Taiwan imposes further curbs as pandemic rages through Asia

Taiwan raised its coronavirus alert level and imposed fresh restrictions on its residents yesterday as the pandemic rampaged through parts of Asia, with India logging a record number of single-day deaths and Malaysia its most new cases ever.

Earlier hailed as a global success story in containing the disease, Taiwan yesterday reported an additional 267 locally transmitted infections. The island has recorded more than 1,200 local infections in just five days.

It reacted to the attack by more virulent strains of the virus by raising its coronavirus alert to Level 3 across the entire island to tighten social distancing measures, shutting down entertainment venues, libraries, sports facilities and community centres.

The islandwide Level 3 alert on a four-tier system for the first time since the pandemic began means that all people must wear masks at all times while venturing out, while indoor gatherings are limited to five people.

Before May 1, Taiwan had posted just 1,132 cases during the entire pandemic.

"(Infections) are successively increasing in other cities and counties besides Taipei and New Taipei," said Health Minister Chen Shih-chung while announcing the new measures. Those cities, Taiwan's largest, were already on Level 3 because of the coronavirus spike, which had prompted the government to close the island to non-resident foreigners for a month.

Taiwan last year went 253 days straight without any local infections. But an outbreak first detected among pilots last month has spread into the community, forcing the reimposition of the restrictions.

Observers said complacency about the risks had set in among both the public and the authorities.

On April 15, Taiwan decided to shorten quarantine for airline crew to just three days, as carriers struggled to operate their cargo lines with staff undergoing 14-day isolation periods.

The infected pilots introduced a more transmissible variant first reported in Britain, whose spread was then accelerated through a network of "hostess bars" - places both staff and patrons were reluctant to be associated with, making contact tracing more difficult.

"If they have 300 diagnosed cases, they have 3,000 cases in the community - they just don't know it," said virologist Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group. "It's going to require a hard lockdown, what's called a circuit-breaker approach, and then getting the vaccine out as quickly as they can."

India reported a record 4,529 coronavirus deaths yesterday - wiping out entire families in some villages - even as the number of new cases dipped.

Malaysia reported the highest number of new cases yesterday at 6,075, as the authorities debated whether to totally shut down factories and offices again, like they did in March last year to stem the Covid-19 surge.

Beds in intensive care units - only recently expanded to 1,000 from 850 - are already nearly full, and there were posts in social media about overcrowding at a massive government facility holding patients under treatment, at the edge of Kuala Lumpur.

"Our clinicians voiced their feeling of helplessness and frustration, struggling to secure ICU beds for their patients in these unprecedented times," health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said on Sunday.

Alarmed at the spike in cases, Malaysian states are pushing to get their own vaccines.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Thailand on Tuesday logged a record 35 new coronavirus deaths, and is considering cutting its prison population by as much as 16 per cent to counter the rapid spread of infections among inmates and workers in overcrowded facilities.

Cases in Thailand have nearly quadrupled since early last month, and deaths have increased sixfold. Bangkok is the epicentre.

Vietnam's northern province of Bac Giang near the capital Hanoi has ordered four industrial parks, including three that house production facilities of Apple supplier Foxconn, to temporarily shut down.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG