Indonesia is bracing for a third wave of COVID-19 infections as the highly transmissible omicron variant drives a surge in new cases, health authorities and experts said Saturday. The country reported 11,588 new confirmed infections and 17 deaths on Saturday in the last 24-hour period. It was the highest daily caseload since August when Indonesia was struggling to contain a delta-driven wave. Indonesia had recovered from last year’s spike that was among the worst in the region, and daily infections had fallen to about 200 by December. But cases are rising again just weeks after the country reported its first local omicron transmission. READ: Police: Fire, clash at nightclub kill 19 people in Indonesia “The upsurge will be extremely fast. ... We will see a sharp rise in the near future,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin told a news conference Friday, adding that the current wave would likely peak at the end of February or in early March. He said the government dedicated more beds for COVID-19 patients, ramped up tracing and testing and intensified vaccinations in all regions. But some health experts doubt the measures will be enough given the lax enforcement. Bed occupancy rates in the capital, Jakarta, the epicenter of the omicron outbreak, rose from 5% in early January to 45% on Saturday, said Jakarta Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria. He said “omicron is moving too quickly” in the city, where more than 80% of the 10 million residents have been vaccinated. Bed occupancy rates in the capital, Jakarta, the epicenter of the omicron outbreak, rose from 5% in early January to 45% on Saturday, said Jakarta Deputy Governor Ahmad Riza Patria. He said “omicron is moving too quickly” in the city, where more than 80% of the 10 million residents have been vaccinated. READ: Strong quake shakes Indonesia’s capital; no tsunami alert

Holding that 73 crore people of the country's population have received their vaccination, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said vaccination was the only medicine to boost the economy as it allows people to conduct businesses regularly or farmers to carry out farming activity, reports NDTV. "Vaccination programme has been going on smoothly in the country and so far 73 crore people have already received jabs free of charge. Today, through vaccination programme, people were able to conduct business, traders were able to procure products to run businesses, (thereby) boosting economy, or farmers were able to do farming...So, vaccination is the only medicine (to combat the virus, to boost economy)...," she said. Read: India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpasses 73.82 Cr Ms Sitharaman made those comments while delivering her address at the centenary celebrations of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank on Sunday. On Sunday, the health ministry in Tamil Nadu eyeing to inoculate 20 lakh people is holding a ''Mega Vaccination Camp'' through 40,000 camps being conducted across the State. "All our prayers are not for a third wave (of the Covid-19 virus). Suppose, if it occurs, then one has to think about the availability of hospitals, even if there is an hospital, does it have an ICU and even if there is an ICU, does it have an oxygen support? For all these questions, the Ministry announced a scheme allowing hospitals to ramp up expansion when there was huge impact in the country caused by the second wave (of Covid-19)," she said. Ms Sitharaman said hospitals located in rural areas were able to take up expansion work by availing the schemes announced by the Ministry, including the "viability gap funding" scheme. "Through the report by Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, we are able to see that they take the schemes announced by the Ministry to the beneficiaries (hospitals). It is a necessary (in today''s scenario). Not only public sector banks, private sector banks should follow suit," she said. Earlier, paying rich encomiums to the Nadar community for establishing the bank in May 1921 in Tuticorin, the Minister said today Tamilnad Mercantile Bank has gained "universal acceptance" and has presence in all the 26 states and four union territories. Read: Indian PM discusses regional stability with Russian Security Council chief Even a famous Greek writer who has written a lot of global economic affairs has also mentioned about the Nadar community in his book, she said. "So today it is no more a Nadar community bank nor a bank from Tuticorin, it has countrywide presence and has deposits of over Rs 41,000 crore.", she said. Stating that the bank has been taking a cautious step in its approach to do business, Ms Sitharaman said "by strictly following the basic principles, the bank was able to tide over any kind of crisis situation and has managed to run for one hundred years."

Although the Covid infection rate continues to fall signalling the control of the second wave in Bangladesh, experts think there is no room for complacency as they fear the third wave of the virus may hit the country anytime. They said the ongoing cluster transmission in different areas, lowering of guard by the government, public apathy to wear masks and health safety rules, low pace in vaccination and the reopening of educational institutions can be the main reasons behind the possible third wave of the coronavirus. As India may also witness the third wave of the pandemic in October, the analysts say it may have an impact on Bangladesh as a close neighbourning country. Also read: FM reiterates call for removing Bangladesh from UK's Covid red list They, however, said Bangladesh can avoid the Covid third wave by intensifying virus control measures, especially in the areas where the infection rate is still high, encouraging people to maintain health safety rules, and wear masks and strengthening the vaccination drive.

The global Covid-19 caseload has now surpassed 208 million, with the world still struggling to contain the second outbreak of the pandemic. According to US-based Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 208,493,338 while the death toll from the virus reached 4,380,611 on Wednesday morning. So far, 4,749,026,949 vaccine doses have been administered across the globe. Read: US to recommend COVID vaccine boosters at 8 months The US, which is the world's worst-hit country in terms of both cases and deaths, has so far logged 37,006,732 cases. Besides, 623,283 people have lost their lives in the US to date, as per the JHU data. Meanwhile, U.S. experts are expected to recommend Covid-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received their second dose of the shot, to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the Delta variant spreads across the country. Federal health officials have been actively looking at whether extra shots for the vaccinated would be needed as early as this fall, reviewing case numbers in the US as well as the situation in other countries such as Israel, where preliminary studies suggest the vaccine’s protection against serious illness dropped among those vaccinated in January. Brazil registered 434 more Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising its national death toll to 569,492, the health ministry said on Monday. The ministry said that the total caseload rose to 20,378,570 after 14,471 new cases were detected during the period. Brazil currently has the world's second-highest pandemic death toll after the United States, and the third-largest caseload after the United States and India. India's Covid-19 tally rose to 32,250,679 on Tuesday, as 25,166 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, as per the federal health ministry's latest data. Read: Children account for 15% of new Covid cases in US It was the lowest single-day spike in the past 154 days, according to the ministry. Besides, 437 deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 432,079. Even though India is easing its restrictions amid a sharp drop in new Covid-19 cases, the threat of a third wave looms large, as experts predict another wave might hit the country by the end of August but say it will be less brutal. The caseload will rise slowly instead of significantly, and the third wave will not be as chaotic as the second one, if the Delta variant remains dominant and no new variant emerges, experts have said. Situation in Bangladesh Bangladesh reported 198 more coronavirus-related deaths and 7,535 fresh infections in 24 hours till Tuesday morning. The country has been seeing fatalities below 200 for the last five days, a slight improvement from the July 25-August 13 period when daily deaths were recorded over 200. The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 24,547 and the Covid cases to 1,433,396, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). The new cases were detected after testing 39,278 samples, which lowered the case positivity rate to 19.18 % from Monday’s 21.08%. Read: Lower age bar for Covid vaccination further: JS body Meanwhile, the case fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.71%, said the DGHS. During the period, the recovery rate rose to 91.73% with 12,950 more people recovering from the infection. Meanwhile, the parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare on Tuesday recommended lowering the age limit to receive Covid vaccines further from the existing 25 years.

The number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide over the past seven days has increased by 3.5 mln. The world documented 0.5 mln more infections than a week before, according to TASS’ calculations. Due to another increase in Western Europe and North America, the incidence returned to the level of late May, and specialists are concerned that this is only the beginning: as Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated, the world is in the early stages of another wave of the pandemic. TASS gathered key statistics of the pandemic for this week. Read: Global Covid cases near 190 million A new rise In a number of countries where the situation has stabilized since spring, the spread rates of the coronavirus infection are on the rise again. For example, the US began to detect more than 30,000 daily infections for the first time since mid-May, while in June this indicator went below 10,000. In Russia, since late June the number of confirmed cases has not gone below 20,000 a day, and over the past two days it has been surpassing 25,000. The situation in Western Europe is rapidly deteriorating as well: in the UK, the number of daily detected cases is approaching 50,000 (compared to 5,000 in early summer), while in the Netherlands it has surpassed 10,000 for the first time since December. On Tuesday, Spanish authorities reported a record high of the infections since the beginning of the pandemic - over 43,000 per day. The incidence in Italy and Germany has almost doubled (however, right now this is about 2,500 and 1,500 daily infections, respectively), and in France, where it increased 1.6-fold in one week, the authorities introduced serious restrictions: since August 1, the French won’t be able to enter bars, restaurants and shopping centers without special sanitary passports, while medical and rescue workers will have to undergo mandatory vaccination. Read: Global Covid cases near 189 million A new decrease According to statistics, Latin America in general has weathered another wave of the epidemic. In Brazil, the number of confirmed cases has been decreasing for the second week in a row and is already below 40,000 a day, while in Argentina it has decreased approximately 2.7-fold compared to early summer. In Colombia, the coronavirus spread rates have dropped by a third - this week the country has been documenting on average about 20,000 daily infections. This corresponds to the indicators of the end of May. Mexico remains an exception since the growth in incidence began there precisely at the end of spring. During the last two days it has been documenting over 10,000 cases of the infection for the first time since February. In another part of the planet, the incidence has been decreasing in South Africa where last week it reached its peak. The country that has been documenting 26,000 daily infections is currently registering about 15,000 infections a day. Read: Global Covid cases top 184 million A growth in fatalities Over seven days the world has recorded over 55,000 deaths caused by the coronavirus infection which is 2,500 more than last week. The number of fatalities is rapidly growing in Indonesia - there about 1,000 fatalities are being recorded daily against the background of a serious rise in incidence. This is one of the highest levels worldwide surpassed only by Brazil where about 1,200 infected are dying daily (which is a quarter less than the previous week). Russia has been setting daily records in terms of fatalities for several days in a row. On Friday, the country reported almost 800 deaths caused by the coronavirus infection. At the same time, the number of fatalities has been decreasing in Argentina and Colombia. In the former it has decreased from 500 to less than 400 a day, while in the latter - from 600 to 550.