India’s coronavirus cases surge past 1m
FRESH outbreaks of coronavirus, even in places as far flung as China’s western Xinjiang region, are prompting worldwide moves to guard against the pandemic as the number of confirmed cases globally approaches 14 million.
India said it had surpassed one million cases yesterday, third only to the United States and Brazil, with nearly 25,000 deaths.
That followed Brazil’s announcement it has passed two million cases and 76,000 deaths – 1,000 fatalities a day, on average, since late May on a gruesome plateau yet to fall.
India’s milestone drove home concerns over the country’s readiness to deal with an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test the country’s feeble health care system.
China reported nine imported cases yesterday.
Health officials in Xinjiang reported six confirmed cases of local transmission and said another 11 people tested positive but were asymptomatic – China does not include asymptomatic cases in its totals.
The Muslim-majority region is so far from Beijing that residents operate by their own, unofficial timezone and had until now been little affected by outbreaks elsewhere that appear to have been brought under control.
Health officials said all the cases emerged from among people who had earlier been placed under isolation and close monitoring in the regional capital, Urumqi.
Another 135 people are being monitored in isolation in the city of 3.5 million.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, largescale restrictions in its capital are set to continue as new Covid-19 cases rise, with cinemas and other indoor entertainment spaces to remain closed.
As of Thursday, 15,636 cases with 713 deaths had been recorded in the capital, Jakarta.
The city imposed sweeping social restrictions on April 10 but relaxed some of them two months later.
Indonesia as a whole has reported nearly 82,000 coronavirus cases and more than 3,800 deaths.
South Africa now has the world’s sixth highest reported caseload with 324,221, accounting for more than half the total confirmed in Africa.
Many are clustered in South Africa’s densely populated Gauteng province, home of Johannesburg and a quarter of the country’s population.
In South Korea, officials said they might be making headway in capping outbreaks that have expanded from the capital, Seoul.
Its Centres for Disease Control and Prevention still reported 60 newly confirmed infections, including 39 linked to people arriving from abroad.
But a senior Health Ministry official, Yoon Tae-ho, told reporters imported cases are less of a concern than local ones because they will be caught in a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all people arriving from abroad.
All are to be tested within three days.