Asia Today: Australian state's infections 'relatively flat'

The coronavirus infection rate in Australia's hard-hit Victoria state has been “relatively flat” in the past week, a state health official said. The health ministry said Friday 62,538 cases were reported in the past 24 hours, raising the nation's total to 2,027,074.

The coronavirus infection rate in Australia's hard-hit Victoria state has been "relatively flat" in the past week, a state health official said. Victoria registered 450 new cases and 11 deaths on Friday.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said almost a third of the latest cases — 139 —were health care workers. "Our nurses, doctors, ambulance, paramedics, cooks, cleaners, orderlies, ward clerks, everybody in our hospital system, they are not the front-line, they are the last line of defense. And I would just ask all Victorians to follow the rules to protect themselves but also to protect our dedicated healthcare team. They are heroes," Andrews said.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton described the latest tally as "reasonable," noting that numbers would fluctuate due to laboratory processes. "The trend overall is that we're kind of sitting at 400 to 500 cases a day. That is relatively flat over the last week," Sutton said.

Melbourne University epidemiologist Tony Blakely said mandatory mask-wearing had started curbing the coronavirus spread. The infection rate began to plateau at the end of July, a week after Melbourne residents risked fines if they left home without a mask, Blakely said.

Tougher lockdown restrictions came into force in Melbourne on Thursday for the next six weeks. In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region: — India has recorded more than 2 million cases of coronavirus infection and deaths exceed 41,000. The health ministry said Friday 62,538 cases were reported in the past 24 hours, raising the nation's total to 2,027,074. Also, 886 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, for a total of 41,585. Recovered patients as a share of total cases are also growing. India has the third-highest caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil. It has the fifth-most deaths and its fatality rate of about 2.05 per cent is far lower than the other hardest-hit countries. Even as the capital New Delhi and the financial hub Mumbai appear to have passed their peaks, other regions of the country are seeing sharp spikes in cases and are reimposing lockdowns.(AP) RUP RUP