In this photo provided by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea government, a worker in protective gear stands on an empty sidewalk in Pyongyang, the DPRK on May 17, 2022. (KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY / KOREA NEWS SERVICE VIA AP)
SEOUL / NEW DELHI / TOKYO / WELLINGTON / KUALA LUMPUR – The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Kim Jong-un declared victory in the battle against COVID-19 on Thursday.
Kim ordered a lifting of maximum anti-epidemic measures imposed in May, adding that the DPRK must maintain a "steel-strong anti-epidemic barrier and intensifying the anti-epidemic work until the end of the global health crisis," according to a report by state news agency KCNA.
A health worker administers Covishield vaccine for COVID-19 at a vaccination center in Hyderabad, India on July 15, 2022. (MAHESH KUMAR A. / AP)
India
India said on Wednesday that Biological E's COVID-19 vaccine Corbevax can be administered as a booster dose in people who have taken the country's other two main shots, Covaxin and AstraZeneca's Covishield, from Friday.
Corbevax will be available to over 18s as precautionary booster six months after a second dose, the health ministry said in an Aug 8 letter to state authorities and shared with reporters on Wednesday.
Covishield is produced for the Indian market by the Serum Institute of India under licence from AstraZeneca, while Bharat Biotech makes Covaxin.
India has so far administered more than 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine shots, including 113 million boosters, all of which have so far been of the same vaccine as the recipient's first two doses. The government says about 89 percent of Indians above the age of 12 have had two doses.
The country of nearly 1.4 billion people has documented more than 44 million coronavirus infections and 526,826 related deaths. The actual numbers are believed to be many times higher.
People wearing protective masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walk near a landmark lion statue of a department store that also wears a mask in the Ginza shipping area of Tokyo on July 28, 2022. (SHUJI KAJIYAMA / AP)
Japan
Japan logged 250,403 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, a daily record high, amid concerns over a strain on the medical system due to a new wave of the pandemic.
Fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron BA.5 subvariant, the daily tally surpassed the previous record of 249,830 on Aug 3. A total of 251 new fatalities linked to COVID-19 were confirmed nationwide.
The health ministry said that the number of infected people hospitalized with severe symptoms went up by 16 from Tuesday to 597, much less than last summer's peak when serious cases exceeded 2,000 for weeks.
Twenty of Japan's 47 prefectures saw record daily counts of new infections. The Tokyo metropolitan government on Wednesday reported 34,243 new coronavirus cases, while Osaka and Aichi prefectures logged 23,730 and 18,862 cases respectively.
Malaysia
Malaysia reported 4,896 new COVID-19 infections as of midnight Wednesday, bringing the national total to 4,719,394, according to the Health Ministry.
There are two new imported cases, with 4,894 cases being local transmissions, data released on the ministry's website showed.
Another 12 deaths have been reported, pushing the death toll to 36,056.
New Zealand
New Zealand recorded 4,818 new community cases of COVID-19 and 24 more deaths from the pandemic, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday.
New Zealand has reported 1,662,645 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,726 confirmed deaths attributable to the disease since the pandemic hit the country in early 2020, the health ministry said.