In Taiwan, unrest is growing about a corona outbreak. The country with 24 million inhabitants reports a record number of 333 new domestic infections and will close its borders for foreigners without a residence permit from Wednesday.
Taiwan managed to keep the coronavirus primarily at bay last year. The island nation has been diagnosed with some 2,000 infections and 12 deaths from the virus since the start of the pandemic.
Public life hardly changed as a result. Residents were also not faced with lockdowns or overloaded hospitals.
The virus suddenly seems to be spreading a lot faster this month on the island off the Chinese coast. Infection records have been falling for days in a row, leading to unrest among the population. Taiwanese started hoarding in supermarkets, and there was a run on the scarce corona vaccines.
Taiwan alone has received about 300,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine so far and is still waiting for millions of corona vaccines ordered from Moderna.
The Taiwanese envoy in the United States says it is pressuring the company to ensure that those funds are delivered before the end of June as agreed.