A hard blow for Singapore and Taiwan, two islands so far very little affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which are now facing an increase in the number of local contaminations.
To try to avoid the worst, Singapore has decided to close schools from primary to secondary, from Wednesday until the end of May.
Singaporean Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung, citing a conversation with his ministry's director of medical services, Kenneth Mak, noted that the B.1.617 variant, first detected in India, "seemed to affect children more. ". "Some of the changes are more virulent and they seem to attack younger children," said Minister of Education Chan Chun Sing. The government "is developing a plan" to vaccinate students under 16, he said on Facebook.
Singapore detected 38 new cases of local contamination on Sunday, the highest single-day figure in eight months, and 21 more cases on Monday.
Since the start of the pandemic, the city-state, which has 5.7 million inhabitants, has recorded only some 61,000 cases of coronavirus contamination and 31 deaths.
The air bubble still pushed back
Taiwan will also close schools in an attempt to stem a wave of contamination and has already closed its borders to all foreigners for a month, except residents.
Classes are suspended in Taipei, the capital, and in the neighboring city of New Taipei, until May 28.
The territory, relatively spared so far, detected 333 new cases on Monday, bringing the total to more than 2,000 since the start of the pandemic.
Faced with the resurgence of cases, Singapore has also imposed new restrictions on its inhabitants who cannot gather with more than two people.
The Southeast Asian city-state will also have to push back again its air “bubble” project with Hong Kong, which was to be launched on May 26.
A spokesperson for the Hong Kong government confirmed that "in view of the recent development of the Covid-19 epidemic in Singapore", the two governments had decided to delay their initiative.
In early December, the two financial centers had already postponed this project due to a fourth epidemic wave in Hong Kong.