Asia Covid-19 Watch: China Reports 22 Cases; 43 More Die In Thailand, Vietnam Has 86 New Local Cases

Mainland China reported 22 new Covid-19 cases after reporting 21 a day earlier, health officials said Friday.

The National Health Commission said nine of the new cases were local transmissions - up from six a day earlier.

China has 91,359 confirmed infections with deaths unchanged at 4,636 as of the latest data Thursday, the commission said.

In Malaysia, recent celebrations sparked 60 Covid-19 clusters involving 3,511 cases, health officials said.

From May 13 to June 10, the health ministry said 58 clusters linked to Hari Raya Puasa and two clusters linked to Hari Gawai were detected. Around 13,023 people were tested for Covid-19, with 27% testing positive.

In Vietnam, another 86 cases were added to the country's domestic Covid-19 tally at noon Thursday - raising the local count in the latest wave to 6,537, VNExpress reported.

The new patients were recorded in eight locations, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the report said.

Over in Thailand, health officials reported 43 more deaths from the virus and another 2,310 infections - bringing the country's total to 1,375 deaths and infections to 187,538, the Bangkok Post said.

Indonesia said health officials laid out new measures to accelerate the distribution of vaccines as the country battles a continuing outbreak. It aims for 1 million inoculations a day starting July.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo hoped the nation would hit 700,000 doses a day this month. "So in July, we can achieve the vaccination target per day of 1 million," he said, according to Reuters.

In India, health officials reported Thursday the highest single-day Covid-19 death toll in the world, at 6,148. 

India's cases are now at 29.2 million with deaths of 359,676, data from the health ministry shows.

Meanwhile, the Philippines received almost 2.3 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine as the country continues to record a rise in infections, ABS-CBN News said Friday.

Currently, there are 175 million cases worldwide with 3.76 million associated deaths.