Overseas Situation Report Friday 25th June 2021
By Mike Evans
With numbers of new infections rising dramatically in Portugal over the past week or two, this report is looking at what is happening worldwide with regards to increases in infections. Of the 202 countries that Worldometer.info lists as having the virus, 95 have shown an increase in infections over the past week. Here are details of just a few and what is driving the increase.
Firstly to Israel, the country (which was first out of the blocks with the vaccine and has vaccinated the vast majority of its citizens) which has seen a 274% increase in positive cases in the last week. The total of new cases this week was 505 compared to 135 the previous week. While this is still relatively small and equates to a figure of 54 cases per 1 million of population it is still a worry for the authorities, to the extent that they are advising their citizens not to travel unless essential.
Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, on Tuesday urged Israelis to avoid non-essential international travel amid an uptick in Covid-19 cases in the country. “It’s not currently an order, it’s a request,” Bennett told reporters at Ben-Gurion International Airport, following a tour of its testing sites and a consultation with Health Minister, Nitzan Horowitz, Interior Minister, Ayelet Shaked, and Transportation Minister, Merav Michaeli. “If you don’t need to go abroad, do not go abroad,” said Bennett, noting that the recent coronavirus outbreak in Binyamina was traced to a family who returned from Cyprus, which is not considered a high-risk country.
The Prime Minister also announced that masks will become mandatory again within the airport, and encouraged Israelis to resume wearing facemasks indoors. Israel lifted its indoor mask mandate last week.
“Everyone who enters the airport must wear a mask from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave,” said Bennett. He also reiterated that every person who enters Israel will have to undergo a PCR test and said the number of testing sites at the airport have recently been increased from 30 to 70. In addition to the mask mandate at the airport, Bennett recommended that people don masks in all indoor areas. “If the numbers go up, to over 100 new cases for several days, it will be an order,” Bennett said, noting that he will instruct ministers and public leaders to resume wearing masks indoors immediately.
He also warned of possible “significant changes in entering and exiting Israel” once the coronavirus cabinet has reconvened and studied the current situation. Concerns are rising in Israel over the spread of the new Delta variant, which is believed to be responsible for 70% of the new cases in the country in recent weeks.
In the past few weeks, the airport testing centres have become increasingly overwhelmed to the extent that last Friday, thousands of Israelis were allowed to exit the airport without taking a mandatory Covid test due to overcrowding at the station. The government has since vowed to step up testing capabilities and increase the enforcement of quarantine for those who require it.
In Indonesia, there has been a big surge in cases over the past week. In a country that has a population of 276 million, the rise in Covid-19 cases in the last week has been large. In the last 7 days, 95,769 new cases were recorded compared to 60,602 the previous week. A rise of 58%. What is more concerning is that the death rate in the last week has risen by 61% with 2,118 people dying from the virus.
As the government struggles to speed up its vaccination drive and ensure public adherence to hygiene and social distancing measures, the rapid spread of the virus threatens to overwhelm Indonesia’s health system. Indonesia has been witnessing a surge in coronavirus cases over the past few weeks.
The rise has been blamed on millions travelling across the Muslim-majority nation at the end of Ramadan, despite an official ban on the annual migration. Furthermore, Indonesia is grappling with new virus mutations, including the highly infectious Delta variant, first identified in India. With the number of infections rapidly rising and hospitals being flooded with patients, warnings abound that the crisis could spiral out of control and overwhelm the healthcare system.
Health Minister, Budi Gunadi, said in a recent press conference that about 90% of isolation beds for Covid patients in Jakarta have already been occupied.
Soaring cases have also been putting increasing pressure on the health system in other hard-hit areas like the Kudus district in Central Java Province.
As a result, exhausted doctors and health care workers have been urging the government to impose stricter measures to curb the virus’ spread.
A number of factors have contributed to the worsening problem, including the lack of adherence to mask-wearing, physical distancing and other health protocols, as well as vaccine skepticism.
Airlangga Hartarto, head of the nation’s Covid handling committee, said the government has been implementing a policy known as “micro-based community activity restrictions” from June 22 to July 5.
It will take effect in regions designated as “red zones,” such as East Java, West Java and Central Java Provinces.
The restrictions mean that schools in these areas will only be allowed to conduct classes online. Restaurants, cafes and food stalls are allowed to operate, but only at 25% of their full capacity and just until 8 p.m. About 75% of workers from the red zones must work from home, according to the rules.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also called for tougher movement restrictions.
The government has said it would temporarily tighten restrictions in the capital Jakarta and other hot spots, but enforcement has been weak.
Like in other countries, pandemic-related restrictions have had a severe negative effect on the Indonesian economy. So, the government seems to be wary of taking anti-Covid measures that risk throttling economic activity.
An epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Pandu Riono, said the new policy only looks good on paper, without clear guidelines on how to implement and supervise it. Riono said that despite many warnings from experts, authorities have failed to put in place enough appropriate measures to control the health emergency.
He also criticized the government for its weak pandemic response and questioned its willingness to learn from previous experience.
Furthermore, he said public attitudes toward the health crisis have been bordering on “herd stupidity.”
Riono described it as a stage when the Covid surge is caused not only by the character of the virus but also by human behaviour, such as underestimating the pandemic and ignoring health protocols like wearing masks, washing hands, maintaining physical distance and limiting mobility and social interaction.
The expert urged the government to speed up the inoculation program to reach herd immunity.
Indonesia aims to vaccinate at least 70% of its population, or about 181.5 million people, by April 2022, but the pace of immunization has been slow. Only about 12 million people have been fully vaccinated so far while around 23 million have received at least one shot of the vaccine. A number of severe cases in inoculated medical workers has also raised questions about the China-produced Sinovac jab, which Indonesia is heavily relying on to vaccinate its people.
Recently, countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Philippines have expressed concerns over the approval granted to Chinese vaccines and their efficacy.
A spike in Covid-19 cases in the Seychelles made global news in May. The country had the highest vaccination cover in the world, with a majority of its population having received one jab or the other.
A majority of those vaccinated had received the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm. Its government had said in early May that 37 per cent of fresh infections were breakthrough cases of Covid-19 among vaccinated people.
In early May, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had apologised for taking the Sinopharm vaccine in the face of public criticism for promoting an unapproved vaccine.
However, the most serious doubts over Chinese vaccines were expressed by Saudi Arabia, which is among the countries that have not approved Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines. India, too, has not opened up to Chinese vaccines.
Saudi Arabia recognises vaccination certificates for only AstraZeneca – known as Covishield in India – Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson vaccines.
People vaccinated with other jabs have to undergo a strict quarantine protocol in Saudi Arabia. This has become a huge issue in countries that are dependent on Chinese vaccines and have a large number of people slated to go on the Haj pilgrimage expected in July.
Saudi Arabia had suspended Haj pilgrimage for outsiders in 2020 due to Covid-19 pandemic and an extra rush is expected this year, but concern over Chinese vaccines has forced Islamic countries such as Pakistan to reach out to Saudi Arabia for a solution.
The UAE and Bahrain have already announced that those vaccinated with Chinese vaccines would be given a booster dose of the Pfizer jab. The UAE and Bahrain had vaccinated their populations with Sinopharm vaccine but both countries recently saw a sharp spike in Covid-19.
A Forbes report said global concerns over Chinese vaccines “have festered due to a lack of public clinical data needed to verify manufacturers’ claims, deficiencies in the data that is made available and the widespread politicization of vaccines”.
Whether these fears are right or wrong, the virus is still very much with us whether we have the vaccine or not.
Until the next time, Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 180,779,194
Total Deaths Worldwide – 3,916,328
Total Recovered Worldwide – 165,430,328
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 11,432,245 (6.3% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 169,346,949
Information and resources:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#countries