People queue outside a department store in Melbourne on Oct 29, 2021 as the city further lifts COVID-19 restrictions allowing non-essential retail shops to open and travel to the regions of Victoria after the city's sixth lockdown. (WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
ANKARA / BEIRUT / DHAKA / MANILA / NEW DELHI / SEOUL / VIENTIANE – Australia’s Queensland said it found two different lineages of Omicron in returned travelers. The new lineage, which has about half the gene variations of the original and can’t be detected with typical screening, was found in a traveler who had returned from South Africa and tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday, the state’s deputy health coordinator for COVID operations Peter Aitkin told reporters.
The new lineage has enough markers “to be able to classify it as Omicron, but we don’t know enough about it as to what that means then as far as clinical severity, vaccine effectiveness,” Aitkin said. “We now have Omicron and Omicron-like.”
Meanwhile, New South Wales state said genome sequencing confirmed an additional Omicron case contracted from an outbreak in Sydney’s western suburbs, bringing the locally acquired infections to 21. Including international arrivals, the state has found 34 cases of the variant, none of whom have been admitted to hospital for treatment, health officials said in a statement Wednesday.
India
Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, will halve the output of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 shot from next week as it had no fresh orders from the government, its CEO Adar Poonawalla told CNBC-TV18 on Tuesday.
"I am going to be reducing production by at least 50 percent to begin with, going forward on a monthly basis, until orders again pick up either in India or the world," Poonawalla said.
SII is producing 250 million doses of the vaccine, which it brands Covishield. The shot accounts for nearly 90 percent of the 1.3 billion total vaccine doses administered in India.
Laos
The public and private sectors are making plans to reopen Laos to fully vaccinated tourists in 2022, and details regarding quarantine upon entry are still being debated.
Under the Lao Travel Green Zone scheme, visitors can book tour packages on the condition that they have a certificate of entry, a vaccination certificate dated at least 14 days prior to entry
The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism outlined the plans at a consultation meeting held on Tuesday.
The ministry is following the guidelines given in a notice from the Prime Minister's Office issued on Nov 5, aimed at encouraging authorities to prepare to welcome back tourists, local daily Vientiane Times reported on Wednesday.
Speaking at the meeting, Director General of the Department of Planning and International Cooperation Phengchanh Phengmeuang said the ministry is working with state and private entities to plan for the return of tourists in the near future and will ask the government to approve the plan submitted.
The ministry is preparing to reopen the country to vaccinated tourists under the "Lao Travel Green Zone" program.
Areas described as green zones must have a population that is 70-80 percent vaccinated, while 90-95 percent of service providers must also be vaccinated.
Under the Lao Travel Green Zone scheme, visitors can book tour packages on the condition that they have a certificate of entry, a vaccination certificate dated at least 14 days prior to entry, a negative PCR test result for COVID-19 done 72 hours or less before boarding a plane as well as on arrival in Laos.
They are also required to use an app to track possible exposure to COVID-19 during their stay in Laos.
Lebanon
The Lebanese parliament on Tuesday approved a law that imposes a fine of 250,000 Lebanese pounds (11 US dollars according to the market rate) on people who refuse to get vaccinated against the COVID-19, the National News Agency reported.
The parliament approved the law as the daily COVID-19 infections in the country has increased remarkably over the past few weeks, at a time when hospitals have been reeling from an unprecedented national financial crisis.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in Lebanon, with a population of about 6.8 million, has reached 679,625, including 8,785 deaths, according to the health ministry.
Malaysia
Malaysia Tuesday provided more than half a million vaccine doses to Bangladesh as a gesture of solidarity and support in the latter's fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
In a ceremony in Dhaka, Haznah Md Hashim, high commissioner of Malaysia to Bangladesh, officially handed over the token vaccine doses to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen.
Highlighting the massive inoculation program undertaken by the government of Bangladesh, Momen mentioned that already more than 100 million of the population had been vaccinated, of which more than 67 million received a single dose while more than 37 million received double doses.
READ MORE: Malaysia bans travelers from countries at risk from Omicron
People wearing face masks and shields to protect themselves against COVID-19 cross a street in Manila on Sept 7, 2021. (TED ALJIBE / AFP)
The Philippines
The Philippines will ban travellers coming from France to prevent the spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, the presidential office said on Wednesday.
The ban, which applies to everyone who has been in France in the past 14 days, runs from Dec 10 to Dec 15.
This adds to an earlier ban on travellers from South Africa and 13 other countries to prevent Omicron, which has yet to be detected in the Philippines.
The Philippines' Department of Health reported 356 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, pushing the number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 2,835,345.
The DOH also reported that 92 more people died from COVID-19 complications, bringing the country's death toll to 49,591.
The number of active cases or patients still battling the disease in the country dropped to 13,026.
The Philippines has been reporting below-1,000 daily cases since November 24.
A man wearing a face mask walks in front of Christmas decorations and the display of South Korea's capital Seoul logo in Seoul, South Korea, Dec 1, 2021. ( LEE JIN-MAN / AP)
South Korea
South Korea will consider expanding home treatment of COVID-19 patients, a health official said on Wednesday, as both new daily infections and severe cases hit record highs, putting hospital capacity under strain.
Infections in South Korea have skyrocketed this month after the government began to ease restrictions under a so-called "living with COVID-19" scheme in November.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 7,175 new coronavirus cases and 63 deaths for Tuesday, and hospitals are treating a record 840 critical and serious cases.
"It is important to retain or reduce the trend of the current scale of the severely-ill patients within a week or two," Son Young-rae, a senior health ministry official, told a news conference.
He said the government may need to make significant adjustments to the healthcare system if daily cases top 10,000, and consider expanding at-home treatment from around 50 percent currently, as four-fifths of COVID-19 patients are symptomless or have only mild symptoms.
South Korea imposed stricter measures on Monday, including reduced numbers of people allowed at private gatherings and expanding vaccine pass mandates.
The country has so far reported a total of 489,484 COVID-19 cases, with 4,020 deaths. It has fully vaccinated 91.8 percent of its adult population aged 18 and above, KDCA data showed.
Thailand
Thailand has detected two new Omicron cases in Thai women returning from Nigeria, bringing the total to three found in the country, according to the Health Ministry Wednesday. The investigation found that the women didn’t wear masks while joining religious activities while in Nigeria. All the three Omicron cases so far are imported cases.
Thailand reported 3,618 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, maintaining good trend after adding 3,525 cases Tuesday, the lowest in five months.
Turkey
Turkey on Tuesday reported 22,687 new COVID-19 cases, raising its tally of infections to 8,943,837, according to its health ministry.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 198 to 78,215, while 24,366 more people recovered in the last 24 hours.
More than 56.42 million people have received their first doses of vaccines, while over 50.74 million had their second doses. Turkey has so far administered over 121.16 million doses including third booster jabs.