SINGAPORE – Singapore should implement its exit strategy from Covid-19 restrictions soon, given that the number of people stepping up to be vaccinated has tailed off. These days, only about 8,000 are coming forward daily for their first dose. As at Aug 3, 4.33 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine […]
SINGAPORE – Demand for Housing Board resale flats remained strong in July, with prices continuing to climb and more flats changing hands despite tightened Covid-19 measures in the second half of the month. HDB resale prices rose for the 13th straight month, advancing 0.5 per cent in July compared with June, according to flash data from […]
SINGAPORE – A man captured on video not wearing a mask on an MRT train in May told a district court on Thursday (Aug 5) that he is “sovereign”, adding, “The charges don’t apply to me”. On the first day of his trial, Benjamin Glynn, 40, who is now in remand after his bail of $5,000 […]
NEW YORK (NYTIMES) – In the battle against the coronavirus, few places seemed as confident of victory as China. The country of 1.4 billion people had eradicated the virus so quickly that it was one of the first in the world to open up in spring last year. People removed their masks and gathered for […]
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – The No. 2 US diplomat, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, spoke on Wednesday (Aug 4) with a representative of Myanmar’s government in exile, the first announced contact between a senior US official and the rival administration to the generals who overthrew a democratically elected government. The State Department said Sherman spoke […]
SINGAPORE – A 58-year-old Singaporean woman died of complications due to Covid-19 on Monday (Aug 2). She had not been vaccinated and had no underlying medical conditions. The woman was confirmed on July 29 to have the virus, and was a household contact of a patient who had visited Samy’s Curry Restaurant in Dempsey Road, the Ministry of […]
HANOI (REUTERS) – Vietnam will slash the duration of mandatory quarantine for foreign visitors from two weeks to just seven days, its health ministry said on Wednesday (Aug 4), as the South-east Asian country battles its biggest Covid-19 outbreak yet. Vietnam successfully contained the virus for much of last year using a targeted testing and […]
SINGAPORE – There were about 3,700 calls made to a 24-hour helpline for the public to report family violence in the first six months of this year. Minister of State for Social and Family Development Sun Xueling revealed this figure for the National Anti-Violence Helpline, which started operations in January, during the launch of the […]
JAKARTA (BLOOMBERG) – Indonesia has reached a grim milestone as more than 100,000 people died from the coronavirus, becoming the second country in Asia to breach that threshold. After weeks of topping the world’s tally of daily Covid-19 deaths, South-east Asia’s largest economy added 1,747 fatalities on Wednesday (Aug 4), according to data from the Health […]
JAKARTA (BLOOMBERG) – Indonesia is shifting away from its goal of reaching herd immunity for Covid-19 as the rise of the more infectious Delta variant pushes the threshold beyond reach. Currently available vaccines are less effective at stopping transmission of the Delta variant, making it possible for the virus to continue circulating even if everyone […]