Bangla army patrols streets in strict COVID-19 lockdown
Thailand opens Phuket to fully-vaccinated foreigners from lower-risk countries; Malaysia and Indonesia tighten restrictions
The Bangladesh army and police patrolled empty streets on Thursday as a strict week-long COVID-19 lockdown began, with people confined to their homes except for emergencies and to buy essentials.
On the first day of the shutdown, Dhaka’s normally bustling streets were deserted as soldiers in military fatigues carried out patrols and set up checkpoints.
The capital’s police said that 73 people were arrested on Thursday for being outdoors without a valid reason. The owners of more than 200 cars were booked.
“We are hopeful these tough measures will work. We have to contain the virus at any cost,” health department spokesman Robed Amin said.
But Sagar, an 18-year-old street food seller in Dhaka, was angry.
“The government is imposing the lockdown only to kill the poor. There will be no work for us, no help from anyone,” he said.
All offices and shops were shut with only local food markets allowed to open for a few hours a day. There was no public transport.
Excluded were garment factories supplying Western giants such as H&M and Walmart, a sector forming a key pillar of the Bangladeshi economy.
More than two-thirds of new cases in Dhaka are of the Delta variant, according to a recent study by the Dhaka-based International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research.
Thailand embarked on an ambitious but risky plan on Thursday that it hopes will breathe new life into a tourism industry devastated by the pandemic, opening the popular resort island of Phuket to fully vaccinated foreigners from lower-risk countries.
As the first flight arrived, airport fire trucks blasted their water canons to form an arch over the Etihad jet from Abu Dhabi as it taxied to its gate.
The number of new cases on the island itself is extremely low, in the single digits daily, and more than 70 per cent of its residents are fully vaccinated.
In a nod to the importance of the “sandbox” plan, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha flew to Phuket to be on hand in person for the launch.
He emphasised that the sandbox was just the first step toward his goal announced in June of having Thailand completely reopened within 120 days.
“This reopening is related to not only Phuket but also the whole country,” he said.
Malaysia on Thursday announced tighter restrictions on movement and businesses in the capital Kuala Lumpur and neighbouring Selangor state as new coronavirus cases show no sign of abating.
Security Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Kuala Lumpur and several districts in Selangor will see stricter measures imposed from Saturday for a period of two weeks.
Only essential busineses, including factories producing food and daily necessities are allowed to operate, he said in a statement.
The Southeast Asian nation recorded 6,988 new cases on Thursday, bringing the cumulative total to 758,967 infections and 5,254 deaths.
Science minister Khairy Jamaluddin also announced that the country would shorten the dosing interval for the Astrazeneca vaccine to nine weeks from a 12-week gap previously.
Indonesia will impose “emergency” coronavirus restrictions this week to battle an alarming surge in infections, President Joko Widodo said on Thursday, as the country scrambles to avoid a collapse of its overwhelmed healthcare system.
Widodo said the new curbs, starting on Saturday, would last more than two weeks in the capital Jakarta, hard-hit Java, and the holiday island Bali ater infections surged to record levels.
Daily cases almost reached 25,000 on Thursday, a new record for Southeast Asia’s worst-hit nation, as authorities warned about the rapid spread of highly infectious variants.
“This situation has forced us to take stricter steps. I have decided to impose emergency restrictions,” Widodo said in a nationwide address.
The new measures, slated to run until July 20, include ordering all non-essential employees to work from home, while classes will only be held online.