TAIPEI: Taiwan has spent almost US$900 million this year on scrambling its air force against Chinese incursions, the island's defence minister said on Wednesday (Oct 7), describing the pressure they are facing as "great".
China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up its military activity near the island, responding to what China calls "collusion" between Taiwan and the United States.
China has been angered at increased US support for Taiwan, including visits by senior US government officials and ramped-up arms sales.
In the past few weeks, Chinese fighter jets have crossed the mid line of the Taiwan Strait, which normally serves as an unofficial buffer zone, and flown multiple missions into Taiwan's southwestern air defence identification zone.
Speaking at parliament, Taiwan Defence Minister Yen De-fa said the air force had scrambled 2,972 times against Chinese aircraft this year at a cost of NT$25.5 billion (US$886.49 million).
"Recently the pressure has been great. To say otherwise would be deceiving people," Yen said, without giving a comparison figure for last year.
He clarified that a figure of 4,132 air force missions this year, as provided in a ministry parliamentary briefing paper, included training and regular patrol missions.
Yen said that the armed forces would this month carry out their own drills off Taiwan's southwest coast, though they would not be live fire.
Taiwan's armed forces are well-trained and well-equipped but are dwarfed by those of China, and Taiwan's Defence Ministry has previously acknowledged the strain the repeated Chinese drills were placing on them.
Taiwan is in the process of revamping its fighter fleet.
The United States last year approved a US$8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a deal that would bring the island's total number of the aircraft to more than 200, the largest F-16 fleet in Asia.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has tested negative for COVID-19, his office said on Wednesday (Oct 7), after a minister who attended a high-level meeting chaired by the premier on Saturday contracted the virus.
Muhyiddin, along with 13 ministers and deputy ministers, started home quarantine on Monday after it was discovered that religious affairs minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri had COVID-19.
"The prime minister is currently in good health. However, he will continue self-quarantine until the end of the 14-day period set by the ministry of health," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Muhyiddin said there would be no double standards when it comes to quarantine order.
"As the prime minister, I am not exempted from this SOP (standard operating procedure). This is the second time I am undergoing quarantine at home since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. I must follow the rules.
"As will the seven ministers and six deputy ministers. All of them are not exempted from following the quarantine order. They must adhere to the rule and if they do not comply, action will be taken against them," he said.
"For now we are not thinking of a total lockdown because if it is carried out one more time, it can leave a large impact that we're afraid would crash the social and economic system in the country," he said.
NEW YORK: Facebook and Twitter took action on posts from US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (Oct 6) for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation by suggesting that COVID-19 was just like the flu.
Facebook took the post down but not before it was shared about 26,000 times, data from the company's metric tool CrowdTangle showed.
"We remove incorrect information about the severity of COVID-19," a company spokesman told Reuters.
The world's largest social media company, which exempts politicians from its third-party fact-checking program, has rarely taken action against posts from the Republican US president.
Twitter disabled retweets on a similar tweet from Trump on Tuesday and added a warning label that said it broke its rules on "spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19" but that it might be in the public interest for it to remain accessible.
During the 2019-2020 influenza season, the flu was associated with 22,000 deaths in the United States, according to estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the first case of the novel coronavirus was recorded in the United States at the beginning of this year, more than 210,000 people in the country have died of the disease caused by the virus, the world's highest death toll.
On Monday, Trump told Americans "to get out there" and not fear COVID-19 as he returned to the White House after a three-night stay in a military hospital outside Washington where he was treated for COVID-19.
"Silicon Valley and the mainstream media have consistently used their platforms to fearmonger and censor President Trump to serve their own agenda, even now during this critical moment in the fight against coronavirus," Trump campaign spokeswoman Courtney Parella said.
Twitter, which has been using labels to flag tweets with misinformation - including from the president - told Reuters it is currently trying to respond more quickly and more overtly.
Facebook removed a Trump post for coronavirus misinformation for the first time in August. The post included a video in which the president falsely claimed that children were "almost immune" to COVID-19.
GENEVA: A vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year-end, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday (Oct 6).
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.
"We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope," Tedros said in final remarks to the WHO's Executive Board, without elaborating.
Nine experimental vaccines are in the pipeline of the WHO's COVAX global vaccine facility that aims to distribute 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.
The two-day board meeting, which examined the global response to the pandemic, heard calls from countries including Germany, Britain and Australia for reforms to strengthen the UN agency.
US President Donald Trump's administration has strongly criticised the WHO's role in the crisis, accusing it of being too close to China and not doing enough to question Beijing's actions late last year when the virus first emerged in Wuhan.
Tedros has dismissed the suggestions and said his agency has kept the world informed.
Three independent panels reviewing WHO performance including its 2005 International Health Regulations - which set guidelines on trade and travel restrictions imposed during health emergencies - gave updates on their work.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, met for the first time last month.
"We hope to get the real lessons that we can implement and prevent the same thing from happening," Tedros said. "But I would like to assure you that WHO is ready to learn from this and change this organisation.
"During our transformation we promised this, we promised to keep change as a constant," he said, referring to his programme since taking the helm in 2017.
WASHINGTON: Defying critics, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (Oct 6) said Americans were learning to live with COVID-19, a day after returning to the White House for further intensive treatment after being hospitalised with the coronavirus.
Trump, who returned late on Monday after nearly four days at Walter Reed Medical Center outside Washington, was due to receive a fifth transfusion of the antiviral drug remdesivir while being treated with the steroid dexamethasone, normally used only in the most severe cases.
The Republican president, who is running against Democrat Joe Biden in an election four weeks away, has repeatedly played down the disease, which has killed more than 1 million people worldwide. The United States has the world's highest death toll from the pandemic, with more than 209,000 deaths.
"Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
About 22,000 people are estimated to die from influenza in the 2019 to 2020 season, according to US government statistics. Even before he contracted COVID-19, Trump acknowledged in taped conversations with a journalist that the disease was deadlier than the flu.
White House physician Dr Sean P Conley stressed that the Republican president, who is running for re-election against Democrat Joe Biden in the Nov 3 election, would have world-class medical care available around the clock.
"Don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it," Trump said in a video after his return on Monday night.
"I'm better, and maybe I'm immune – I don't know," he added, flanked by American flags and with the Washington Monument in the background. "Get out there. Be careful."
He returned to the White House in a made-for-television spectacle, descending from his Marine One helicopter wearing a white surgical mask, only to remove it as he posed, saluting and waving, on the mansion's South Portico.
Trump has repeatedly flouted social-distancing guidelines meant to curb the virus' spread and ignored his own medical advisers. He mocked Biden at last Tuesday's presidential debate for wearing a mask when campaigning.
"I was aghast when he said COVID should not be feared," said William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
"This is a disease that is killing around a thousand people a day, has torpedoed the economy, put people out of work. This is a virus that should be both respected and feared."
Democrats also weighed in. "This is a tragic failure of leadership," Democratic Senator Chris Coons tweeted.
But Trump depicted himself as a man who vanquished the disease and emerged stronger.
"If the President bounces back onto the campaign trail, he will be an invincible hero, who not only survived every dirty trick the Democrats threw at him, but the Chinese virus as well," he wrote on Twitter.
A Twitter post by Biden showed images of himself donning a mask and Trump removing his. "Masks Matter. They save lives," the caption read.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said every precaution was being taken to protect the president and his family. Physical access to Trump would be limited and appropriate protective equipment would be worn by those near him.
Questions continue to swirl about the true state of Trump's health after a weekend in which his doctors offered contradictory or opaque assessments of his condition.
His oxygen saturation dipped enough to require supplemental oxygen on Friday and Saturday and he will receive his last intravenous dose of the antiviral drug, remdesivir, at the White House on Tuesday, his doctors said.
US President Donald Trump returns to the White House after being hospitalised at Walter Reed Medical Center for COVID-19. (Photo: Reuters)
SETBACK POSSIBLE
Many aides and confidants have been diagnosed with the disease since Trump's announcement last week that he had tested positive for it, intensifying scrutiny and criticism of the administration's handling of the pandemic.
Trump had no public events listed for Tuesday and it was unclear when he would be able to resume a full schedule.
"I'm sure he'll rest the next two days. And he'll get going as soon as they say it's okay to get going," Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Tuesday, adding that Trump would still do light work like making phone calls.
"You never know with this disease, but it seems like he is making a very rapid recovery and a strong one. And certainly his spirit is back. He's raring to go," Giuliani said.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who also tested positive for COVID-19 after a Sep 26 White House visit, said on Twitter that Trump called him on Monday night and said he was "feeling great and working hard".
After recent opinion polls showed Trump slipping further behind Biden, early voting data indicated that nearly 4 million Americans have already cast ballots four weeks before election day, suggesting there may be a record turnout.
The severity of Trump's illness has been the subject of intense speculation, with some experts noting that, as an overweight, elderly man, he was in a high risk category.
#GaspingForAir began trending on Twitter after video showed Trump appearing to take several deep breaths while standing on the White House balcony.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN Trump looked good when he came out of the hospital, but noted that patients sometimes have a setback five days after they get sick.
"Sometimes when you're five days in you're going to have a reversal ... It's unlikely that it will happen, but they need to be heads-up (alert) for it," Fauci said.
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said that he expects a rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in the country in the short term as a record 691 new cases were reported on Tuesday (Oct 6).
It was the second consecutive day of a record high number, after 432 cases were confirmed on Monday (Oct 5).
Four new deaths were reported on Tuesday, including that of a one-year-old, the country’s first child fatality.
But Tan Sri Muhyiddin said the country would not implement a movement control order (MCO) again as it could badly affect the economy, with 15 million Malaysians at work, The government will instead carry out targeted lockdowns, or Temco, on red zones, which are areas with 41 cases or more.
Malaysia has nine red zones currently, including seven in Sabah, one in Kedah and one in Klang, Selangor.
“We cannot be complacent. I expect the number of Covid-19 cases to rise in the short term. This is because the Health Ministry is testing more aggressively,” the Prime Minister said in a live telecast on national television and social media.
“As of today, we are not thinking of implementing a nationwide movement control order (MCO) or a total lockdown. If we implement an MCO again, this could lead to the collapse of the social and economic systems of the country.”
Malaysia implemented a lockdown from March 18, closing its borders, businesses, and schools, but has gradually reopened most sectors from May. Borders remain closed except for returning citizens and for exceptional cases.
Mr Muhyiddin sought to reassure Malaysians that the country was “now better prepared than before in terms of experience and manpower". He said: "We know the behaviour of the virus better and we have enough facilities and equipment.”
The Health Ministry’s director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said that beds had been prepared for Covid-19 patients, with 2,820 in hospitals and 3,975 in quarantine centres. At present, 36 per cent and 29 per cent of these are being used, respectively, he said yesterday.
There are 1,505 ventilators available, with some 37 per cent being used, including for non-Covid patients.
Tan Sri Noor Hisham said Malaysia has 60 laboratories nationwide conducting real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction tests, and is capable of carrying out 41,354 of these tests a day.
PM Muhyiddin also insisted there were “no double standards” in quarantine orders and that seven ministers and six deputy ministers were undergoing home quarantine.
Mr Muhyiddin and Dr Noor Hisham are themselves currently in quarantine after a ministerial meeting where de facto Islamic Affairs minister Zulkifli Mohamad al-Bakri, who tested positive for the virus, was in attendance.
Ninety of Datuk Seri Zulkifli’s close contacts have so far tested negative for the disease.
Anger among Malaysians has been mounting over the new Covid-19 wave which they feel was spurred by politics, with reports of ministers failing to quarantine themselves after their return from Sabah for campaigning in the Sept 26 state election. Some of these ministers did not appear to have quarantined themselves upon returning.
Photos of banners with swear words blaming politicians for the escalating numbers have been floating on social media.
Mr Muhyiddin defended the decision to hold the Sabah state poll but conceded that it contributed to the growing outbreak as not everyone followed the safety measures during campaigning.
The government on Tuesday announced a travel ban from Sabah to other states between Oct 12 and 25 as infections in the state continued to rise. Sabah recorded 219 cases.
Another state, Kedah, recorded higher daily cases than Sabah on Tuesday due to a Covid-19 outbreak at a prison. Kedah reported 397 cases.
