COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Southeast Asian nations

An eight-year-old boy shows his appointment slip and other supporting documents to the personnel of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) as he secures his national identification card at the LGU-Canopy in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. (Photo: The Star)

Hanoi (VNA) - Indonesia's total cases ofCOVID-19 have surpassed 3 million since the first infection was detected in thecountry in March last year.

The Indonesian Health Ministry reported on July 22that the coronavirus cases across the country rose by 49,509 within thepast 24 hours to 3,033,339.

According to the ministry, the death toll added by1,449 to 79,032. This has been the highest daily number of fatalities thecountry ever reported since the outbreak of the pandemic.

To date, more than 2.39 million have recovered fromthe disease.

The Indonesian government recently decided to extendits restrictions on people's mobility, which is locally called PPKM, on themost populated island Java and the resort spot of Bali as well as 15 othercities and districts outside the two islands until July 25. Initially, thecurbs were in place from July 3 to July 20.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of Health (DOH)reported 5,828 new infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases inthe country to 1,530,266.

The death toll climbed to 26,891 after 17 morepatients died from the viral disease, the DOH said.

The Philippines has detected 12 more highlyinfectious Delta variant cases, the DOH said.

All 12 were local cases and tagged as recovered, theDOH said in a statement, adding that there are 47 Delta variant cases in thecountry.

The Philippines first detected the Delta variant,first identified in India, from samples taken from returning overseasFilipinos. But the variant is now detected locally.

The DOH said that a recent genome sequencing detectedan additional 187 Alpha variant cases, among which, 179 were local. There arenow 1,668 Alpha cases and 107 deaths from the variant first found in Britain,the DOH said.

The DOH also detected 142 new Beta variant cases,bringing the total Beta cases in the country to 1,827. It said 69 have diedfrom the variant first detected in South Africa.

Meanwhile, Malaysia reported another 13,034 new COVID-19infections, the Health Ministry said, bringing the national total to 964,918.

Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullahsaid in a press statement that 25 of the new cases are imported and 13,009 arelocal transmissions.

Another 134 deaths have been reported, bringingthe death toll to 7,574./.

VNA