India’s worst-hit state ramped up its COVID-19 restrictions as nationwide the daily infections yesterday exceeded 100,000 for the first time.
The US is the only nation that has regularly registered so many cases in one day. Brazil recorded triple digits once last month. In India, hopes at the start of the year that the outbreak might be subsiding in the nation of 1.3 billion people have been dashed in recent weeks as a fresh wave pushed the national total to 12.5 million infections and 165,000 deaths.
Maharashtra, the worst-hit state and home to Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, recorded nearly 60,000 cases in the past 24 hours.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Struggling state authorities on Sunday tightened the evening curfew to allow only people involved in essential services out of their homes from 8pm to 7am.
The region of 110 million people would also see weekend lockdowns, with gatherings of more than 400 people banned and places of worship and restaurants shut.
In Mumbai over the weekend, one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Akshay Kumar, became the latest celebrity to test positive.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Shooting of the religious epic Ram Setu that Kumar was making was yesterday halted after 45 crew members also tested positive.
“How long shooting remains halted depends on Akshay Kumar’s recovery. We can replace all our crew members, but we cannot replace the star of the film,” Ashok Dubey from the Federation of Western India Cine Employees said.
In New Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has ruled out a new lockdown, despite the surge in cases.
Police said they are issuing more fines to people not wearing masks.
Authorities in the Philippines yesterday extended a lockdown by another week after an alarming spike in COVID-19 infections continued to surge and started to overwhelm many hospitals in the capital and outlying regions.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte placed Metropolitan Manila and four outlying provinces, a region of more than 25 million people, under lockdown last week as daily infections breached 10,000.
Roman Catholic leaders shifted Holy Week and Easter events online after all public gatherings, including in places of worship, were temporarily banned.
The government-run Lung Center of the Philippines became the latest hospital in the capital region to announce over the weekend that it could no longer accept walk-in patients after its COVID-19 ward reached full capacity and its emergency room was handling twice its capacity.
“We are not just full. We are very full. In fact, the hospital has been full for the past two weeks,” Lung Center spokesman Norberto Francisco said.
Other hospitals said they could expand bed capacity, but lacked medical workers partly because many had been infected.
Duterte’s administration has increasingly faced criticism of mishandling the pandemic, but presidential spokesman Harry Roque said that the spread of more infectious COVID-19 variants came as a surprise.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS