COVID-19 cases drop, deaths remain stable
LONDON, Aug 8, (AP): New coronavirus cases fell 9% globally while deaths remained stable, according to the assessment of the pandemic released by the World Health Organization.
The UN health agency said there were 6.5 million cases reported last week with more than 14,000 deaths. WHO said the number of new cases fell 35% in Europe but increased about 20% in the Western Pacific and 5% in Africa. Deaths rose 44% in the Western Pacific and 26% in the Middle East, while falling about a quarter in Europe.
WHO has previously warned that recent surveillance of COVID-19 has been severely compromised by countries reducing their testing, reporting and other coronavirus alert systems. The agency has said COVID-19 figures are likely being significantly underestimated, which could make it more difficult to spot any worrisome new variants.
In the UK, the Office for National Statistics reported last week that COVID-19 cases dropped to about 1 in 20 people in England infected, suggesting that the latest wave of the coronavirus may have peaked in the country.
Dr Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said it was likely that COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations would continue to fall further in the following weeks.
Other experts warned that measures to prevent COVID-19 should still be taken, saying the health system was still under pressure.
Lower
“We have to hope that the incidence of long COVID from this wave will be lower than in the first and second waves,” said James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute at the University of Oxford. He called for people to keep getting vaccinated even as COVID-19 protocols were abandoned, citing the dangers of reinfection.
In China, meanwhile, authorities last week shut down part of Wuhan, the city where COVID-19 was first detected in late 2019, after identifying four cases. The government has suggested its “zero COVID” strategy could last for years, despite the social and economic upheaval the approach has caused.
WHO said in its report that two versions of omicron - subvariants BA.5 and BA.4 - were driving the latest wave of infections across the globe. It said BA.5 accounted for about 64% to 70% of sequences shared with the world’s largest public viral database.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported in Japan, the US, South Korea, Germany and Italy. The most deaths were reported in the US, Brazil, Italy, Japan and Australia.
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HONG KONG: Hong Kong will reduce the mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals to three days from a week, the city’s leader said Monday.
The southern Chinese city remains one of the few places in the world, together with mainland China, to require a quarantine to guard against travelers spreading COVID-19 to the local population. The policy taking effect Friday will be Hong Kong’s shortest quarantine for arrivals since the pandemic began.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said arriving travelers must quarantine three days in a designated hotel, then undergo four days of medical surveillance during which their movements will be restricted via the use of a health code system.
Lee said the new policy of just three days in quarantine was made after scientific evidence and data had been analyzed to control the risk factors.
“We also have to balance the risks against the economic activities and the social lives of (people in) Hong Kong,” Lee said.
“(The data) gives us the indication that the risk factor of people who have finished three days’ quarantine in a designated hotel … is actually no more than the risk level of transmission in society,” he said.
The changes to COVID-19 policies come in spite of an increase in daily infections, which city health officials warn could double to 8,000 in the coming weeks.
During their week of quarantine and surveillance, travelers will also have to test regularly for COVID-19 and those who are infected must stay in isolation.
Those who test negative can use public transit and enter malls and markets, but they can’t enter bars and amusement parks or visit elderly homes, schools and certain medical facilities.
For most of the pandemic, Hong Kong has imposed some of the world’s strictest COVID-19 entry restrictions. At one point, Hong Kong required up to 21 days of compulsory hotel quarantine for travelers and a “circuit breaker” mechanism that would ban flights from certain airlines into the city if they imported too many COVID-19 cases.
These measures have devastated the city’s tourism industry and disrupted business travel in a city known for being an international financial center and a business hub.
Sally Wong, CEO of the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association, welcomed the reduction in quarantine, describing it as a “major step forward.”
She said quarantine in Hong Kong would have to be removed altogether for the city to regain its competitiveness.
“But what can move the dial is … how we can go from three days to zero,” Wong said. “Many conferences, meetings, etc. are planned months ahead and if the government can (shed) light on the next step, it would be extremely helpful.”
Since the pandemic began, hundreds of thousands of residents have left Hong Kong. Many companies have also relocated to countries like Singapore where quarantine-free travel has resumed.
BEIJING: The capital of China’s Hainan province has locked down its residents for 13 hours on Monday as a COVID-19 outbreak grows on the tropical island during the summer school holidays.
The temporary lockdown of Haikou city from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. follows an ongoing and indefinite lockdown of the beach resort of Sanya since Saturday that is confining vacationers to their hotels for a week. Four other cities and four counties in Hainan also started lockdowns of two days or more on Sunday and Monday.
More than 470 new cases were recorded in the province on Sunday, of which 245 did not show symptoms. Overall, China reported more than 760 new daily cases, the National Health Commission said Monday.
Some 80,000 tourists have reportedly been stranded by the lockdown in Sanya. Those wanting to depart have to test negative five times over seven days.
China has stuck steadfastly to a “zero-COVID” policy, despite the economic and social costs. It has credited that approach with keeping hospitalization and death rates lower than in other countries that have opened up amid high vaccination rates and more effective treatments.
Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese city, announced Monday that it would reduce a mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals to three days from the current one week. The new policy takes effect Friday.