A passenger walks with her suitcase at the arrivals hall at Tokyo's Haneda International Airport on Feb 18, 2022, after Japan's government announced plans to ease virus border rules for workers and students. (PHILIP FONG / AFP)
ISTANBUL / HANOI / DHAKA / SINGAPORE / WELLINGTON / SYDNEY / SEOUL / TOKYO – The Japanese government on Thursday is set to announce that the current COVID-19 quasi-emergency measures in place will be extended beyond the Sunday deadline in roughly half of the 31 prefectures where enhanced antiviral measures are in place.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is expected to unveil the plan later Thursday in a press conference following discussions with the government's infectious diseases experts and ministers related to the fight against the virus.
The intensive quasi-emergency measures are expected to be extended in areas including Tokyo, Osaka, Hokkaido and Aichi, the government said, as hospital occupancy rates in these major prefectures remain high.
The government is considering extending the emergency measures through March 21, Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported.
Prefectures including Fukushima, Nagano, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, meanwhile, may have their emergency restrictions lifted, according to the government's plans, as the rate of infection and hospital occupancy rate in these regions have shown significant improvement, the government said.
A formal decision on the extension and lifting thereof is expected to be formalized on Friday after the government has sought further advice from its expert panel on infectious disease and relevant ministers, informed sources said.
While Japan is still grappling with relatively high rates of community transmissions of the highly-contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19, Kishida will also likely confirm Thursday the government's plan to relax its border control measures.
The Japanese leader may announce that the government is considering raising the cap on daily arrivals from 5,000 to 7,000 people.
On Tuesday, Japan's border controls were eased with the limit on new entrants to the country being raised to 5,000 per day from an initial 3,500.
Staff check a client at a drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on Jan 8, 2022. (MARK BAKER / AP)
Australia
All public hospitals in the state of Western Australia (WA) move to a "red alert" phase as the state is expected to brace for a spike in COVID-19 cases when the border reopens.
On Thursday, WA opens its border to all interstate or international travellers with vaccination and testing requirements placed on arrivals.
Meanwhile, the state reported 1,770 new cases on Wednesday, with 16 people in hospital. To Wednesday, there is a total of 6,969 active COVID-19 cases in the state. WA Premier Mark McGowan warned a surge in hospitalizations is yet to come.
"In Australia, data shows that once a jurisdiction hits 1,000 cases a day, the peak of the Omicron outbreak is only a few weeks away," McGowan said.
In a statement published by the WA Health Department, the state's Chief Health Officer Andrew Robertson said at "red level" hospitals would take further measures to "manage the increased risk of COVID-19 transmission and reduce impacts within hospitals as much as possible."
All healthcare facilities will increase the use of rapid antigen tests (RATs) for patients attending hospital and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as N95, for healthcare workers.
A teacher holds online classes for her students at one of the schools that have been shut down amid a surge in coronavirus infections at New Eskaton area in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Feb 1, 2022. (MAHMUD HOSSIAN OPU / AP)
Bangladesh
Bangladesh on Wednesday resumed in-person classes for children across the country in strict compliance with health directives.
"Educational institutions reopened for in-person classes for students aged under 12 from today," Education Minister Dipu Moni told reporters.
Meanwhile, the minister said they are working on a plan to vaccinate children under the age of 12.
The resumption of in-person classes elated parents and their children who returned to campuses after a long time.
With COVID-19 cases rising since December last year due to the highly-infectious Omicron strain, the Bangladeshi government announced the closure of educational institutions temporarily on Jan. 21 this year, which was later extended in phases to Feb 21.
The country's secondary and higher educational institutes reopened on Feb 22 after a closure of one month as authorities decided not to extend COVID-19 restrictions except mask mandates which remained as usual.
Amid surging cases with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, the Bangladeshi government on Jan 13 imposed 11-point restrictions till Feb 7, and then extended them up to Feb 21.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces the country will move to red traffic light setting as part of new COVID-19 restrictions during a press conference in Wellington on Jan 23, 2022. (MARK MITCHELL / NEW ZEALAND HERALD VIA AP)
New Zealand
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sought to cool simmering resentment over the slow unlocking of the country's pandemic restrictions on Thursday, a day after police cleared a weeks-long Canada-style protest outside parliament.
In a special session of parliament to discuss the protest, the most violent in decades in the normally peaceful city, Ardern promised things would change, but gave no timeframe for easing curbs.
"Our people are coming home. Soon, tourists will return. Vaccine passes, mandates, restrictions – they will all change. There is reason to feel hopeful," she said.
A Horizon Research snap poll released on Feb 18 found 30 percent of those polled supported the protests and about the same percentage was opposed to Ardern's vaccine mandate policy.
Ardern refused to meet the protesters, who she said had resorted to violence and bullying.
COVID-19 cases were restricted to fewer than 15,000 in total by end-2021 through a strict elimination approach, but the arrival of the Omicron variant has seen cases top 20,000 a day, reaching a cumulative total of nearly 150,000 on Thursday.
The government says restrictions that have frayed the public's patience are set to stay in place until at least mid-March, when the Omicron surge is expected to peak.
The saga has dented Ardern's popularity since she won a second term in a landslide election victory in 2020.
Her support fell to 35 percent, its lowest level since she became prime minister in 2017, according to a 1News Kantar Public poll at the end of January. However, Ardern remains preferred prime minister and her centre-left coalition government is still on course to win the next election in late 2023.
The government has made some changes to its tough stand on borders that prevented many Kiwis from returning home due to a compulsory stay in limited quarantine facilities.
But the border remains closed to foreigners, unlike in neighbouring Australia which relaxed curbs this month.
Singapore
Singapore reported 19,159 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total tally to 767,663.
Of the new cases, 2,677 cases were detected through PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests and 16,482 through ARTs (antigen rapid tests), according to the statistics released by the Ministry of Health.
South Korea
South Korea reported 198,803 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Wednesday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 3,691,488, the health authorities said Thursday.
The daily caseload was down from a record high of 219,240 in the previous day, but it stayed high around 200,000, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
A man wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 walks along an alley in a commercial area in Istanbul, Turkey on Jan 18, 2022. (FRANCISCO SECO / AP)
Turkey
Turkey eased the majority of coronavirus-related restrictions on Wednesday, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, almost two years after the first case was identified in the country.
In a televised speech, Koca said wearing masks will not be mandatory outdoors or indoors when there is enough ventilation. A contact tracing app code will no longer be asked when entering places like shopping malls or public institutions.
The fight against the disease will be at an individual level rather than society-wide, Koca said, adding that people without symptoms will not be tested.
A man passes walks past a billboard on the coronavirus in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec 4, 2021. (NHAC NGUYEN / AFP)
Vietnam
The daily COVID-19 tally in Vietnam surged to 110,301 on Wednesday, up 11,539 from Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Health.
The new infections, logged in 63 localities nationwide, included 110,280 domestically transmitted and 21 imported.
The Vietnamese capital Hanoi remained the epidemic hotspot with 15,114 cases on Wednesday, also its new daily record, followed by the northern Bac Ninh province with 4,698 cases, and the central Nghe An province with 4,329 cases.
On the same day, health authorities also documented 41,551 COVID-19 cases detected earlier in the northern provinces of Nam Dinh, Bac Giang, and Thai Nguyen.
The infections brought the total tally to 3,709,481 with 40,452 deaths.master artists