Covid-19 Pandemic: World battles Delta variant

Russia reported its fifth record for daily Covid-19 deaths in a row yesterday, as countries around the world rushed to contain the rapid spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. 

The variant has propelled a resurgence of the virus which has already killed nearly four million people, forcing numerous nations to reimpose restrictions well over a year after the pandemic first swept the world.

Thousands of troops and police hit the streets in Indonesia to enforce a partial lockdown imposed yesterday, as the country recorded a record 27,913 new daily cases as well as 493 deaths.

Mosques, restaurants and shopping malls were shuttered in the capital Jakarta, across the main island of Java and on Bali after the daily caseload quadrupled in less than a month, with the Delta variant blamed.

The overwhelmed healthcare system is teetering on the brink of collapse as jammed hospitals turn away patients, forcing desperate families to hunt for oxygen tanks to treat the sick and dying at home.

"The stricter restrictions came too late," said Jakarta resident Maya Puspita Sari.

"Before, people who got Covid-19 were strangers, but now it's also the people closest to me who are infected... The virus is getting so much closer and it's terrifying."

Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Myanmar ordered two million people in the second city of Mandalay to stay at home Friday as the coup-hit country struggles to contain coronavirus cases.

New measures were also put into place in Portugal, with an 11 pm to 5 am curfew entering force overnight for nearly half the population in a bid rein in rising Delta infections.

Russia has so far ruled out a new lockdown to fight surging Delta cases, even as it reported 697 more deaths on Saturday -- setting a new nationwide record for the fifth straight day.

Iran, battling the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the coronavirus, has warned it could be hit by yet another wave of infections.

"It is feared that we are on the way to a fifth wave throughout the country," President Hassan Rouhani told a meeting of Iran's anti-virus taskforce, warning the public to be careful as "the Delta variant has spread" in southern provinces.

The Delta variant, first identified in India and now present in at least 85 countries, has driven outbreaks in places that had previously been able to mostly avoid the pandemic's ravages.