Elderly women wearing face masks attend a dance class re-opened for the first time since the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic at Seodaemun Senior Welfare Centre in Seoul on July 1, 2021. (JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)
SEOUL / BANGKOK / MANILA – Moderna Inc will supply 7 million doses of its vaccine to South Korea in the next two weeks, the country’s premier said Sunday.
The shipment plan, announced by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum in a televised meeting with health officials, bolsters South Korea’s bid to have at least 70 percent of its population inoculated with the first shot by the end of September.
The shipment plan, announced by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum in a televised meeting with health officials, bolsters South Korea’s bid to have at least 70 percent of its population inoculated with the first shot by the end of September
South Korea this month extended the interval between first and second vaccines to six weeks after Moderna unexpectedly said it could supply less than half of the planned 8.5 million doses in August because of laboratory problems.
South Korea reported 1,628 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Saturday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 236,366.
The daily caseload was down from 1,880 in the prior day, but it hovered above 1,000 for 47 straight days. The daily average tally for the past week was 1,778.
The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Of the new cases, 493 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people residing in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 513 and 64.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 520, or 32.7 percent of the total local transmission.
Thirty-eight cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 13,149.
Thirteen deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 2,215. The total fatality rate stood at 0.94 percent.
A total of 1,758 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 206,276. The total recovery rate was 87.27 percent.
Since the mass vaccination was launched on Feb 26, the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to a total of 25,866,970 people with 11,562,518 fully vaccinated.
Thailand
Thailand’s parliament approved the nation’s US$93 billion annual budget that seeks to ramp up spending on tackling the COVID-19 outbreak while slashing outlays for defense and education. The nation logged 19,014 new cases of COVID-19 along with 233 more fatalities, the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) said on Sunday.
Since the pandemic first hit the country early last year, Thailand has had 1,049,295 infections, 839,855 of whom have recovered, while the death toll stands at 9,320, according to the CCSA.
A spokesperson for the CCSA said earlier that despite the situation remains worrisome, there are positive signs showing that the number of new infections has passed its peak, which might slow down the new caseload.
The Thai government has been trying to secure more vaccines and accelerate vaccine roll-out to create herd immunity. It aims to vaccinate around 70 percent of the nearly 70 million population by the end of the year.
As of Saturday, the country has administered more than 26.7 million doses of vaccines, with 8.5 percent of its whole population having been fully vaccinated, according to the CCSA.
The Philippines
The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported 16,044 new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections on Sunday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 1,839,635.
The death toll climbed to 31,810 after 215 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH added.
The Philippines reported 17,231 new cases on Friday, its biggest single-day spike so far. The Philippines, which has around 110 million population, has tested nearly 17 million people since the outbreak in January 2020.
This picture taken on August 21, 2021 shows a woman walking past a poster of Sydney harbour as the city extended its two-month-old lockdown and introduced a partial curfew to contain a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak.
(DAVID GRAY / AFP)
Australia
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the focus needs to move from COVID-19 case numbers to hospitalization rates.
“Rising cases need not impact our plan to reopen, and reopen as soon we can,” Morrison wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “I know it seems pretty dark now, but it’s always darkest before the dawn, and dawn’s coming. So please hang in there.”
Australia’s Saturday reported 894 new cases, its highest daily number
Australia’s hospitals and public health systems were well prepared and had held up to the challenge, he said.
“So while right now our national strategy is necessarily about suppressing the virus and vaccinating as many people as possible, a one-eyed focus on just case numbers overlooks the fact that less people are getting seriously ill, let alone dying,” Morrison said.
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Australia’s Saturday reported 894 new cases, its highest daily number.
Morrison reiterated that when vaccination rates reach the targets of 70 percent to 80 percent of the eligible population, curbs will begin to be lifted. He also said a key next step would be getting children aged over 12 vaccinated.
New Zealand
The Delta variant of coronavirus is a big challenge for New Zealand’s elimination strategy and could force the government to rethink the way it responds to an outbreak, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.
“With a virus that can be infectious within 24 hours of someone getting it, that does change the game a bit,” Hipkins said in an interview on TVNZ’s Q+A program. “With our Level Four lockdown, we are very well placed to be able to run it to ground, but we have to be prepared for the fact that we can’t do that every time there is one of these.”
New Zealand has been at the highest level of lockdown since Tuesday after a community case of coronavirus was discovered in Auckland. On Saturday, the country reported a further 21 local cases, bringing the total to 51.
This picture shows an empty highway during a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in Wellington on August 18, 2021.
(MARTY MELVILLE / AFP)
Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s cabinet meets Monday to decide whether to extend the lockdown further.
New Zealand has pursued a Covid-Zero strategy since the start of the pandemic, with its border closed to foreigners and all returning residents having to stay in a managed isolation facility for two weeks.
Hipkins said the system had worked well pre-delta, but it was now looking “less adequate and less robust.”
“We are looking very closely at what more we can do there, but yes, it does raise some pretty big questions about what the long term future of our plans are,” he said.
Japan
The Tokyo metropolitan government is considering converting some Olympic facilities into field hospitals to treat coronavirus infections as cases in the country hit record levels, the Sankei newspaper reported, citing unidentified people.
Olympic venues are spread out throughout the city, which makes them convenient for emergency response, according to the report. Any changes would take place after the closing of the Paralympic Games on Sept 5, it said.
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