Coronavirus: stricter curbs in Melbourne; Vietnam races to avoid major outbreak - South China Morning Post

Andrews told reporters the state recorded 429 new cases and 13 more deaths in past 24 hours, he said.

Few people were out and about in the city centre on Monday morning, and traffic volumes thinned to half of what were already light flows, with police being given powers to ensure people are complying with public health directions.

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Melbourne enacts citywide curfew as Australia continues to battle spike in coronavirus cases

“This is devastating … nobody wanted it to get to this,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Nine News television.

“There is only one way out and that is to stem the tide of new cases. This is a big kick in the guts to thousands of small businesses right across the state,” he added.

Victoria makes up about a quarter of the national economy.

While has fared far better than many other countries in keeping the coronavirus from spreading, high numbers of community transmissions and cases of unknown origins have forced the new restrictions.

In all, Australia has recorded more than 17,923 cases and 208 deaths.

A group of police and soldiers patrol the Docklands area of Melbourne. Photo: AFP

The Victorian outbreak has scuppered Australia’s hopes for a quick economic rebound from the country’s first recession in nearly three decades.

The surge in new cases will also see an Australia-New Zealand travel bubble delayed indefinitely, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday.

“Part of our criteria is anywhere we have quarantine-free travel, they have to be free of community transmission for a period of time, 28 days,” she told New Zealand’s network Three. “That is going to take a long time for Australia … so that will be on the back burner for some time.”

Both countries had previously said international travel between the two could restart as soon as September.

More updates from around the region:

PM warns Vietnam has only weeks to avoid major outbreak

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc warned the nation during a cabinet meeting on Monday that it needs to move quickly to curtail the coronavirus outbreak that began in the coastal city of last month to prevent it from reaching a “major scale,” according to a post on the government’s website.

The “early August period” is a decisive time to tamp down the outbreak, Phuc said, according to the government’s website. Ho Chi Minh City’s disease control centre forecasts the virus outbreak will continue rising and spread quickly, according to the agency’s website.

Vietnam is testing all residents of Da Nang, the city at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak with 1.1 million people, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. More than 1.4 million people had travelled to the coastal city since July 1, and returned to their home provinces and cities, while about 42,000 people had visited three hospitals where most of the infections occurred, the government said.

The financial hub of Ho Chi Minh City recorded three cases after testing nearly 24,000 residents as of Monday out of 36,754 who said they visited Da Nang in the past month, its centre of disease control said. Hanoi has quick-tested nearly 68,000 people who returned from Da Nang as of Sunday, according to the city’s government, which said an estimated 83,937 of its residents had been in the coastal city since July 8.

Officials in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have ordered bars to close and a suspension of large gatherings. The nation’s tally is now 621 cases, including 242 under treatment and six deaths, according to the health ministry.

Duterte reimposing lockdown on Manila area

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is reimposing a moderate lockdown in the capital and outlying provinces after medical groups appealed for the move as coronavirus infections surge alarmingly.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said on Monday that metropolitan Manila, the capital region of more than 12 million people, and five densely populated provinces will revert to stricter quarantine restrictions for two weeks starting Tuesday. Mass public transport will be barred and only essential travel will be allowed.

Leaders of nearly 100 medical organisations held a rare online news conference on Saturday and warned that the and may collapse as health workers fall ill or resign from exhaustion and fear.

They asked Duterte to reimpose a tight lockdown in the capital to allow health workers “a time out” and allow the government to recalibrate its response to the pandemic.

The number of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines surged past 103,000 on Sunday and is second-most in Southeast Asia.

Travellers to Singapore to wear monitoring devices

will require some incoming travellers who are serving their 14-day stay-home notices outside of dedicated facilities to wear an electronic monitoring device to ensure compliance, the government said.

The rule will come into effect August 10 and will apply to Singapore citizens, permanent residents, long-term pass holders and work pass holders, the government said.

Those 12 years old and below will be exempted from this requirement. Upon arrival in the city state, travellers will be issued the device after immigration clearance, according to the statement.

Authorities will follow up with travellers if device is not activated upon reaching their place of residence.The devices use GPS and 4G/Bluetooth signals to determine if individuals are within the range of their place of residence.

Earlier, the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Education and the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority have been monitoring compliance via a combination of manual and automated text messages along with phone and video calls.

South Korea cases drop

South Korea has confirmed 23 additional cases of the coronavirus, amid a downward trend in the number of locally infected patients. The additional cases announced on Monday by the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention took the country’s total to 14,389 with 301 deaths.

The agency said 20 new cases came from overseas while the rest were locally infected. Health authorities have said imported cases are less threatening to the wider community as they enforce two-week quarantines on all people arriving from abroad.

Japan PM stops wearing ‘Abenomask’

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he has stopped wearing his much-touted government-sponsored mask, which and slow delivery to the public, as different options have become available.

Since Saturday, Abe has stopped donning what became known as the “Abenomask,” a tiny washable cloth face mask which has been derided by critics as a symbol of an out-of-step policy against the coronavirus pandemic. The premier began wearing the controversial mask, which rode up on his face, in April.

Donning a mask that fully covered his lower chin, Abe told reporters, “This is also a cloth mask. Since various masks are now available, I would like to ask all people to cooperate in preventing infection” by wearing face masks.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wearing his trademark ‘Abenomask’ at a news conference in Tokyo in May. Photo: Reuters

The government started providing the tiny cloth masks to every household in April to solve the mask shortage at the time, but they proved highly unpopular and soon earned the name Abenomask, a pun on his signature “Abenomics” economic policy mix.

So far, 130 million of the masks have been provided to households nationwide, with billions of yen spent on the policy.

While there was a plan to deliver an additional 80 million cloth masks to nursing homes and other facilities, the government is scrapping it after opposition parties and some of the public criticised the move as inefficient and wasteful. The government is now considering giving the masks only to those who wish for them and stockpiling the remainder.

India infections hit 1.8 million

India reported 52,972 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 1.8 million, data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare showed on Monday.

With 771 new deaths, the respiratory disease has now claimed 38,135 lives in the world’s second-most populous country.

Meanwhile, Indian health authorities have given approval to the Serum Institute of India for conducting phase two and three trials of a Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford.

The approval came late Sunday from the Drugs Controller General of India. At least 1,600 adults will participate in the trials.

Serum, the world’s largest maker of vaccines by volume, is mass-producing the vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford. It’s one of several candidates being developed.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg, Associated Press and Kyodo

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