The woman died four days after receiving the vaccination.

The TGA said her case had been complicated by underlying medical conditions, including diabetes, “as well as some atypical features.”

There had been at least 885,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines administered in Australia so far, equating to a frequency of instance of blood clot in every 295,000 cases, the TGA said.

“The overall number ... so far has been no higher than the expected background rate for the more common type of blood clots,” it said.

Japan widens restrictions

Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama along with Aichi were added to the list of prefectures subject to the measures, including asking restaurants and bars to close by 8pm with fines for non-compliance. The steps will take effect on Tuesday and remain in place through the Golden Week holidays until May 11.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato finalised the decision in place of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is currently on a trip to the US, at a coronavirus task force meeting.

The tougher restrictions under what has been called a quasi-state of emergency will cover a total of 10 prefectures. Such measures were implemented in Osaka, Hyogo and Miyagi on April 5, with Tokyo, Kyoto and Okinawa added on Monday.

Coronavirus cases in Japan have steadily increased after a state of emergency was lifted in steps before finally ending in the Tokyo metropolitan area on March 21.

Coronavirus could still derail Tokyo Olympics, senior Japanese politician warns

Osaka, the epicentre of the current surge in infections, saw a record 1,209 cases on Friday, while Tokyo reported 667, Aichi 224, Kanagawa 209 and Saitama 163.

Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of the Covid-19 response, expressed concern over the rapid spread of highly contagious variants, including some believed to cause serious symptoms at a higher rate.

“We have to act with an extremely strong sense of caution,” he said.

Health experts have warned that the situation could worsen during Golden Week from late April through early May, one of the year’s busiest periods for travel.

The government is calling on people to refrain from making trips between prefectures, and also asking them to avoid crowds when shopping and not using karaoke machines at eateries.

Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura and his counterparts near Tokyo had asked the government on Thursday to give them the authority to impose the tougher restrictions, made possible by a legal revision in February.

They will be able to impose a maximum fine of 200,000 yen (US$1,800) on restaurants and bars failing to follow the mandate to close early, though the measures will only be in place in some cities including Yokohama and Nagoya.

Similar restrictions during the state of emergency, which carries a heavier fine for non-compliance, were largely successful in bringing down infections.

Indonesia gears up to reopen Bali beaches

The government is in talks with Singapore, China, South Korea, India, the Netherlands and United Arab Emirates for potential travel bubbles that will allow their nationals to visit Indonesia’s so-called “green zones,” or sites that have curbed Covid-19 infections and vaccinated a significant portion of their local population, Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno said on Friday.

Ukraine and Poland have also submitted requests to Indonesia, guaranteeing a set number of tourists that could travel to the Southeast Asian nation via charter flights, Uno said. This would ease a government ban imposed since March 2020, prohibiting most foreign nationals from entering or transiting through Indonesia during the pandemic.

Indonesia joins the likes of Thailand and Hong Kong in considering to allow limited foreign travels to support their ailing tourist industries. Like its neighbours, though, slower-than-expected inoculation and fears of a resurgence in Covid-19 cases are throwing a spanner in the works.

Indonesia plans ‘one-way’ travel bubble for Singapore tourists

Central to Indonesia’s plan will be vaccine supply, which is expected to fall short this month due to export curbs in producing countries.

Shots are currently prioritised for the elderly and frontline workers in Covid-19 hotspots such as Jakarta, but a new directive from President Joko Widodo aims to include Bali in the list, Uno said.

“We already have close to 60,000 to 70,000 vaccinators ready in Bali. Once we have the supply, the Health Minister said we can complete the task in two to three months, taking us to mid- or end-July,” for the reopening, Uno said. At least 2 million residents would have to have been vaccinated for the programme to start, he said.

Batam and Bintan, part of the Riau Islands just south of Singapore, had hoped to start receiving travelers from the city-state by April 21, but that will likely be delayed as discussions continue on health protocols, Uno said. The travel lane will be on the agenda in an upcoming meeting between Widodo and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, he added.

Other tourist sites being considered for the travel corridor programme include Yogyakarta, Belitung Island and Lake Toba in Sumatra, Borobudur Temple in Central Java, Labuan Bajo fishing town in eastern Indonesia, and Likupang in Sulawesi, which caters to Chinese tourists. Any decision to reopen more areas will be driven by data on how well infection has been contained, said Uno.

Southeast Asia’s biggest economy aims to inoculate as many as 3 million people in Bali and about 70,000 in Batam and Bintan to achieve herd immunity in the islands before they are reopened to foreign visitors.

Indonesia has inoculated over 10.6 million people so far, the most in Southeast Asia. This has helped halve the number of new infections to an average of about 5,000 a day in April from nearly 11,000 at the start of the year.

Thailand’s surge threatens reopening

The closure of bars, pubs, karaoke and massage parlors in areas including Bangkok, the epicenter of the latest outbreak, may be extended nationwide until the end of April, a meeting of the National Committee on Communicable Diseases decided on Thursday. While Bangkok and 17 other provinces will be designated as maximum controlled areas because of the severity of the outbreak, 59 others will be designated as controlled areas, the panel said.

Thailand’s durian dealers fear Covid-19 surge could derail exports to China

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha will chair a meeting of the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration on Friday to consider the fresh curbs. The Southeast Asian nation had last week ordered the closure of entertainment venues in Bangkok and 40 other virus-hit provinces for at least two weeks to contain a third wave of infections that emerged from bars and pubs in the capital city.

The control measures dampened the annual Songkran festivities, when millions of Thais travel across the country for family reunions and holidays, for a second year and weakened private consumption and domestic tourism. An extended period of restrictions may delay plans to lure vaccinated tourists and further weaken an economic recovery that the Thai central bank says is contingent on return of foreign visitors.

03:44

‘Virus hunters’ in the Philippines study bats to prevent future pandemics

‘Virus hunters’ in the Philippines study bats to prevent future pandemics

Duterte ready to seize hotels

The Philippines is battling one of the worst outbreaks in Asia, with hospitals in the capital region facing long queues of patients and critical care units nearing maximum capacity.

“I can order the authorities to take over the operations of hotels if there no longer are beds. That is easy,” Duterte said in a late night national address.

While a government takeover is not a “remedy desired in a democratic state”, Duterte said he could order the police and military to seize the properties “when we are pushed to the wall”.

Duterte reappears as Filipinos express anger over coronavirus situation

He said the properties would be decontaminated before they were handed back.

“I need your hotel. I will borrow it and after that I will clean it up,” Duterte said.

With 904,285 infections and 15,594 deaths, the Philippines has the second-highest numbers of Covid-19 cases and casualties in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia.

The capital region, an urban sprawl of 16 cities and at least 13 million people, is the country’s coronavirus hotspot. Many hospitals there are turning away patients after reaching maximum capacity in critical care units and COVID-19 wards.

“Of course the takeover of hotels in the national interest or during emergency is the prerogative of the president,” said Arthur Lopez, president of the Philippine Hotel Owners Association.

06:18

SCMP Explains: What’s in a Covid-19 vaccine?

SCMP Explains: What’s in a Covid-19 vaccine?

India logs record 217,000 cases

This is the second consecutive day that India has recorded more than 200,000 new cases.

Fresh infections were 7.6 per cent higher than on Thursday, when the country registered 200,739 cases, according to Health Ministry data. A total of 1,185 deaths in 24 hours raised the death count to 174,308.

Health care infrastructure is slowly crumbling in the worst-hit areas, including major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, which reported dwindling intensive care unit (ICU) beds and stocks of oxygen cylinders.

India’s hospitals overwhelmed, graveyards overflowing as infections surge

To ramp up the fight against Covid-19, the government said 100 new hospitals would have their own oxygen plants and another 50,000 metric tonnes of medical oxygen would be imported.

Some states are running low on vaccines stocks. India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, is seeking to import the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia later this month, local media reported.

India’s vaccination programme, which started in January, has seen some 117 million doses administered so far. The government plans to immunise 300 million people – over a fifth of its 1.3-strong billion population – by July.

Reporting by Kyodo, Reuters, Bloomberg, DPA