MANILA, Philippines — As COVID-19 patients fill Philippine hospitals to the brim, officials say the virus has hit an orphanage and infected almost 100 children.
Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said the outbreak in the orphanage could have been prevented and “the children could have been saved from the life-threatening risks of COVID” had minimum health standards been followed strictly.
Of the 122 people infected, 99 are age 18 and younger while the rest are personnel of the Gentlehands Orphanage, the mayor said in a statement Thursday.
The virus apparently spread when an adult who was infected but didn’t have symptoms visited the orphanage in the city in metropolitan Manila.
The Philippines reported 12,751 new cases and 174 deaths on Wednesday and has now counted 2.1 million cases with 34,672 deaths.
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MORE ON THE PANDEMIC:
— From the election to the coronavirus, 9/11 conspiracies cast a long shadow
— Crushed by pandemic, business conventions mount a cautious return
— ‘Long COVID’ can affect children and teens as well as adults, but estimates vary on how many
— Japan plans to extend virus emergency in Tokyo, other areas until end of month
— See AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
SYDNEY — Parts of Australia’s New South Wales state will come out of lockdown Saturday and the government plans to ease restrictions in Sydney once 70% of its residents aged 16 and older are fully vaccinated.
The government on Thursday outlined plans to ease restrictions in Sydney, which has been locked down since June, but it also warned that COVID-19 hospitalizations won’t plateau until next month.
Coastal areas north of Sydney, the Murrumbidgee region south of the city and the Riverina to the west will be released from the statewide lockdown Saturday.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian says Australia’s most populous state will exit lockdown in a “cautious and staged” way as vaccination rates rise. In New South Wales, 43% of the population aged 16 and older is fully vaccinated.
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HONOLULU — The state of Hawaii is launching a program that will allow people to use their smart phones to prove they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The move comes shortly before Honolulu and Maui begin instituting vaccine requirements for patrons of restaurants and other businesses.
State officials say people who have been vaccinated in Hawaii will be able to upload a photo of their paper vaccination card to the Safe Travels Hawaii website to create a digital vaccination record. The website will crosscheck the information with data in the state’s vaccination database.
Diners may show the record to restaurants in lieu of their paper vaccination card.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand is buying an extra 250,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from Spain as it tries to keep a surge in vaccination rates going during an outbreak of the coronavirus in Auckland.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the doses will arrive Friday and she has also got a second, larger deal in the works with another country.
New Zealand was slow to get its vaccination rollout going but has been catching up to other developed since the outbreak of the delta variant began last month. About 55% of New Zealanders have received at least one dose.
New daily community cases have been decreasing and were down to 13 Thursday. Auckland remains in a strict lockdown and health authorities try to extinguish the outbreak entirely.
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CARSON CITY, Nev. — All 17 counties in Nevada will be subject to an indoor mask mandate by the end of the week.
Rural Eureka County is the state’s only jurisdiction currently not subject to such a requirement, but its report of high transmission of coronavirus infections for the second week in a row have triggered the mandate to take effect Friday.
The reintroduction of masks and the debut of vaccine requirements in venues like sporting events, conventions and some schools has been met with resistance across the state. In the Las Vegas area, Clark County School District Board of Trustees President Linda Cavazos has received death threats since the district approved a requirement for employees to get vaccinations.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers have shelved bills aimed at requiring workers to either be vaccinated against the coronavirus or get weekly virus tests to keep their jobs.
One measure by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks would have required all workers to either get the coronavirus vaccine or submit to weekly testing. Another bill by Assemblyman Evan Low sought to make sure state law protected businesses that choose to require their workers to be vaccinated.
Neither bill will advance this year.
On Wednesday, more than a thousand people gathered at the state Capitol to protest vaccine mandates. Organizers say they wanted to let lawmakers know they oppose the bills.
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ATLANTA — Atlanta’s public safety net hospital is the latest to temporarily cancel elective surgeries, saying it is overrun with COVID-19 patients.
Grady Memorial Hospital CEO John Haupert said Wednesday that the hospital was “inundated” with patients over Labor Day.
Some other Georgia hospitals have already cancelled elective procedures due to the surge in pandemic cases. More than 5,900 people are in Georgia hospitals with COVID-19.
Gov. Brian Kemp has rejected urgings from two Georgia congressmen that he order elective surgeries be postponed in all Georgia hospitals.
Kemp says the congressmen could better help by persuading the federal government to limit how much staffing companies can charge to provide nurses and other workers to supplement hospital capacity. He also says they should demand clearer federal guidance on plans to provide COVID-19 booster shots.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Some South Carolina cities are bringing back indoor mask requirements as the state’s coronavirus outbreak rivals the height of the pandemic last winter before vaccines were widely available.
The cities of Columbia, West Columbia and Cayce in central South Carolina have all adopted requirements that people wear masks in indoor public places except while eating and a few other exceptions.
South Carolina has never had a statewide mask mandate but it allowed local governments to do so in 2020. Most of the mandates faded away after Gov. Henry McMaster ended a 14-month COVID-19 state of emergency in June when the state was seeing about 150 new cases a day.
Now, South Carolina is seeing about 5,400 new coronavirus cases a day, similar to the pandemic’s peak in January.