A woman (center) carries a refilled gas container in the center of the capital Nuku'alofa ahead of the country's first lockdown on Feb 2, 2022, after COVID-19 was detected in the previously virus-free Pacific kingdom as it struggles to recover from the deadly Jan 15 volcanic eruption and tsunami. (MARY LYN FONUA / MATANGI TONGA / AFP)
SUVA / SYDNEY / HANOI / JAKARTA / SINGAPORE / BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN / NEW DELHI / SEOUL / HANOI / WELLINGTON / ULAN BATOR / VIENTIANE / MANILA – Tonga will enforce a week-long hard lockdown on Sunday as the island nation reported 258 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours.
According to Tonga's news website Matangi Tonga Online, Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni announced the lockdown, which will be enforced at 5:00 am on Sunday until 5:00 am local time on March 26, at a press conference via zoom on Friday.
He said that the night curfew will be moved to 8:00 am-8:00 pm local time for both the main island of Tongatapu and Vava'u, an island group consisting of one large island and 40 smaller ones.
According to the prime minister, the Tongan cabinet decided to revert to red alert from orange alert on the advice of the Ministry of Health following the continuing increase of positive cases recorded on Tongatapu and Vava'u and the need for Health teams to regroup. Therefore, all services such as all retail and wholesale business, banks, gas stations, bread shops and schools will be closed next week.
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
As a surge of COVID-19 cases sweep across Australia's states and territories, health authorities have urged the public to receive their booster shot of the vaccine.
The more contagious Omicron BA.2 sub-variant is fast becoming Australia's dominant strain of the virus. Early reports suggest that it may be 30 to 40 percent more transmissible than Omicron BA.1, making it by far the fastest variant to date.
On Friday the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) reported 20,050 daily cases, in line with 20,087 recorded the day before, more than double the numbers seen just one week ago.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has flagged growing complacency in the community despite the virus' rapid uptick.
According to NSW health, just 57.8 percent of vaccine-eligible citizens in the state have had their third booster dose of the vaccines, despite 94.5 percent having received their first two doses.
The story is similar in the Australian state of Victoria. Over the last several weeks daily cases have doubled from an average around 5,000 to 9,036 reported on Friday.
In Victoria, 63.4 percent of the population have received a booster dose of the vaccine.
Experts have warned that two doses of the vaccines is fast becoming inadequate in protecting against the virus, especially as immunity wanes in older and immunocompromised Australians.
Workers wearing protective suits spray disinfectant at Suri Seri Begawan Raja Pengiran Anak Damit Mosque in an effort to counter the spread of the COVID-19 in Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei on March 17, 2020. (PHOTO / AFP)
Brunei
Brunei reported 1,666 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the national tally to 120,600.
As a country with a population of 420,000, Brunei has witnessed a series of record-breaking days for infection in recent weeks.
All the newly recorded cases were local infections, the country's health ministry said.
People celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Hyderabad, India on March 17, 2022. (MAHESH KUMAR A. / AP)
India
The festival of colors Holi is once again here on Friday and the whole of India is immersed in the mad festive mood, as people had avoided celebrating the festival due to COVID-19 pandemic for the past two years.
Over the past four days around 2,500 new cases are registered per day as daily deaths due to the pandemic have come down to below the 100-mark. Only two days ago the country extended the vaccination drive to children in the age group of 12-14 years.
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 43,004,005 on Friday as 2,528 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
*India has been one of the worst-affected countries by the pandemic as the total tally crossed the 43 million-mark on Thursday, and 516,281 people lost lives to date. Conservative estimates put the figures much higher.
Forced to follow the social distancing norms including the COVID Appropriate Behaviour (CAB), people largely kept themselves away from each other for the past two consecutive Holi festivals.
However, this year, according to sources, there is a huge jump in sales of colors even as the Indians plan to celebrate the festival with an extra vigor and fanfare.
The festival of Holi gripped the Indians for the past several days. On March 10 as the assembly election results were announced, leaders and party workers of the main ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) were seen applying colors on each other's face while celebrating their electoral victory, especially in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country.
Holi is one of the major festivals in India since time immemorial. People throw dry colors as we well as colors mixed in water. People also enjoy throwing balloons filled with colored-water on each other.
Laos
Laos registered 1,508 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, exceeding the 1,000 mark for the first time since Jan. 19, bringing the national tally to 150,639.
Latsamy Vongkhamsao, deputy director general of the Department of Communicable Disease Control under the Lao Ministry of Health, told a press conference in the Lao capital Vientiane on Friday that Laos has logged a total of 1,508 new cases over the past 24 hours including 1,481 local transmissions.
Among the newly recorded community cases, 895 were detected in the Lao capital Vientiane, she said.
Mongolia
Mongolia recorded 77 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, the lowest since March 7, 2021, when 67 daily cases were reported, the country's health ministry said on Friday.
With the new infections, the national tally increased to 468,495, the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the country's COVID-19 death toll stands at 2,105, with no new deaths reported by Friday for eight days in a row. Currently, there are 2,928 active COVID-19 cases.
New Zealand
New Zealand reported 14,128 new community cases of COVID-19 on Friday, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The ministry also reported five deaths with COVID-19. The total number of publicly reported COVID-19-related deaths is 156 in the country, it said.
Philippines
Over 100,000 foreign tourists have arrived in the Philippines since the Southeast Asian country reopened its borders last month, the government said on Friday.
The country famous for pristine white beaches allowed fully-vaccinated foreign nationals from visa-free countries and regions to enter in February. This month it eased further the COVID-19 restrictions, allowing entry to all fully-vaccinated foreign nationals.
"Inbound visitor arrivals reached 102,031 as of March 16, a high note for the country since its closure of borders at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020," Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said.
Samoa
Samoa will start a full lockdown on Saturday after a COVID-19 community case was confirmed in the South Pacific island nation, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
The positive community case was detected by a test required for travel, said Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, according to the Samoa Observer.
Fiame said Samoa will move to Alert Level 2 at 12:00 am local time on Friday (1100 GMT Thursday) and will then shift to Level 3 from 12:00 am local time on Saturday (1100 GMT Friday), which entails a nationwide lockdown for seven days.
All schools, nightclubs and church services will close effective from Friday while the Ministry of Health embarks contract tracing and the cabinet will advise the public at the end of the seven-day lockdown on the next course of action, she added.
A notice warning people not to gather in groups larger than five persons as part of restrictions to hald the spread of the coronavirus is displayed at Raffles Place financial business district in Singapore on Jan 4, 2022. (ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)
Singapore
Singapore reported 10,713 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, bringing the total tally to 986,320.
Of the new cases, 1,198 were detected through PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests and 9,515 through ART (antigen rapid test) tests, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health.
Commuters wearing face masks wait for their trains at a subway station in Seoul, South Korea on Feb 23, 2022. (AHN YOUNG-JOON / AP)
South Korea
South Korea decided Friday to further ease social-distancing rules against the COVID-19 for two weeks as the tightened quarantine measures roiled the businesses of small merchants.
The country's Ministry of Health and Welfare said the moderated social-distancing guideline will be kept in place from March 21 to April 3, forecasting that the pandemic in the country could peak this week or as late as next week.
The ministry said the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant reduced the efficiency of the social-distancing scheme, noting that the partial adjustment of the anti-virus measures was aimed at helping the businesses of small merchants and mitigating the inconveniences of people.
Under the new guideline, the maximum number of people allowed for private gatherings will be raised from six to eight nationwide, but the business hour curfew will be left unchanged.
In the latest tally, the country reported 407,017 new COVID-19 cases for the past 24 hours, lifting the total number of infections to 8,657,609. It marked the second-highest daily caseload.
A man passes walks past a billboard on the coronavirus in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec 4, 2021. (NHAC NGUYEN / AFP)
Vietnam
Vietnam has switched its target in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic from controlling infections to controlling serious cases and deaths only, while heading to remove the disease from its "especially dangerous" list.
The approach has been specified in a government resolution issued Thursday about COVID-19 prevention and control work in 2022 and 2023.
Vietnam's overarching goal in the period is to ensure effective disease control, protect the life and health of the people, minimize the number of serious illnesses and deaths caused by disease, and enable economic recovery and development, the document said.
Thanks to high vaccination coverage, the death number in Vietnam has been decreasing in recent months. In the past week, though new infections rose 16 percent to over 171,400 cases per day on average, fatalities declined by 14 percent to 75 cases, according to data from its health ministry. As of Thursday, over 201 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered to a population of about 98 million.
Based on the real situation, the country will consider delisting COVID-19 as a Class A infectious disease, the list of diseases that are classified as "especially dangerous," and to view it as just a "dangerous" infectious disease.