Iranians wearing potective masks go about their day in the capital Tehran, on April 12, 2021, following the tightening of restrictions to curb the surge of COVID-19 cases. (PHOTO / AFP)
SEOUL / KUWAIT CITY / COLOMBO - Iran said on Saturday that it would bar travelers from India over a COVID-19 variant to avert its spread in the already stricken country.
Officials, however, did not say if any cases of the variant first identified in India in late March had been detected in Iran, the epicenter of the pandemic in the Middle East.
“The Indian coronavirus is a new threat we face,” President Hassan Rouhani said in remarks broadcast on state TV.
“The Indian virus is more dangerous than the English and Brazilian variants,” he added.
“All the eastern provinces should make sure people infected with the virus do not cross the borders into the country,” Rouhani said. Iran’s eastern provinces border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Visitors can also travel Iran by way of the Gulf.
Iran’s civil aviation organization announced on local media that all flights to and from India and Pakistan would be halted from midnight Sunday.
Health Minister Saeed Namaki has asked the interior minister to “halt the direct and indirect transport of travelers from India”, Iranian media reported.
In Iran, the pandemic has so far claimed 68,746 lives, up by 380 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing.
A total of 1,850,791 people have recovered from the disease or been discharged from hospitals across Iran, while 5,107 remain in intensive care units, she noted.
Thailand
Thailand curbed shop operating hours on Saturday after the country recorded another record daily rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths amid a third wave of the pandemic.
Shopping malls in 18 risky provinces, including in the capital Bangkok, will be restricted to operating between 11am and 8pm for a week from Sunday, the Thai Retailers Association said in a statement.
Restaurants in the malls will be allowed to stay open an hour later, while convenience stores will be permitted to operate from 5am to 10pm.
Schools, bars and massage parlors were shut a week ago and will remain closed until next month, while alcohol sales have been banned in restaurants in an effort to increase social distancing.
The Thai government plans to inject 380 billion baht (US$12 billion) into the economy, as the country faces its biggest outbreak so far of the coronavirus, according to Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha.
The funds will be used to stimulate local consumption and promote investment and economic activities, Prayuth said in a televised national address on Friday night, without providing a timeline.
The prime minister’s speech came after the country reported its biggest one-day jump in the number of infections on Friday, taking the total case count to more than 50,000. The government has set up field hospitals and boosted medicine supplies to prepare for a surge in patients.
“The government and I will do whatever it takes to get us through this crisis,” Prayuth said. “I firmly believe that we will overcome this terrible disease.”
Cambodia
Cambodia closed all markets in the capital Phnom Penh on Saturday to contain a spike in coronavirus infections as thousands of families plead for food during a two-week lockdown.
The Southeast Asian country has one of the world's smallest coronavirus caseloads, but an outbreak that started in late February has seen overall cases spike to 8,848 and 61 deaths.
Phnom Penh went into lockdown on April 15 and has declared some districts "red zones," banning people from leaving their homes except for medical reasons.
In a new order issued on late Friday, Phnom Penh City Hall said all markets are to be closed from Saturday till May 7, saying that they have seen rising infections in markets and urged vendors and guards to get tested for COVID-19.
Australia
Western Australia's capital of Perth and the neighboring Peel region will enter a snap three-day lockdown from midnight on Friday after two people tested positive for COVID-19, the first cases of community transmission in Australia in a week.
Australia has all but stamped out the virus thanks to mandatory hotel quarantine for returning residents and citizens and snap lockdowns to arrest the infection.
The first case related to a man in Melbourne who likely contracted the disease during his two-week quarantine stay in a Perth hotel.
The second was his close contact in Perth, Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan said in a televised news conference, where he announced the lockdown.
"I know this is hard to take and I wish we didn't need to do this. But we can't take any chances with the virus," McGowan said.
The lockdown will close down most public spaces including pubs, restaurants, places of worship, libraries, and cinemas. Several sporting events scheduled for Friday night will go ahead, however, with masks mandatory.
Footage broadcast on national television showed instances of panic buying at supermarkets in Perth, and authorities said they were aware of heavy road traffic as people try and escape the lockdown for the long weekend marking ANZAC Day.
Dawn services on Sunday in Perth on the national day of remembrance to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the First World War, have been cancelled for the second year in a row.
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South Korea
South Korea reported 785 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Friday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 118,243.
The daily caseload was slightly down from 797 the previous day, but it stayed above 700 for four days.
The daily number of infections hovered in triple figures since Nov. 8 last year due to cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases.
Of the new cases, 251 were Seoul residents and 241 were people residing in Gyeonggi province.
Twenty-five cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 8,145.
One more death was confirmed, leaving the death toll at 1,812. The total fatality rate stood at 1.53 percent.
A total of 710 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 107,781. The total recovery rate was 91.15 percent.
The country has tested more than 8.63 million people, among whom 8,436,411 tested negative for the virus and 78,269 are being checked.
Turkey
Turkey on Friday reported 49,438 new COVID-19 cases, raising the tally to 4,550,820. Meanwhile, the Iranian health ministry reported 22,904 new infections, taking the country's caseload to 2,358,809.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 343 to 37,672, while the total recoveries climbed to 3,970,111 after 60,176 more recovered in the last 24 hours.
In Iran, the pandemic has so far claimed 68,746 lives, up by 380 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing.
A total of 1,850,791 people have recovered from the disease or been discharged from hospitals across Iran, while 5,107 remain in intensive care units, she noted.
Kuwait
The Kuwaiti Health Ministry reported on Friday 1,432 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total infections in the country to 264,198.
The ministry also announced nine more fatalities, taking the death toll to 1,502, while the tally of recoveries rose by 1,312 to 247,136. A total of 15,560 coronavirus patients are receiving treatment, including 222 in the intensive care units.
The Kuwaiti government has decided to extend the partial curfew, running from 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. local time, until the end of Ramadan as efforts to curb spread of COVID-19.
Lebanon
Lebanon registered on Friday 1,504 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections to 518,104, the Health Ministry said.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths from the virus went up by 33 to 7,090.
Charaf Abou Charaf, head of Lebanese Order of Physicians, said the numbers of COVID-19 deaths and infections at Intensive Care Units in hospitals have dropped as half of the Lebanese population have become immune against the virus.
Charaf noted that only five percent of the population was vaccinated while the rest developed immunity by being infected with the virus.
Qatar
The Qatari health ministry on Friday announced 798 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 200,778, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
Meanwhile, 1,297 more people recovered from the virus, bringing the overall recoveries to 178,461, while the fatalities increased by six to 413, according to a ministry statement quoted by QNA.
A total of 1,870,202 persons in Qatar have taken lab tests for COVID-19 so far, while the total number of vaccine doses administered is 1,372,396.
Singapore
Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 39 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the country's total tally to 60,943.
Of the new cases, 36 are imported cases, two are community cases, and the other one is linked with the dormitories of foreign workers.
On Friday, 10 more recovered COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals and community isolation facilities, bringing the total number of recoveries from the epidemic to 60,613, the ministry said.
There are currently 80 active cases being treated in hospitals. Of these, one is in critical condition and held in the intensive care unit.
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Myanmar
Myanmar reported 17 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, bringing the total infections to 142,704 on Friday, according to a release from the Health and Sports Ministry.
The death toll stood at 3,206 and 131,925 recovered patients have been discharged from hospitals so far, the release said.
A total of 1,507 samples were tested for COVID-19 on Friday, down from around 10,000 samples tested daily in early February.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan Army Commander and Head of the National Operations Center for the Prevention of COVID-19, General Shavendra Silva said on Friday despite a rise in the number of COVID-19 patients in recent days, the country would not impose a lockdown or a ban on district travels but urged people to remain cautious.
Silva told a media briefing in capital Colombo that there had been a rise in patients due to the recently concluded local new year celebrations which had resulted in a spread of the virus.
"We urge people to avoid unnecessary travel and remain home, especially during the weekend. Strict health guidelines must be followed including wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing as the coming two weeks will be very critical," Silva said.
India
India’s coronavirus infections rose by 346,786 overnight, the health ministry said on Saturday, setting a new world record for the third consecutive day, as overwhelmed hospitals in the densely-populated country begged for oxygen supplies.
India is in the grip of a rampaging second wave of the pandemic, hitting a rate of one COVID-19 death in just under every four minutes in Delhi as the capital's underfunded health system buckles.
The government has deployed military planes and trains to get oxygen from the far corners of the country to Delhi. Television showed an oxygen truck arriving at Delhi's Batra hospital after it issued an SOS saying it had 90 minutes of oxygen left for its 260 patients.
"Please help us get oxygen, there will be a tragedy here," Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a conference on Friday.
The crisis is also being felt in other parts of the country, with several hospitals issuing public notices that they don't have medical oxygen. Local media reported fresh cases of people dying in the cities of Jaipur and Amritsar for lack of the gas.
India surpassed the US record of 297,430 single-day infections anywhere in the world on Thursday, making it the global epicentre of a pandemic that is waning in many other countries. The Indian government had itself declared it had beaten back the coronavirus in February when new cases fell to all time lows.
However, COVID-19 deaths across India rose by 2,624 over the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate for the country so far. Crematoriums across Delhi said they were full up and asked grieving families to wait.
The country of around 1.3 billion has now recorded a total of 16.6 million cases, including 189,544 deaths.
Laos
The Lao Ministry of Health reported 88 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the country's caseload to 247.
Director General of the National Center for Laboratory and Epidemiology under the Lao Ministry of Health, Phonepadith Xangsayarath, told a press conference here on Saturday that among the new cases, 84 were detected in the capital and two each in Champasak and Bokeo provinces.
As of Saturday, Laos has tested 153,075 suspected cases with 247 cases tested positive, and 49 patients have recovered.
Mongolia
Mongolia reported 1,263 new COVID-19 cases during the past 24 hours, bringing the national count to 29,219, the National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Saturday.
Six more fatalities were registered, taking the death toll to 82, while the tally of recoveries rose by 487 to 14,745, the NCCD said.
The daily count of COVID-19 cases in Mongolia has risen sharply since the beginning of April.
More than 1,000 cases have been reported per day in the country in recent days, mostly in the capital Ulan Bator, which is home to over half of the country's total population.
Fiji
Fiji reported on Saturday one new locally transmitted case of COVID-19, who is the 14-year-old daughter of the female hotel worker who is the central link of local transmissions in the island nation.
According to Fiji's Health Ministry, the girl travelled with her mother to a funeral. She had no symptoms and tested negative when she was taken into quarantine on Sunday, but tested positive on day four of quarantine.
Her mother is the 53-year-old woman, who is a first generation contact of the soldier that tested positive for COVID-19.
Maldives
The daily COVID-19 caseload in the Maldives crossed 300 on Friday, with over half of these cases located outside of the capital Male, local media reported here Saturday.
According to data from the Health Protection Agency (HPA), 319 new cases were confirmed on Friday, and among these cases, 108 were from the Greater Male region and 182 were detected in inhabited islands, and the remaining were recorded in resorts and industrial islands.
New Zealand
New Zealand reported two new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, said the Ministry of Health in a statement.
The two new cases of COVID-19 were detected in managed isolation, while there was no new case of COVID-19 in the wider New Zealand community, said the ministry.
According to the ministry, the seven-day rolling average of new cases of COVID-19 detected at the border was one. The total number of active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand was 33 and the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country reached 2,245.
