Tourists lounge under umbrellas along Patong Beach in Phuket, Thailand, March 11, 2022. (SALINEE PRAB / AP)
BANGKOK / SEOUL / NEW DELHI – Despite record-high daily COVID-19 cases, Thailand on Friday announced further easing of social distancing rules nationwide, allowing more businesses to resume operations.
Aiming to help the economy recover from the pandemic, Thailand plans to declare COVID-19 an endemic disease by July 1, regardless of a recent spike in COVID-19 cases
The government is also considering to cancel the requirement of pre-departure COVID-19 tests for inbound travelers from April 1, as part of relaxed border control measures to boost tourism, Natapanu Nopakun, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a daily news briefing of the Center for the COVID-19 Situation Administration.
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Aiming to help the economy recover from the pandemic, Thailand plans to declare COVID-19 an endemic disease by July 1, regardless of a recent spike in COVID-19 cases.
On Friday, new infections in Thailand hit a record high of 27,071, surpassing the previous record of 25,615 in late February, according to the CCSA. The country also reported 80 more deaths, the highest number of coronavirus-linked fatalities registered since November 2021.
As of Thursday, around 72 percent of its nearly 70-million population had been fully vaccinated, while 31.7 percent had received booster shots.
India
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 43,006,080 on Saturday as 2,075 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the health ministry's latest data.
Besides, 71 deaths due to the pandemic since Friday morning took the total death toll to 516,352.
There are still 27,802 active COVID-19 cases in the country with a fall of 1,379 active cases during the past 24 hours. This was the 54th consecutive day when the number of active cases declined in the country.
So far 42,461,926 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals so far, out of which 3,383 were discharged during the past 24 hours.
People wearing face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus exit a train at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, March 17, 2022. (AHN YOUNG-JOON / AP)
South Korea
South Korea reported 381,454 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Friday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 9,038,938, the health authorities said on Saturday.
The daily caseload was down 407,016 in the previous day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
The recent resurgence was driven by infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the Omicron variant spread.
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Of the new cases, 82,132 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 101,523 and 20,838 respectively.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 176,898, or 46.4 percent of the total local transmission.
Among the new cases, 63 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 30,602.
A total of 319 more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 12,101. The total fatality rate was 0.13 percent.