Commodity prices in Arakan State have risen by 30-70% amid the ongoing third wave of Covid-19, according to businesspeople and merchants.

A man on a highway bus traveling to Thandwe from Yangon died en route on Sunday and was later found to have been infected with Covid-19, with two fellow passengers subsequently also testing positive for the virus. 

The Sittwe Township Court on July 12 fined three Arakanese youths who were charged under Section 19 of the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law in connection with a protest they helped organise late last year against human rights abuses. 

A doctor was among four people who tested positive for Covid-19 on July 11 in Maungdaw Township, Arakan State, according to the Maungdaw District Health Department. 

U Min Aung, a former Arakan State MP for the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Taungup Township, and a fellow party member will be arraigned on July 26 to decide whether to prosecute them under Section 25 of the Natural Disaster Management Law.

A new oxygen plant will come online by month’s end in Sittwe, Arakan State, according to U Tun Tun Oo, owner of the BMG drinking water factory involved in procuring the machine, as demand for oxygen rises alongside the state’s Covid-19 case count. 

Two locals from Kyauksin village in Arakan State’s Ann Township were reportedly injured in a landmine explosion on Saturday and one victim’s leg was amputated, while the other may have lost his eyesight.

Despite up to five people dead of Covid-19 in Maungdaw Township this month, locals are still lax in adhering to preventive regulations and guidelines intended to curb the disease’s spread, according to the medical superintendent of Maungdaw District People’s Hospital, Dr. Nu Kaythi San. 

Shops, restaurants and markets in Maungdaw town, where the death toll from Covid-19 has reached five, are only being allowed half-day hours of operation from July 11. 

Residents of Lay Taung town in Arakan State’s Ramree Township are demanding that a new doctor be assigned to the local hospital amid the ongoing third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the previous physician having been transferred elsewhere and no replacement yet arriving. 

Border trade camps have been ordered closed from July 15-31 due to the rising rate of Covid-19 infections in Arakan State, meaning commodities must be shipped by July 15, according to trade unions.

Two Covid-19 fatalities in Thandwe Township on July 11 and one in Kyaukphyu Township the same day brought the Arakan State death toll to a dozen during the pandemic’s ongoing third wave in Myanmar.  

Two residents of Khone Taing village in northern Maungdaw Township went missing on July 10 after they went out foraging for bamboo shoots, and were found the next day beaten and bound. 

A total of 106 traffic accidents, resulting in 75 deaths and 136 injuries, were reported in Arakan State in the first six months of the year, according to the Arakan State Traffic Police.

The abductions of three Sittwe men in separate incidents over the past six weeks has left their families all the more worried because neither the missing men nor their captors have contacted them. 

Efforts are underway to install an oxygen generator to supply Thandwe District Hospital in Arakan State, and donors are still needed, according to officials tasked with constructing the plant.

The Arakan State military council says it will strictly monitor compliance with Covid-19 regulations issued by the Ministry of Health and Sports with two major religious holidays approaching later this month.

With Arakan State’s Maungdaw Township emerging as a Covid-19 hot spot, markets and restaurants will only be permitted to open for business half days, starting July 10, in an attempt to slow the spread of the deadly virus.  

Most internally displaced people (IDPs) at Taung Min IDP camp in Arakan State’s Kyauktaw Township are suffering from a rash-inducing skin disease.