People wearing face masks due to COVID-19 travel on a Setagaya Line tram decorated with "maneki-neko" or beckoning cat statue images in Tokyo on Jan 30, 2022. (PHILIP FONG / AFP)
MANILA / NEW DELHI / SEOUL / TOKYO / YANGON – Japan's government is considering resuming a national travel discount campaign as soon as late this month to help the tourism industry recover from a COVID-19 slump, the Nikkei newspaper said on Saturday.
A revived "Go To Travel" campaign would likely serve as a core measure to stimulate consumer demand, the business daily reported, without citing sources. Japan is set to ease border controls to let foreign tourists in from July 10 as coronavirus infections ease.
The government will decide on the campaign soon, the Nikkei said, without specifying time.
Officials at the Japan Tourism Agency could not immediately be reached for comment outside business hours.
The campaign, rolled out in July 2020 just as COVID was gaining strength, subsidized half of the travel expense, up to 20,000 yen ($150) a night, for each traveler.
The program helped boost tourism but was shelved five months later as the pandemic surged.
The DPRK
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea reported some 79,100 more people with fever symptoms and one additional death amid its first-confirmed coronavirus outbreak, state media KCNA said on Saturday.
The total number of fever patients compiled across the country since late April neared 4 million, and the death toll rose by one to 71, KCNA said, using data from the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters.
KCNA has said the epidemic has shown signs subsiding, after daily tallies of fever cases topped 390,000 two weeks ago.
A security guard sanitizes the hands of students as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus at the entrance of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad on May 8, 2022. (SAM PANTHAKY / AFP)
India
India's federal health ministry on Friday asked five states to monitor the COVID-19 situation and continue testing amid concerns over the resurgence of cases in the country.
The states included Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
"There is a need to follow a risk assessment-based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic," federal health secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote in a letter to these states. "It is essential that the state must maintain a strict watch and take pre-emptive actions if required to control any emerging spread of infection."
Additionally, the health ministry also asked them to monitor all influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) cases, so that the infection spread can be tracked effectively.
According to the data being provided by the states to the federal government, 11 districts in Kerala, two districts in Chennai, six districts in Maharashtra, Bengaluru Urban in Karnataka and Telangana are once again witnessing surging COVID-19 cases and positivity rates.
Myanmar
Myanmar kicked off its vaccination drive for the children aged five to 12 years old at schools across the country on Thursday, state-run television channel MRTV reported.
In the capital city of Nay Pyi Taw, 109,682 school children aged 5 and 12 from 842 schools would be vaccinated against COVID-19, the television channel announced.
Myanmar confirmed 15 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the tally in the country to 613,370 on Friday.
The country's health ministry said it had tested 5,634 people for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, and the daily positivity rate was 0.27 percent.
The death toll from COVID-19 in the country remained unchanged at 19,434 as no new deaths were confirmed in the past 24 hours, it said.
The total number of patients who recovered from COVID-19 in the country has reached 592,322 on Friday after 10 more patients newly recovered in the past 24 hours.
READ MORE: COVID-19: Myanmar to resume issuing tourist e-visas on May 15
The Philippines
The Philippines has detected COVID-19 Omicron sub-variant BA.5 from two people in the same household in a province north of the capital, an official from the Philippine Department of Health said on Friday.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the BA.5 was detected on May 15 from the samples of two fully vaccinated individuals and boosted with COVID-19 vaccines living in the central Luzon region.
"Both have unknown exposure as they did not have a travel history," she told an online media briefing.
Vergeire said they were considered "mild cases" after manifesting cold and cough. Both have since recovered. She added that one of close contacts, also a household member, is in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19.
The Philippines has also detected the Omicron sub-variants BA.2.12.1 and BA.4.
Vergeire said the Southeast Asian country's hospitalization rate remains "at low risk despite a slight increase in case counts."