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SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Troops hit Sydney’s streets on Monday to help enforce its prolonged lockdown, as stay-at-home orders in Australia’s third-largest city Brisbane were extended to curb a worsening outbreak. About 300 Australian Defence Force personnel will be deployed to the country’s largest city after New South Wales state police requested military help to enforce Covid-19 rules. Authorities have been struggling to stop the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant in Sydney — […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Millions of people were confined to their homes in China Monday as the country tried to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months with mass testing and travel curbs. China on Monday reported 55 new locally transmitted coronavirus cases, as an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 cities and more than a dozen provinces. Local governments in major cities including Beijing have now tested millions of residents, while […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Thailand has extended a night-time curfew and other virus restrictions to 16 more provinces beginning Tuesday as the kingdom’s Covid-19 death toll soared to a new record. The Southeast Asian country is struggling to contain its latest outbreak fuelled by the Delta variant, with infections and deaths skyrocketing and the healthcare system stretched thin. Severe curbs on daily life including a seven-hour night-time curfew have already hit residents in a dozen […]
BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Germany plans to start offering Covid-19 booster shots to the elderly and at-risk from September 1, according to a draft document seen by AFP on Sunday, as concerns grow about the spread of the Delta variant. The plan also recommends promoting vaccination for those aged 12-17, which would go further than earlier guidance issued by the country’s vaccine regulator. Health Minister Jens Spahn and Germany’s 16 regional health ministers are expected […]
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AFP) — Cambodia began a roll out of Covid-19 vaccinations for teenagers in its capital Phnom Penh and three provinces Sunday, with Premier Hun Sen’s grandchildren among the first to get the jab. Several countries in Southeast Asia are currently experiencing a deadly Covid-19 resurgence largely driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, which has set back the region’s successes last year in curbing pandemic tolls. While Cambodia appeared to have escaped […]
BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland state will enter a snap Covid-19 lockdown from Saturday as authorities race to contain an emerging outbreak of the Delta strain. Millions of residents in the city and several other areas will be placed under stay-at-home orders from Saturday afternoon for three days, state Deputy Premier Steven Miles said. “The only way to beat the Delta strain is to move quickly, […]
Says Delta variant now in 132 countries by Robin MILLARD Agence France Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The Delta variant of Covid-19 is a warning to the world to suppress the virus quickly before it mutates again into something even worse, the WHO said Friday. The highly-transmissible variant, first detected in India, has now surfaced in 132 countries and territories, the World Health Organization said. “Delta is a warning: it’s a warning that the virus […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Tokyo Olympics organisers dismissed any link to rising coronavirus cases in Japan on Thursday after reporting 24 infections among Games participants, the highest yet. At least 193 athletes, media and Olympic employees and contractors have now tested positive for the virus, according to Tokyo 2020 figures that do not include some cases at airports and in training camps. On Wednesday, Japan reported 9,583 cases nationwide, the first time the figure […]
KUWAIT City, Kuwait (AFP) — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in Kuwait on Wednesday where he pledged his support to the UN agency’s investigation in China into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. “The U.S. supports the @WHO plans for additional studies into COVID-19 origins, including in (the People’s Republic of China), to better understand this pandemic and prevent future ones,” Blinken […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Millions of Sydney residents will spend another month in lockdown, authorities announced Wednesday, citing a still-growing coronavirus outbreak and low vaccination rates. Australia’s biggest city had been due to exit lockdown on July 30 after five weeks but the restrictions will remain in place until August 28 as case numbers continued to climb. “I appreciate personally what we’re asking people do for the next four weeks but it is because we […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia reported a record 2,069 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours Tuesday as the Southeast Asian nation faces its deadliest Covid-19 surge since the pandemic began. Tuesday’s grim tally was nearly 600 deaths higher than the previous day and topped last week’s daily record 1,566 deaths, the health ministry said. New infections also shot up to just over 45,000, from about 28,000 on Monday. The eye-watering data comes after Indonesia this week […]
MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) — Melbourne’s coronavirus lockdown will be lifted late Tuesday, as authorities signalled a Delta variant outbreak in Australia’s second-biggest city had been contained. Neighbouring South Australia state will also ease stay-at-home rules, but the country’s largest city Sydney was facing a likely extension to a lockdown now in its fifth week. After almost two weeks under stay-at-home orders, millions in Melbourne and surrounding Victoria state will exit their fifth lockdown just before […]
