Asia Today: 723 cases in Australia, closures in Vietnam

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s coronavirus hot spot Victoria will make masks compulsory statewide after reporting on Thursday a record 723 new cases.

Masks have been mandatory in the state capital Melbourne and a neighboring semi-rural district for the past week. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said the measure will be extended starting Sunday.

Residents around the city of Geelong will not be allowed to have visitors in their homes from late Thursday.

The 723 new cases and a daily record 13 deaths exceeded the previous record of 532 cases posted on Monday.

“These numbers today are a reflection of increased cases in aged care,” Andrews said, referring to new infections in Melbourne’s nursing homes.

Melbourne and neighboring Mitchell Shire are halfway through a six-week shutdown, which Andrews said could be extended.

He said extending mandatory masks and banning visitors to homes are meant to keep the infection rate low in regional centers. “We need to jealously guard those low numbers,” Andrews said.

“As challenging as this is, it is within our control,” Andrews said. “All of us, as proud Victorians, if we follow the rules, if we play our part, then we can defeat this. We can drive these numbers down.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the weekslong lockdown was not giving the desired results. He said the additional restrictions, while necessary, will come at an impact to the economy. "But equally not containing these outbreaks will have that effect also,” he said.

In other developments around the Asia-Pacific region:

— India reported more than 50,000 cases for the first time in 24 hours on Thursday, taking the national total to 1,583,792. The number of recoveries from the coronavirus also crossed 1 million as the...