Asia-Pacific virus outbreaks flare; Covid-19 curbs reimposed in Moscow

Moscow: Work-from-home restrictions were reimposed in Moscow on Monday as Russia tried to contain a deadly coronavirus wave fuelled by the Delta variant, while several Asian nations also tightened curbs to contain growing outbreaks.

While many wealthy countries have brought down infections through rapid vaccinations, outbreaks are still raging from Bangladesh and Indonesia to South America -- many fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant that was first detected in India.

Russia has seen an explosion of new cases in the last two weeks because of this variant, with its largest cities Moscow and Saint Petersburg posting record deaths on Monday for the second consecutive day.

Authorities have pushed vaccine-sceptic citizens to get a shot in a bid to stem the outbreak. "To stop the pandemic, one thing is needed: rapid, large-scale vaccinations," Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin told state TV on Saturday.

"Nobody has invented any other solution." From Monday, people will have to work from home in Moscow -- the epicentre of Russia’s outbreak -- with exceptions for vaccinated employees. They will also have to present a QR code to enter restaurants, certifying that they are either vaccinated, have had Covid-19 in the last six months, or have a valid negative test.

The outbreak in Russia -- already one of the worst-hit nations in the world -- has also caused alarm because of the ongoing Euro 2020 football tournament, which has seen thousands of fans attend matches in different countries across the continent.

Saint Petersburg has already hosted six matches, and is the venue for one of the quarter-finals on Friday. Spectator numbers have been capped at half-capacity, but still upwards of 26,000 people.

Covid-19 is known to have claimed nearly four million lives worldwide since it first emerged in China in late 2019, and it is still spreading with multiple variants now in circulation. The Delta variant is now in 85 countries and is the most contagious of any identified so far, according to the World Health Organisation.

The virus also remained on the march across the Asia-Pacific, with thousands left stranded in Bangladesh’s capital as the country halted all public transport ahead of a sweeping new lockdown.

The outbreak has been blamed on the deadly new Delta variant, with a recent study by the independent Dhaka-based International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research reporting more than two-thirds of new virus cases were linked to the strain.

The South Asian nation, home to more than 160 million people, will shut down shops, markets, transportation and offices in stages by Thursday -- a decision that sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of migrant workers from the cities.

"We did not have any choice but to leave (the capital Dhaka)," Fatema Begum, 60, told AFP while waiting for a ferry. "During lockdown, there is no work. And if we don’t work, how do we pay rent?"

Thailand from Monday also reimposed restrictions on restaurants, construction sites and gatherings in the capital Bangkok and its suburbs because of a spike in cases. Indonesia is battling one of the worst outbreaks in Asia, reporting a daily record 21,000 new cases on Sunday as fears grew about the ability of its stretched hospitals to handle the surge.

To the south, Australia was also fighting fresh outbreaks spurred by the Delta variant in areas not used to living under strict Covid-19 rules. Residents of the country’s biggest city Sydney are under stay-at-home orders for two weeks. And in Darwin in the north a 48-hour lockdown -- due to end Tuesday -- was extended to Friday after a cluster linked to an outback gold mine grew to seven cases.

The fresh lockdowns came as Canberra warned Australia faces stalled population growth and budget deficits until at least 2060 as a result of emergency Covid measures, a stark warning for a country that had weathered the pandemic relatively unscathed.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong is to ban all incoming flights from the United Kingdom from July 1 to curb the more infectious Delta strain of the coronavirus, the financial hub’s government said in a statement Monday.

"All passenger flights from the UK will be prohibited from landing in Hong Kong," the statement said. The UK would now be designated in the "extremely high-risk" category of countries, it added, the most severe rating the city has for pandemic travel.

In a related development, the British government is intent on lifting all of England’s coronavirus restrictions on July 19, Sajid Javid said on Monday in his maiden speech to parliament as health secretary.

"We see no reason to go beyond 19th July," Javid told MPs as he sought to steady the government’s pandemic response after his predecessor Matt Hancock resigned on Saturday. The married Hancock quit after leaked security camera footage showed him breaking the social distancing laws he was urging the public to respect, by kissing a female adviser in his office.

Javid, who has previously served as finance and interior minister, was notably less cautious than Hancock on removing the restrictions, after the last stage was delayed. "No date we choose comes with zero risk for Covid. Because we know we cannot simply eliminate it, we have to learn to live with it," he added.

"We also know that people and businesses need certainty, so I want every step to be irreversible. The restrictions on our freedom must come to an end... "For me, 19th July is not only the end of the line but the start of a exciting new journey for our country."

Britain has been one of the worst affected countries in the world by the pandemic, registering some 128,000 deaths since the start of the outbreak. Meantime, after declining fast for two months, the rate of Covid infections in the United States has leveled off since mid-June thanks to localized spikes in under-vaccinated regions of the country, data showed on Monday.

It comes as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to gain traction, now accounting for 35.6 percent of sequenced cases in the past two weeks, according to the covSpectrum tracker. Authorities have said it is poised to soon become the country’s dominant strain.

The seven-day-average of new daily cases has hovered at around 11,500 since June 16, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or about 3.5 per 100,000 people. A clear divide has emerged across the country, with cases rising rapidly in communities that have low rates of vaccination.