New Covid-19 cases and deaths go up in Asean
After two successive days of improvement in the pandemic crisis, Southeast Asia saw an increase in new Covid-19 cases and deaths on Tuesday, collated data showed.
Asean countries reported 83,520 new cases, higher than Monday’s 76,446, while deaths were higher at 2,265 from Monday’s 1,941.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the region since the outbreak crossed 9.47 million, with 210,380 deaths.
Indonesia reported a near-doubling of new cases to 19,106 with 1,038 deaths on Tuesday, after seeing a sharp reduction in new patients and deaths on Monday to 9,604 and 842 respectively.
Cumulative cases in the country crossed the four-million mark to 4,008,166, with 128,252 deaths. The government announced the extension of its mobility restriction policy, known locally as PPKM, to curb Covid-19 in Java and Bali islands for another week. Under PPKM, shopping malls and restaurants are allowed to open with limited number of customers while other disease control measures must be employed.
The Philippines, which had the highest number of cases in the region at 18,332 on Monday with 151 deaths, reported a sharp decline in cases to 12,067 although deaths doubled to 303.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese authorities announced on Tuesday that Cuba had pledged to supply a large quantity of anti-Covid vaccines to the country this year, apart from transferring technology to produce the serums locally. Cuba’s Abdala vaccine reportedly has an efficiency of 92.2 per cent after three doses according to the final phase trial data released by Cuban authorities.
So far, Vietnam has procured over 23 million doses of vaccine and aims to procure another 50 million before the year-end. The vaccination rate in the country is still low with only 1.9 per cent of the 98 million population receiving two doses.