Vietnam Warns of Virus Risk; Sri Lanka Sees Record: Virus Update
Bloomberg 1 hr ago Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister warned the country faces a “very high” threat of a new outbreak after reporting its first domestic virus case in a month on Tuesday. As the latest outbreak spreads, Sri Lanka saw a record number of cases, while Malaysia extended its conditional lockdown in Kuala Lumpur and four other states. At least eight provinces in Thailand have declared a nighttime curfew.
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Australia said it will give about 2,050 athletes and support staff bound for the Tokyo Olympics early priority access to Covid-19 vaccines. Elsewhere, flights for the initial phase of the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble have sold out in both directions.
Vietnamese expats fearful amid India Covid-19 carnage
By Long Nguyen April 28, 2021 | 08:00 am GMT+7
Vietnamese in India, currently the world’s Covid-19 epicenter, are anxious that there are a lot of new cases every day and many of the patients roam carelessly and freely around.
Nguyen Thi Toan, a Vietnamese resident of Mumbai, wakes up to the sound of ambulances every morning these days. Too many Covid-19 patients and too many people have died, I have no idea whether I will be in an ambulance in the next few days, said Toan, who still goes to work every day wearing a mask and carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer.
India Stays Out of China Driven South Asian Meet on COVID Containment South Asian Foreign Affairs meet.
COLOMBO: India and its allies, Bhutan and the Maldives, did not participate in a video conference of the Foreign Ministers of South Asian countries and China on the containment of the raging COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
This was apparently due to the participation of China and its leading role in organizing the event.
Those who participated in the conference held on Tuesday, were the State Councilor Wang Yi (China), Dinesh Gunawardena (Si Lanka), Mirwais Nab (Afghanistan), A.K Abdul Memon (Bangladesh), Pradeep Kumar Gyawali (Nepal) and Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi (Pakistan).
India’s neighbors are increasingly looking to China to fill the gap in their stalled coronavirus inoculation drives after New Delhi curbed vaccine shipments to battle a fresh and devastating Covid-19 wave at home. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a virtual meeting with his counterparts from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka on Tuesday that Beijing is willing to provide them with stable vaccine supplies through a multilateral framework. The overtures are a blow to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-touted vaccine diplomacy efforts earlier this year that were aimed at countering its larger neighbor, China. India had sent tens of millions of doses around the world. Yet despite being home to the world’s largest vaccine industry, India paused those exports as it struggles to inoculate its own population while daily infection rates smash through global records and thousands die each day.