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Myanmar is experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, which has led to a shortage of oxygen supplies that COVID-19 patients so desperately need, officials say.
"Oxygen is scarcer than money," Soe Win, a resident of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, told the Associated Press. He stood in line at a plant for six hours in an attempt to secure oxygen for his ailing grandmother, who is suffering with the symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Last year, the country was able to keep the COVID-19 outbreak under control with strict restrictions imposed by civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, plus the use of vaccines from India and China.
However, Suu Kyi was ousted in February by the military and people have been reluctant to go to military hospitals. In addition, medical professionals were a big component of the country's civil disobedience movement after Suu Kyi's ouster that urged people not to entrust their care into the hands of the unpopular government.
"Under Suu Kyi, the government and volunteers worked together to control the disease, but it is difficult to predict what the future holds under military rule," Zeyar Tun, founder of the civic action group Clean Yangon, told AP.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the country's new leader, ordered oxygen plants Friday to work at full capacity and the government has announced that schools will be closed for two weeks.
Australia
On Sunday, Australia announced its first coronavirus-related death for 2021 and 77 new COVID-19 cases in New South Wales. Officials did not identify the woman who died, only describing her as in her 90s. Authorities said she died Saturday just hours after she was diagnosed with a locally acquired case of COVID-19.
Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 due to aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 31,103 total confirmed cases and 911 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
However, it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign and confusing requirements involving the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the dominant vaccine in its stockpile.
In Belgium, researchers on Sunday described the rare case of a 90-year-old woman who was stricken with both the alpha and beta variants of the coronavirus. The woman died in March.
"This is one of the first documented cases of co-infection with two worrying variants of SARS-CoV-2," molecular biologist and study author Anne Vankeerberghen said, according to the AFP report.
India
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Indian states have announced proposals to help children left orphaned during the coronavirus pandemic. The plans include monthly stipends for the children, as well as funds set up for the children's education and health care.
India reported more than 41,000 new COVID-19 cases Sunday. During the pandemic, India has recorded 30.8 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 408,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center. The U.S. leads the world in number of infections, with 33.8 million, and COVID-19-related deaths, with 607,132.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.