In recent days, Indonesia has reported nearly twice as many coronavirus cases as the United States. And the latest Covid surges in Japan and South Korea have prompted harsh new restrictions on movement there, effective Monday. Across the Asia-Pacific region, the Delta variant is driving new outbreaks in places where transmission was once kept relatively low, but where the pace of vaccination has been too slow to contain the latest outbreaks. On July 3, the government closed mosques, schools, shopping malls and sports facilities on two of Indonesia’s major islands for two weeks. But the daily average of new cases — more than 33,000 as of Sunday — has continued to climb.

Source: International New York Times July 11, 2021 13:30 UTC