VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 8 - Positive cases of Covid-19 increased by 5,826 people on Sunday (7/3/2021).

Thus, the total number of positive cases in Indonesia reached 1,379,662 people since the first case was announced on March 2, 2020.

As reported by CNN Indonesia, of this number, 1,194,656 people (an increase of 5,146 people) were declared cured, and 37,226 people (increased by 112 other people) died.

Meanwhile, there were 147,740 active cases, with an additional 568 compared to Saturday (6/3/2021).

Previously, positive cases of Covid-19, exactly one year of the pandemic in Indonesia, reached 1,347,026 on March 2, 2021.

Of these, 1,160,863 were declared cured and 36,518 died. (RRI)

Mar. 5 - Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Vaccine confidence grows as side-effect worries fade

Confidence in COVID-19 vaccines is growing, with people’s willingness to have the shots increasing as they are rolled out across the world and concerns about possible side-effects are fading, a survey showed on Friday.

Co-led by Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation and the polling firm YouGov, the survey found trust in COVID-19 vaccines had risen in nine out of 14 countries covered, including France, Japan and Singapore which had previously had low levels of confidence.

The latest update of the survey, which ran from Feb 8. to Feb. 21, found that people in the UK are the most willing, with 77% saying they would take a vaccine if one was available that week.

Doubling masks offers little help preventing viral spread

Japanese supercomputer simulations showed that wearing two masks gave limited benefit in blocking viral spread compared with one properly fitted mask.

The findings in part contradict recent recommendations from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that two masks were better than one at reducing a person’s exposure to the coronavirus.

Researchers used the Fugaku supercomputer to model the flow of virus particles from people wearing different types and combinations of masks, according to a study released on Thursday by research giant Riken and Kobe University.

India passes key vaccination milestone

India administered 1.4 million vaccine doses in the past 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Friday, the highest in a day since the campaign began in mid-January as the government moves to address initial hiccups.

The country of 1.35 billion people still has to nearly double its current rate of vaccination to meet its target of covering 300 million people by August. The two vaccines in use in India need to be administered in two doses, four to six weeks apart.

India has so far given 18 million doses to about 15 million people.

Moldova first European country to receive COVAX vaccines

Moldova became the first European country to receive shots from the global vaccine-sharing COVAX scheme, President Maia Sandu said on Friday.

The first batch of 14,400 doses arrived on Thursday, Sandu said on Twitter.

Moldova and neighbouring Ukraine, two of Europe’s poorest countries, have lagged behind the rest of the continent in the scramble for vaccines and welcomed donations from friendly governments.

World no closer to answer on COVID origins

The world is no closer to knowing the origins of COVID-19, according to one of the authors of an open letter calling for a new investigation.

“At this point we are no further advanced than we were a year ago,” said Nikolai Petrovsky, an expert in vaccines at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and one of 26 global experts who signed the open letter, published on Thursday.

In January, a team of scientists picked by the World Health Organization visited hospitals and research institutes in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first identified. But the mission has come under fire, with critics accusing the WHO of relying too much on politically compromised Chinese fieldwork and data. (Reuters)

Mar. 5 - Pope Francis landed in Baghdad on Friday for his most risky foreign trip since his election in 2012, saying he felt duty-bound to make the “emblematic” visit because Iraq had suffered so much for so long.

An Alitalia plane carrying him, his entourage, a security detail, and about 75 journalists, touched down at Baghdad International Airport slightly ahead of schedule just before 2 p.m. local time.

Iraq is deploying thousands of additional security personnel to protect the 84-year-old pope during the visit, which comes after a spate of rocket and suicide bomb attacks raised fears for his safety.

“I am happy to be making trips again,” he said in brief comments to reporters aboard his plane, alluding to the coronavirus pandemic which has prevented him from travelling. The Iraq trip is his first outside Italy since November 2019.

“This is an emblematic trip and it is a duty towards a land that has been martyred for so many years,” Francis said, before donning a mask and greeting each reporter individually, without shaking hands.

Francis’s whirlwind tour will take him by plane, helicopter and possibly armoured car to four cities, including areas that most foreign dignitaries are unable to reach, let alone in such a short space of time.

He will say Mass at a Baghdad church, meet Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric in the southern city of Najaf and travel north to Mosul, where the army had to empty the streets for security reasons last year for a visit by Iraq’s prime minister.

Mosul is a former Islamic State stronghold, and churches and other buildings there still bear the scars of conflict.

VIOLENCE AND HOPE

Since the defeat of the Islamic State militants in 2017, Iraq has seen a greater degree of security, though violence persists, often in the form of rocket attacks by Iran-aligned militias on U.S. targets, and U.S. military action in response.

On Wednesday 10 rockets landed on an airbase that hosts U.S., coalition and Iraqi forces. Hours later, Francis reaffirmed he would travel to Iraq.

Islamic State also remains a threat. In January, a suicide attack claimed by the Sunni militant group killed 32 people in Baghdad’s deadliest such attack for years.

Francis will meet clergy at a Baghdad church where Islamist gunmen killed more than 50 worshippers in 2010. Violence against Iraq’s minority religious groups, especially when a third of the country was being run by Islamic State, has reduced its ancient Christian community to a fifth of its once 1.5 million people.

The pontiff will also visit Ur, birthplace of the prophet Abraham, who is revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews, and meet Iraq’s revered top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, 90-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The meeting with Sistani, who wields great influence over Iraq’s Shi’ite majority and in the country’s politics, will be the first by a pope.

Some Shi’ite militant groups have opposed the pope’s visit, framing it as Western interference in Iraq’s affairs, but many Iraqis hope that it can help foster a fresh view of Iraq.

“It might not change much on the ground, but at least if the pope visits, people will see our country in a different light, not just bombs and war,” said Ali Hassan, a 30-year-old Baghdad resident picking up relatives at the airport. (Reuters)

Mar. 5 - The Japanese government plans to extend a state of emergency to combat COVID-19 for Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures until March 21, two weeks longer than originally scheduled, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Friday.

Under the state of emergency, the government has requested restaurants and bars close by 8 p.m. and stop serving alcohol an hour earlier. People are also asked to stay home after 8 p.m. unless they have essential reasons to go out.

Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures, which make up 30% of the country’s population, sought the extension past the originally scheduled end date of March 7 as new coronavirus cases had not fallen enough to meet targets.

Suga made the announcement, echoing an earlier one made by the Economy Minister, at the start of a meeting on handling the coronavirus.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told a video conference of governors of the affected area that the extension was essential.

“We can’t have things rebound now, this is a really important time, and I think we all understand this,” she said.

“We’ll keep in close contact with each other and beat the virus.”

An early morning meeting of advisers had approved the extension, which Suga is set to announce to the nation at a news conference later on Friday.

The measure adds to the challenges facing restaurants and related businesses.

“As long as the government asks us to endure for another two weeks, we will follow its instructions. But that would be a matter of life or death for us,” said Akira Koganezawa, vice president of the association for 55 restaurants that serve monjayaki, a pan-fried batter dish popular in Tokyo area.

“Without enough subsidies, some restaurants would go out of business,” he said.

Fuji TV, citing an unnamed government official, said another extension until the end of March could not be ruled out.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is considering setting a criteria for lifting the state of emergency that new daily infections stay below 140 on a weekly average basis, the Nikkei reported.

Tokyo’s daily new infection was 269 on average for the past week through March 4, according to Reuters calculations.

The government is keen to tame the spread of the virus as preparations ramp up for the Tokyo Olympics with just 4-1/2 months until the Games start.

Foreign athletes have been barred from entering Japan to train before the Games during the state of emergency. It was not immediately clear if the ban would remain in place during the extension for the Tokyo region while the order has already been lifted for the rest of the country.

The current curbs are narrower in scope than those imposed under an emergency last spring when schools and non-essential businesses were mostly shuttered.

New case numbers are still a fraction of their peak in early January, when the state of emergency took effect. Tokyo reported 301 cases on Friday, compared with a record high 2,520 on Jan. 7

Nationwide, Japan has recorded some 438,000 cases and 8,185 deaths from COVID-19 as of Friday. (Reuters)