Coronavirus latest: Tokyo’s bars and restaurants to close early in response to ‘several clusters’

Health officials across Asia are facing a wave of coronavirus outbreaks, prompting authorities to impose a range of tougher restrictions.

Asian countries had largely prided themselves on rapidly containing initial outbreaks after the virus emerged in central China late last year but flare-ups this month have shown the danger of complacency.

In Japan, Tokyo’s governor on Thursday called for restaurants, bars and karaoke parlours to shut earlier to help contain the coronavirus as the Japanese capital reported a record new number of infections.

“The current situation [in Tokyo] is more serious than before,” Yuriko Koike said, citing expert opinions. “There were several clusters in Tokyo … We have no time to waste.”

Businesses in the capital that serve alcohol and karaoke parlours will be asked to close at 10pm, from August 3 until the end of the month, Koike said. The request is voluntary, with no penalties for those who don’t comply, and comes as the capital announced 367 new coronavirus cases, a day after a new single-day nationwide figure of 1,264 cases.

The Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday confirmed a single-day record of 367 new coronavirus cases. The figure surpasses the previous high of 366 cases confirmed on July 23 and brings Tokyo’s cumulative total to over 12,000, about half of which were reported this month.

Other urban areas in Japan have also seen sharp rises in confirmed cases since a nationwide state of emergency was fully lifted in late May.

Japan has so far recorded a comparatively small overall outbreak, with almost 32,500 infections and just over 1,000 deaths since the country detected its first Covid-19 case in January. But the number of infections has been on the rise since the government lifted a state of emergency two months ago.

Coronavirus: Japan reports record increase at start of four-day weekend

Japan will also begin lifting a ban on the re-entry of some foreign residents, imposed to limit the spread of coronavirus, the foreign ministry has announced. Up to 90,000 foreign nationals with residence permits, including students, business people and trainees, are currently stuck outside Japan after authorities banned re-entry from over 100 countries in response to the global pandemic.

From August 5, those who left Japan before their destination countries were added to the ban list will be able to apply to return, the foreign ministry said in a statement o Wednesday.

Those eligible will have to obtain a “re-entry confirmation letter” from the nearest Japanese diplomatic mission and submit evidence of a negative virus test conducted within 72 hours of their flight.

From September 1, those conditions will also apply to foreign nationals in other categories, including permanent or long-term residents and spouses and children of Japanese nationals or permanent residents.

Australia on Thursday reported a record number of new coronavirus infections and its deadliest day of the epidemic so far following a spike in cases at aged-care homes.

Days after authorities expressed hope that a Melbourne lockdown now in its third week was bringing persistent outbreaks under control, the surge is a potent warning that initial success in managing coronavirus can quickly unravel.

Thirteen deaths and 723 positive test results were recorded in the state of Victoria alone, well beyond the previous nationwide high of 549 infections set on Monday. Masks will be compulsory in public, starting on Sunday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the steep rise in numbers was “very concerning”.

“They are incredibly distressing and they are the product of a very severe crisis that occurred in a number of these centres,” Morrison said.

Australia braces for economy to shrink at fastest pace in history

The rest of the country remained on high alert, as three new cases were reported in the state of Queensland and several schools in Sydney were shuttered overnight amid growing fears that the country’s largest city may also be sliding towards an uncontrollable outbreak.

Morrison said although the New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian was right to be “constantly anxious” of the threat, the sources of the infections were being tracked and well-controlled so far.

“That still gives us reason for, I think, encouragement in New South Wales, but not reason for complacency,” he said.

New South Wales reported 18 new cases, roughly in line with previous days.

Melbourne has had thousands of new infections since mid-June – an outbreak initially blamed on security bungles at hotels where returning international travellers were under mandatory quarantine.

“Every Victorian, I think, deep down knows and appreciates that unless everyone plays their part, this lockdown will not end any time soon,” Premier Daniels Andrews said.

In Vietnam, authorities in Hanoi plan to conduct mass testing of thousands of people who visited the coastal city of Da Nang in July as part of efforts to contain another wave of coronavirus, state media said on Thursday.

More than 21,000 residents of the Vietnamese capital visited Da Nang in July, an area that has seen the nation’s largest spike in community transmission of the virus in over three months.

All Hanoi residents who visited the area have been asked via a text message from the Health Ministry to get tested over a three-day period.

Hanoi’s chairman Nguyen Duc Chung said the city must act fast and use all available resources to test all 21,063 returnees, according to local media reports.

On Thursday morning, the Vietnamese government confirmed nine new cases, bringing the total number of cases in the country, including recent repatriations of overseas Vietnamese, to 588.

Four of the new cases were linked to a hospital in the coastal city of Da Nang, the source of the country’s largest outbreak, after a man tested positive there on Friday. In all, 28 patients at the institution have so far tested positive.

Vietnam has locked down Da Nang, including ceasing all public transport in and out of the city except for vehicles supplying food, workers, or emergency supplies.

There are now two confirmed cases in Hanoi, and with fears of a wider outbreak growing, city officials have closed all pubs and bars and banned large gatherings. Wearing face masks is once again mandatory on public transport.

South Korea’s Celltrion on Thursday said British regulators had given it regulatory approval for a Phase I clinical trial of its experimental Covid-19 treatment drug.

The pharmaceutical firm will enrol participants for a clinical study in Britain after approval from the Medicines and Health care Products Regulatory Agency, Celltrion said in a statement.

South Korean regulators on July 17 approved an early stage clinical trial for the drug, making it the country’s first such antibody drug to be tested on humans.

The country has on Thursday reported 18 new coronavirus cases, taking the total to 14,269, as it battles a new wave of infections.

Stolen corpses, rejected masks: Indonesia’s coronavirus calamity

North Korea was on alert after a defector suspected of having the virus sneaked back in from South Korea.

North Korea, which says it has had no domestic cases, imposed strict quarantine and screening in Kaesong, just north of the border with South Korea, where the suspected infection was reported in a 24-year-old man who defected to South Korea in 2017 and slipped back in to the North this month.

North Korea has not confirmed the man tested positive for the virus but said he was showing symptoms.

The Rodong Sinmun newspaper, a ruling Workers’ Party mouthpiece, warned against carelessness.

“A moment of inattention could cause a fatal crisis,” it said.

The Philippines government on Thursday confirmed 3,954 new infections, the country’s largest single-day increase. The surge in infections was a sharp increase from the record 2,539 cases confirmed on July 8.

The government also said it will stockpile Japanese anti-flu drug Avigan, to treat severe cases of the coronavirus, as planned clinical trials for the drug draw closer.

Carlito Galvez Jnr, presidential adviser and head of the national task force handling the pandemic, said the government is looking for ways to treat severe cases to prevent more deaths.

“This is why we are buying high-flow nasal cannula, and we will also stockpile remdesivir and Avigan, as well as blood plasma [from Covid-19 survivors] so that our severe cases will not become fatalities,” Galvez said during a press conference in Metro Manila.

Favipiravir, an oral antiviral drug sold under the brand name Avigan, is manufactured by a subsidiary of Japanese firm, Fujifilm Holdings.

Meanwhile, Indonesia reported on Thursday 1,904 new coronavirus infections, bringing the country’s total tally to 106,336 cases, Health Ministry data showed.The number of deaths in the Southeast Asian nation related to Covid-19 rose by 83, bringing the total number of fatalities to 5,058.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan told a streamed briefing on Thursday evening that the large-scale social restrictions, which have seen schools closed and restaurants or public transportation operate at limited capacity, will be extended for the third time, to August 13.

“Data shows that there is a hike in cases in Jakarta, and there has not been any improvement from two weeks ago to right now,” he said, adding that there had been clusters found in offices in the capital.

Jakarta, a city of 10 million, reported 397 new coronavirus cases, according to central government data, bringing the total of infections in the city to 20,969, the second largest in the Southeast Asian nation.

A New Zealander stuck in Indonesia says he is in a race against the clock to find a way home before his visa expires.

Sony Ambudi, an acupuncturist and TCM practitioner, is among at least 288 New Zealanders in Indonesia, many of whom are scrambling to leave the country.

Ambudi’s visa is expiring on August 11 but he has not been able to secure flights back to Auckland. Previous flights he had booked were cancelled at the last minute as countries shut their borders and blocked transit flights, leaving him stranded in Medan.

For every day of overstaying, visitors face fines of 1 million rupiah (US$69).

Ambudi said he was not the only one facing such uncertainty, and he felt sorry for others in the same boat.

A spokesperson from New Zealand’s foreign affairs ministry said they were working with relevant authorities in Indonesia to help stranded Kiwis.

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