Russia reported its fifth record for daily Covid-19 deaths in a row on Saturday, as countries around the world rushed to contain the rapid spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.
The variant has propelled a resurgence of the virus which has already killed nearly four million people, forcing numerous nations to reimpose restrictions well over a year after the pandemic first swept the world.
Thousands of troops and police hit the streets in Indonesia to enforce a partial lockdown imposed on Saturday, as the country recorded a record 27,913 new daily cases as well as 493 deaths.
Mosques, restaurants and shopping malls were shuttered in the capital Jakarta, across the main island of Java and on Bali after the daily caseload quadrupled in less than a month, with the Delta variant blamed.
The overwhelmed healthcare system is teetering on the brink of collapse as jammed hospitals turn away patients, forcing desperate families to hunt for oxygen tanks to treat the sick and dying at home.
“The stricter restrictions came too late,” said Jakarta resident Maya Puspita Sari. “Before, people who got Covid-19 were strangers, but now it’s also the people closest to me who are infected… The virus is getting so much closer and it’s terrifying.”
Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Myanmar ordered two million people in the second city of Mandalay to stay at home Friday as the coup-hit country struggles to contain coronavirus cases.
New measures were also put into place in Portugal, with an 11 pm to 5 am curfew entering force overnight for nearly half the population in a bid rein in rising Delta infections.
New waves in Russia, Iran
Russia has so far ruled out a new lockdown to fight surging Delta cases, even as it reported 697 more deaths on Saturday — setting a new nationwide record for the fifth straight day. Second city Saint Petersburg hosted a Euro 2020 quarter-final between Spain and Switzerland on Friday night, with concern raised after hundreds of cases were detected among spectators attending games across the continent.
Russia had hoped its vaccination campaign would tamp down a new wave, but it has met with widespread scepticism and a sluggish rollout, with only 16 percent of Russia’s 146 million people having been jabbed. AFP journalists saw hundreds of people waiting at vaccination points across Moscow on Friday. “I’ve been queueing for about two hours already,” 21-year-old student Svetlana Stepereva said in northeast Moscow.
