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Asia
MELBOURNE (AP) — The beleaguered Austra-
lian state of Victoria received some good news
yesterday with health of icials reporting 216
new cases of COVID19 in the past 24 hours,
down from the record 288 the previous day.
Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said a man
in his 90s died overnight while 49 remained
hospitalised, including 15 in intensive care. He
warned of more dif icult days ahead, saying,
“We will see more and more additional cases,
that’s the nature of this.”
Victoria recorded 3,560 con irmed cases,
and Australia overall hadmore than 9,000with
107 deaths.
Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous
state after neighbouring New South Wales,
has been cut off with border closures by other
states. All states and territories except New
South Wales eradicated community transmis-
sion of the virus, but Victoria-linked infections
are spreading.
Victoria hopes a second lockdown in Mel-
bourne, Australia’s second-largest city with a
population of ive million, will curb the spread.
It was imposed on Wednesday and will last
six weeks.
“As inconvenient and as challenging as it
is, we cannot deny the reality of the situation
we face, and we cannot pretend that doing
anything other than following the rules will
get us to the other side of this,” Andrews said
of the extended lockdown.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods
Administration gave provisional approval to
the drug remdesivir, an experimental medicine
that has shown promise in the recovery time
of the most seriously ill COVID19 patients.
Authorities said remdesivir will be available
only to patients who are severely ill, require
oxygen or high-level support to breathe, and
are in hospital care. It is the only drug licensed
by both the United States (US) and the Euro-
pean Union (EU) as a treatment for people with
severe illness from the coronavirus.
In other developments in the Asia-
Paci ic region:
India’s coronavirus cases passed 800,000
with the biggest spike of 27,114 cases in the
past 24 hours, causing nearly a dozen states
to impose a partial lockdown in high-risk areas.
The new con irmed cases took the national
total to 820,916. The Health Ministry yesterday
also reported another 519 deaths for a total
of 22,123.
A surge in infections saw the cases jumping
from 600,000 to more than 800,000 in nine
days. The ministry said the recovery rate con-
tinued to improve at more than 62 per cent.
Eight of India’s 28 states, including the worst-
hit Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and New Delhi,
account for nearly 90 per cent of infections.
Themost populous state of Uttar Pradesh, with
nearly 230million people, imposed a weekend
lockdown while several others announced re-
strictions in districts reporting major spikes.
New coronavirus cases dropped sharply
in China, and authorities are turning their
attention to concerns that the virus could
spread through imported food. Those wor-
ries have risen since a June outbreak in
Beijing that was linked to the city’s largest
wholesale market. Testing has been stepped
up on incoming food shipments, and on
Friday customs of icials said they are halting
imports from three Ecuadorian shrimp pro-
ducers after tests showed the virus present in
recent shipments.
Authorities said the coronavirus was de-
tected on the outer packaging of the ship-
ments July 3. The inner packaging and the
shrimp themselves tested negative. Products
from the three companies received after
March 12 have been ordered to be returned
or destroyed.
Australia Victoria state daily cases drop to 216
People gesture to each other as they walk outside public housing towers that are a hotspot for COVID 19 in Melbourne. PHOTO: AP
NEW DELHI (AP) — Landslides triggered by
heavy rain on Friday have killed at least eight
people in India’s remote northeast, a top
government of icial said.
They included four members of a family
who were buried under a mudslide in Tigado,
a village in Arunachal Pradesh state, said Pema
Khandu, the state’s top elected of icial, in
a tweet.
A mudslide killed another four people
in Modirijo, another village in the state,
Khandu said.
Hundreds of people hit by the heavy rains
are being transferred to government-run
relief camps, he said. Other details were not
immediately available.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he
was saddened by the loss of lives due to the
heavy monsoon rain as well as landslides in
Arunachal Pradesh.
India’s monsoon season began last month
and is due to last through September.
Hundreds of people die every year because of
looding, mudslides and collapsing homes.
Mudslides triggered by heavy rains kill
eight in northeast India
Floods, landslides kill 23 in
Nepal, dozens missing
KATHMANDU (CNA) - Heavy rains triggered
lash loods and landslides that killed at
least 23 people and displaced thousands in
western Nepal, of icials said yesterday.
Nine people were killed and more
than 30 were missing in Myagdi district,
200 kilometres northwest of the capital
Kathmandu, where several houses were
destroyed on Friday, District Administrator
Gyan Nath Dhakal said. “The toll is expected
to increase as rescuers just reached the
remote site to look for victims,” Dhakal said,
adding that 50 people had been plucked to
safety using helicopters.
In neighbouring Kaski district, seven
peoplewere killed, saida secondgovernment
of icial in the tourist town of Pokhara.
Another seven were killed in Jajarkot
district in the far west.
"We are searching for eight people who
are still missing," said Kishore Shrestha, a
senior police of icial.