NEW DELHI (AP) – India on Monday reported another daily record of coronavirus infections surpassing Brazil as the country with the second most reported infection since the pandemic.
The 168,912 cases added during the past 24 hours have pushed the total number of India since the pandemic to 13.5 million, while Brazil has 13.4 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
India has also reported 904 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 170,179, which is the fourth highest toll, behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico.
India experiences worst-hit pandemic, with a seven-day moving average of more than 130,000 cases per day. Hospitals across the country are overwhelmed by patients, and experts are worried that the worst is yet to come.
The latest surge also coincides with the shortage of vaccines in some Indian states, including the western state of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital Mumbai, which has been hit the hardest and in the past two weeks recorded almost half of the country’s new infections has.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
The hard-hit Philippine capital and four provinces in the area were placed under a mild coronavirus lock-in on Monday to avoid further damage to an already battered economy despite a steady increase in infections and deaths. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Metropolitan Manila and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal, a region of more than 25 million people, would remain under lighter quarantine restrictions until the end of April. “Our emerging strategy is to increase our bed capacity instead of shutting down the economy,” Roque said. He spoke in a television newsletter of a hospital in Manila after contracting COVID-19 like many members of the cabinet. The Philippines has long been a coronavirus hotspot in Southeast Asia, with about 865,000 confirmed infections and nearly 15,000 deaths.
– Thailand reported 985 new cases of coronavirus, the highest daily increase since the beginning of the pandemic. Health officials say they are concerned that the number of new infections could be much higher after this week’s traditional Thai New Year holiday. Health experts said on Monday that the third major upsurge in the country was more difficult to control as it was mostly a variant of the virus first found in the UK and affected younger people mostly because it was present at nightclubs and bars broke out. Millions of Thais travel across the country for this week’s annual Songkran Festival. The government did not prevent people from traveling, just as when the festival was canceled last year.
New Zealand is demanding that all border workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus by the end of the month. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that employers are immediately starting to consider alternative options for any of their employees who have not been vaccinated. This could mean redeploying workers to roles away from the border or firing them. Ardern had previously set April as a deadline for vaccinating frontline workers, but spoke out more strongly on Monday after three workers in a quarantine facility contracted the virus. New Zealand has eliminated the spread of the virus within the community, so returning travelers who may have caught COVID-19 abroad are considered to be the most vulnerable.
Tokyo has taken stricter measures against the coronavirus as it struggles to curb the rapid spread of a more contagious variant ahead of the Olympics in a country where less than 1% of people have been vaccinated. Japan expands its vaccination drive Monday to older residents, with the first shots being fired in about 120 select locations across the country. The stricter COVID-19 rules allow the governor of Tokyo to set shorter opening hours for pubs and restaurants, punish offenders and compensate those who comply. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike urged residents to be careful while vaccinations are at an early stage.
Bhutan’s vaccination drive COVID-19 was fast from the start. While other countries have launched their vaccination campaigns over months, Bhutan is almost done just 16 days after it started. The small Himalayan kingdom has vaccinated almost 93% of its adults. Its small population has helped Bhutan move quickly, but dedicated volunteers and the use of cold-chain storage from earlier vaccinations are also attributed. Bhutan spread the shots to coincide with auspicious dates in Buddhist astrology, and the recipient and provider of the first shot were women born in the Year of the Monkey.
The new mayor of the capital of South Korea has demanded a speedy approval of coronavirus self-test kits and said that his city urgently needs more tools to fight the pandemic and keep struggling businesses open. Oh Se-hoon spoke on Monday when Seoul and nearby metropolitan towns turned off hostess bars, nightclubs and other high-risk entertainment venues to slow down the broadcasts. Similar businesses were also closed in the southern port city of Busan. The Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency said 350 of the 587 new cases in the country come from the greater Seoul area. The director of the South Korean National Health Institute said earlier this month that authorities were investigating whether rapid home tests should be approved. However, the investigation proceeded slowly, and some experts said that such tests would do more harm than good because they are less accurate than standard laboratory tests. Health officials meanwhile said Maryland-based Novavax has agreed to a licensing arrangement that will allow a South Korean biotechnology company to manufacture its coronavirus vaccines from later this year. SK Bioscience plans to produce 20 million Novavax shots by September, all of which will be used locally.