Ahead of the lockdown announcement, long queues formed outside supermarkets around the country, with reports of fights breaking out among shoppers over groceries.

“We’ve seen the dire consequences of taking too long to act,” Ardern said. She added that genome sequencing of the case was under way and there was no known link to the border as yet.

“Every case in managed isolation and quarantine recently has been the Delta variant, and Delta is surging around the world,” she said. “While we can’t confirm it yet, we need to assume our case will be, too.”

Will Covid-19 become more infectious with more variants emerging?

Ardern said it was a situation nobody wanted. “Going hard and early has worked for us before,” she said. “We know that Delta is a more dangerous enemy to combat, the same actions we applied last year can work again.”

The last case in the community was reported on February 28. Since then, all Covid-19 cases in New Zealand have been caught at the border.

New Zealand, with a population of about 5 million people, has recorded a total of 2,570 cases and 26 deaths during the pandemic.

02:08

New Zealand implements national lockdown over one Covid-19 case

New Zealand implements national lockdown over one Covid-19 case

Singapore may allow vaccinated travellers

“We continue to look at countries including the US, UK, Australia and so on to explore possibilities of opening up,” Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Tuesday.

A more extensive reopening, however, would depend on governments around the world controlling the pandemic, he said.

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“It will also require the whole world’s infection to come under control because Singapore is an open economy,” Gan said, when asked when the country could have bigger gathering sizes and longer opening hours for restaurants.

“It’s important for us to bear in mind that infections will continue until the whole world is safe, and also we have to bear in mind that vaccines today, although it is very effective against severe diseases, it is somewhat less effective to prevent transmission.”

Singapore aims to relax more virus curbs, including starting to allow quarantine-free travel in September, when 80 per cent of its population is expected to be fully vaccinated. The high inoculation rate will allow authorities to ease measures, officials have said.

Payout for cardiac arrest teen

The patient, who had required intensive care, is recovering steadily and will likely be discharged in the coming weeks, according to the statement. However, he will likely require outpatient rehabilitation for some time before he can return to school and resume other activities.

Singapore sees quarantine-free travel, fewer Covid-19 rules from September

The acute severe myocarditis he suffered was likely caused by the vaccine, which may have been aggravated by strenuous lifting of weights and his high consumption of caffeine through energy drinks and supplements.

While there is a small increased risk of myocarditis or pericarditis following the administration of the vaccines, the local incidence rate remains low at 0.48 per 100,000 doses administered, the government said. The majority have responded well to treatment and have recovered or been discharged well from the hospital, it said.

03:02

Philippines distributes cash aid to poor residents during Covid-19 lockdown

Philippines distributes cash aid to poor residents during Covid-19 lockdown

Japan will expand state of emergency

Virus emergency measures that ban restaurants and bars from selling alcohol and require them to close by 8pm are already in place in Tokyo and five other regions, and had been due to end by August 31.

But the government will now expand the measure to additional areas, with the restrictions in all parts of the country running until September 12.

Hong Kong-Japan ties will survive national security law and Covid-19, Tokyo envoy says

“[Infection] is spreading across Japan on a scale we have never experienced before,” said Yasutoshi Nishimura, the coronavirus response minister. “The number of patients in serious condition is rising each day.”

In addition to the measures affecting bars and restaurants, the government will ask large shopping malls and department stores to limit the number of customers inside at one time.

Japan has seen a smaller outbreak than many other countries, with around 15,400 deaths despite avoiding lockdowns.

But its inoculation programme began later and more slowly than in many other developed countries, and only around 37 per cent of the population is currently fully vaccinated.

In recent days, Japan has reported more than 20,000 daily cases nationwide, a record for the country.

The surge began before the Olympics opened last month and continued throughout the Games, which were held with spectators banned from most events.

On Monday night, organisers said a spectator ban would also be applied to the Paralympics, with limited exceptions for a programme bringing schoolchildren to watch the Games.

Paralympic participants face virus restrictions including regular testing and limits on their movement.

Philippine nurses overwhelmed

The 30-year-old, who declined to give her last name for fear of reprisals, is among thousands of medical workers who have resigned during the pandemic, complaining of low pay and poor working conditions. Others have sought better jobs abroad.

“We can’t even take a proper day off because we are often called back to cover for other staff who were in quarantine or resigned,” said Loui, who was earning 20,000 pesos (US$394) a month, including overtime, before she quit in March.

Hospitals fear the desertions have reached a critical point just as the Delta variant sends the number of cases soaring, as it has done elsewhere in Southeast Asia and worldwide.

The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPi) estimated that 40 per cent of private hospital nurses resigned last year, but more followed new waves of infections this year. Public hospitals are facing similar challenges.

“If we want to increase bed capacity, that is easy, but the problem is the nursing component,” PHAPi’s president Jose Rene de Grano said.

Philippines finds first case of Covid-19 Lambda variant

More than a year and a half into the pandemic, reported coronavirus infections in the Philippines have soared to more than 1.75 million, the second highest in Southeast Asia, while deaths have exceeded 30,000.

Philippine Nurses Association President Melbert Reyes said he feared that hospitals could see even more nurses quit if their demands for better benefits and conditions went unmet.

“A lot of our nurses are demoralised,” Reyes said.

Union leaders in several hospitals in virus hotspots last week threatened to strike, while a nursing group warned that dozens could resign over unpaid allowance and benefits.

Sydney cases expected to surge

Covid-19 cases are set to “rise substantially” in Sydney in the coming weeks despite a prolonged lockdown, authorities said on Tuesday, warning soaring infections have already put hospitals under enormous strain.

Australia, once a world leader in curtailing Covid-19, is struggling to suppress a third wave of infections driven by the highly infectious Delta variant despite locking down more than half its population.

New South Wales (NSW) state, whose capital Sydney is the epicentre of the latest outbreak, reported 452 cases in the past 24 hours, the third-biggest one-day jump, and one new death.

“We envisage that case numbers in the next two or three weeks will bounce around and are likely to rise substantially,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.

Sydney has already toughened restrictions, including setting up roadblocks in parts of the city, and has hiked fines amid reports of people flouting strict stay-at-home orders.

Economists fear the lockdowns may drive the country’s A$2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) economy into a second recession in as many years, although Australia’s central bank stands ready to take policy action, minutes from its August meeting showed on Tuesday.

In Sydney’s south, 80 medical staff were forced into isolation at a local hospital after several cases of Covid-19 were found in an oncology ward, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said, noting reports of ambulances queuing to access care in the city’s west.

“There’s no question that the hospital system is under enormous pressure across New South Wales,” Hazzard said.

The country is racing to speed up its sluggish vaccination roll-out, with only about 26 per cent of Australians fully vaccinated.

02:01

Malaysian man fails again in attempt to swim around pandemic travel restrictions

Malaysian man fails again in attempt to swim around pandemic travel restrictions

India hits record 8.8m daily vaccinations

India administered more than 8.8 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the past 24 hours, the highest-ever number of vaccinations achieved on a single day, the federal Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The new peak in inoculations comes amid a sharp fall in daily infections, which declined to 25,166, the lowest since March 16, the ministry said.

Coronavirus model that predicted India’s second wave points to more heartache

India earlier hit a record of 8.6 million doses on June 21, according to data on the Health Ministry website. However, the pace of inoculation fell to between 4 million and 5 million per day on average in the weeks since.

Given its huge population, India needs to administer almost 10 million doses a day to achieve its aim of inoculating its adults by December, experts say.

Forty-six per cent of adult Indians have received the first dose, while 13 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

Why is the Delta coronavirus variant quicker to make people sick?

Overall, more than 554.7 million vaccine doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive that began in January.

India’s overall Covid-19 caseload touched 32.25 million on Tuesday, second only to the United States‘ 36.88 million infections. Casualties so far number 432,079 with 437 deaths linked to the virus in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.

Additional reporting by Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, dpa