expectation is that it will continue to Thursday,” Victoria’s deputy chief health officer Allen Cheng told reporters.
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Health authorities remain worried about the emergence of the highly infectious Delta variant, which has now extended to 10 cases, as the source has yet to be identified and there has been no genomic match so far with any other cases in Australia.
“The last thing we want to see is this variant of the virus getting out and becoming uncontrollable,” state deputy premier James Merlino said.
A family that travelled to a beach town in New South Wales state were the first in Melbourne to be infected by the Delta variant.
“We are concerned about who it was who might have given them the infection and therefore could there be other infections related to that,” Cheng said.
Arcare said it had two new cases at one of its aged care facilities. One of the new cases was a nurse and the other a resident who lives close to two residents infected earlier.
Australia has been relatively successful in controlling the virus with snap lockdowns, tight border restrictions and social distancing, but has had a slow vaccine roll-out.
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday that Canberra would deliver an extra 100,000 Pfizer vaccines to Victoria over three weeks from June 14 and would double the number of AstraZeneca vaccines to 230,000 for medical clinics in the state.
Victoria has accounted for two-thirds of the more than 30,100 virus cases and 90 per cent of the 910 deaths in the country since the pandemic began last year.
Bangladesh approves Sinovac vaccine
Dhaka-based Incepta Vaccine Ltd. will work as the local agent for the import of the vaccine, the Directorate General of Drug Administration said in a notice on Sunday.
Bangladesh approved the emergency use of China’s Sinopharm jab in April after the inoculation drive came to a halt amid a supply squeeze due to India’s ban on vaccine exports.
Reporting by Bloomberg, Reuters
