Asia Today: Indian opposition leader positive for COVID-19
NEW DELHI (AP) — Rahul Gandhi, an opposition Congress party leader and scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi family, says he has tested positive for COVID-19 after experiencing mild symptoms.
Gandhi, 50, said in a tweet on Tuesday that “All those who’ve been in contact with me recently, please follow all safety protocols and stay safe.” Gandhi last week called off political rallies in West Bengal state where provincial elections are being held.
On Monday, another top Congress party leader and former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, also tested positive and was hospitalized as a precaution. Singh, 88, had a mild fever on Sunday.
A senior Congress party leader, P. Chidambaram, said on Tuesday that Singh ”is stable and the progress is good.”
India’s Health Ministry reported 259,170 new infections and 1,761 deaths on Tuesday. The country has reported daily infections above the 200,000 mark for six days.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
—Japan’s western metropolis of Osaka has decided to ask the government to declare a state of emergency in the region after ongoing alert measures failed to control the spread of a more contagious coronavirus variant. The decision by Osaka’s governor to request a third state of emergency comes just 50 days after an earlier toothless state of emergency ended. A new state of emergency, under a law toughened in February, would allow authorities to issue binding orders for business owners to close or shorten service hours. Measures for the general public, including mask wearing and staying at home, would remain non-mandatory requests. Nationwide, Japan has recorded 537,317 cases including 9,671 deaths as of Monday — results that are good by world standards but worse than in some other Asian countries — without any enforced lockdowns. But people are becoming...
