COVID-19: Indonesia posts daily spike, situations eased in Laos, Malaysia

Hanoi (VNA) - Indonesia on July 3 logged a record daily number of COVID-19 cases, at 27,913, while Laos saw a downward trend in the number of domestic infections and Malaysia planned to ease lockdown measures.

Indonesia’s record daily spike pushed its national tally to 2,256,851, the country’s Health Ministry said, adding that the COVID-19-related death toll also added by 493 to 60,027 on the day.

Indonesian health officials projected the number of cases to continue to increase for the next two weeks until the restriction measures applied for more than 100 million people from July 3 begin to work.

The country has to date vaccinated about 7.6 percent of the 181.5 million people it targeted to inoculate prior to January.

Meanwhile, the Lao Ministry of Health logged 37 new cases, including just one local one, on the same day, raising the national tally to 2,213. Its capital Vientiane, a pandemic hotspot, recorded no domestic infections for the fourth consecutive day.

The ministry said although the number of cases in the community tends to decrease, the country is still facing the risk of infection with new variants of the virus.

As planned, Laos will import enough doses to vaccinate 50 percent of its population this year.

Malaysia will relax coronavirus lockdown measures next week in five states that have met the government’s indicators for lifting curbs, security minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on July 3.

The Southeast Asian country has been under a nationwide lockdown since June 1 to rein in a surge of COVID-19 infections. Curbs are to be partially lifted in the states of Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Perlis, and Terengganu on July 5 as they have achieved their targets for moving to the second phase of lockdown, the minister told reporters.

On July 3, Malaysia posted 6,658 new COVID-19 infections, raising its total to 772,607 with 5,327 deaths./.