BALI: A spike in coronavirus infections in Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali and Thailand’s first locally transmitted case in 100 days have dealt further blows to South-east Asian hopes of reviving vital tourism industries. Plans to reopen Bali to foreign tourists from September have been postponed indefinitely, while Thailand’s proposal […]
Healthcare
SEOUL: Thousands of trainee doctors in South Korea returned to work today after ending a more than two-week strike as the country continued to post three-digit rises in new daily coronavirus infections. The Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 136 new cases as of midnight Monday, after […]
MADRID: Spain passed the landmark figure of 500,000 coronavirus infections yesterday as India reopened some metro lines despite becoming the world’s second most affected country. Spain had largely gained control over its outbreak by imposing one of the world’s toughest lockdowns, but infections have surged since the restrictions were fully […]
Health officials have been concerned about whether experimental vaccines could safely protect the elderly, whose immune systems usually react less robustly to vaccines, against the virus that has led to nearly 890,000 deaths worldwide. Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech Ltd said on Monday its coronavirus vaccine candidate appeared to be safe […]
The Russian health ministry registered the first vaccine against Covid-19, named Sputnik V, on August 11. The first batch of the Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, developed by Russia’s Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has been released into civil circulation, […]
NEW DELHI: Doctors at one of the largest private Covid-19 facilities in the Indian capital say they are exhausted and facing staff shortages after nearly six months of relentless work. India’s total cases of the novel coronavirus crossed 4.2 million today, overtaking Brazil as the second worst-hit country after the […]
HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s plan to test every resident for the coronavirus is being hobbled by limited take-up as a wary public steer clear of the China-backed health scheme. The free voluntary tests are part of an attempt to stamp out a third wave of infections that began in late […]
KATHMANDU: Police in Nepal used tear gas and water cannon yesterday to break up a religious rally that defied a government ban on public gatherings imposed to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the ban, about 2,000 residents poured into a major thoroughfare of Lalitpur, near Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, to pull […]
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil topped four million Covid-19 cases yesterday as health ministry officials said infections were beginning to slow in the world’s second worst-hit country. Since the first case came to light on February 26, the South American colossus has registered more than 4.04 million infections and over 124,600 […]
MELBOURNE: An Australian state reported a record 59 deaths today, the highest ever daily total for the country, including previously unrecorded fatalities in aged care homes over the past several weeks. The increase fatalities in Victoria state pushed the country’s death toll to 737 as the national cabinet — made […]