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 Australia's Melbourne to exit lockdown
Australia's second largest city Melbourne will exit a hard lockdown
as planned on Thursday night, Victoria state authorities said,
although some restrictions on travel and gatherings would likely
remain for another week.
After two weeks in a strict lockdown that forced people to remain at
home except for essential business, Melbourne's five million
residents will get more freedom to step outside from 11:59 p.m.
local time (1359 GMT) on Thursday.
However, people must stay within 25 km (15 miles) of their homes,
officials said, in an effort to stop transmission during an upcoming
long weekend. There will also be a total ban on house gatherings and
masks will be mandatory indoors.
Deliveries of Thai-made AstraZeneca vaccines delayed
Malaysia and Taiwan are expecting deliveries of AstraZeneca vaccines
manufactured in Thailand to be delayed, officials said, the latest
countries to report a holdup with orders from the Thai plant.
The delay comes amid concerns over AstraZeneca's distribution plans
in Southeast Asia, which depends on 200 million doses made by Siam
Bioscience, a company owned by Thailand's king that is making
vaccines for the first time.
Any questions about Siam Bioscience meeting production targets are
sensitive because King Maha Vajiralongkorn is its sole owner.
Insulting Thailand's monarchy is a crime punishable by up to 15
years in prison.
Indonesia aims to speed up vaccinations
President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday he hoped Indonesia's
vaccination rollout will hit one million shots a day by July, as
authorities opened up inoculations to anyone aged over 18 in Jakarta
to contain increased transmission in the capital.
Health officials in the world's fourth most populous country, which
aims to vaccinate 181.5 million people by next year, are trying to
speed up the rollout after facing some supply issues.
The president said he wanted vaccinations to hit a targeted 700,000
doses a day this month and then rise again.
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 Singapore finds Delta most
prevalent among variants
Singapore has found the Delta variant of the coronavirus to be the
most prevalent among local cases of variants of concern (VOCs),
according to health ministry data, highlighting its level of
infectiousness.
There were 449 local cases with VOCs as of May 31, of which 428 were
the Delta variant first detected in India and nine of the Beta
variant first identified in South Africa.
Singapore reported its 34th death due to COVID-19, taking its toll
from the pandemic beyond the 33 casualties recorded during the 2003
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak. U.S.
forming expert groups on lifting travel restrictions
The Biden administration is forming expert working groups with
Canada, Mexico, the European Union and the United Kingdom to
determine how best to safely restart travel after 15 months of
pandemic restrictions, a White House official said on Tuesday.
Another U.S. official said the administration will not move quickly
to lift orders that bar people from much of the world from entering
the United States because of the time it will take for the groups to
do their work.
The groups will be led by the White House COVID Response Team and
the National Security Council and include the Centers for Disease
Control and other U.S. agencies.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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