Protesters gather in wet conditions as they voice their opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Feb 12, 2022. (GEORGE HEARD / NZME VIA AP)
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN / BISHKEK / CANBERRA / YANGON / SEOUL – Days-long rallies against COVID-19 vaccination mandates picked up in numbers in New Zealand and Australia on Saturday, with protesters blocking roads and disrupting life in the countries' capitals.
About 10,000 protesters gathered at Canberra's major showgrounds, forcing the cancellation of a popular charity book fair, bringing traffic to a standstill and blocking roads in the Australian capital.
Police said three people were arrested, but overall the crowd was "well behaved".
In New Zealand's Wellington, hundreds of demonstrators gathered near the distinctive "Beehive" parliament for a fifth day despite drenching rain
In New Zealand's Wellington, hundreds of demonstrators gathered near the distinctive "Beehive" parliament for a fifth day despite drenching rain.
Inspired by truckers' demonstrations in Canada, the protesters have occupied and blocked several streets around parliament with their trucks, vans and motorcycles.
Protests remain relatively small in highly vaccinated New Zealand and Australia, where overwhelming majority of the population supports inoculations. However, the movement has persevered, with rallies occasionally turning violent.
Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison said demonstrators had a right to protest, asking them to do it in a peaceful and respectful way.
New Zealand media footage showed one person being stretchered from the rally, carried by paramedics and police. No arrest had been made as of late Saturday, according to the police, who arrested more than 100 people on Thursday.
New Zealand logged a daily record of 454 community COVID-19 cases on Saturday.
In Australia, which is opening its borders to tourists later this month, 94 percent of those aged 16 and over are double-vaccinated, but the country is still battling a wave of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
There were at least 65 coronavirus-deaths reported across Australia on Saturday.
The cruise ship Ruby Princess departs from Port Kembla, some 80 kilometers south of Sydney, on April 23, 2020. (SAEED KHAN / AFP)
Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt has flagged a resumption of the cruise ship industry within months.
The federal government on Friday extended the human biosecurity period, under which international cruise ships capable of carrying more than 100 passengers have been banned from Australian waters since March 2020, until April 17.
However, Hunt said the restrictions on cruise ships could be lifted earlier if state and territory governments "ensure they are ready" with suitable safety protocols.
The cruise ban was introduced after 2,700 passengers on board the Ruby Princess were allowed to disembark in Sydney on March 19, 2020, without being tested for coronavirus.
The ship was responsible for Australia's biggest COVID-19 outbreak in the early months of the pandemic, accounting for more than 900 infections and 28 deaths.
Friday's announcement from Hunt was welcomed by the Cruise Lines International Association after the 5.2-billion-Australian dollar (3.7-billion-US dollar) industry expressed anger at being left out of the government's decision to open the international border to tourists on Feb 21.
"We need governments to sign off on industry protocols as soon as possible so we can begin a careful and responsible revival of cruise tourism in Australia," CLIA Managing Director Joel Katz said.
Australia on Saturday morning reported more than 20,000 new coronavirus infections and 64 deaths – 32 in New South Wales, 19 in Victoria and 13 in Queensland.
Brunei
Brunei reported 981 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the national tally to 20,454.
This also marks the second consecutive day with a record daily rise of new cases after 628 cases were reported on Thursday in the Southeast Asian country.
According to Brunei's Ministry of Health, the newly recorded cases included 972 local infections and two import cases.
The ministry said earlier that the country is going through the third wave of COVID-19 and the number of cases is expected to increase beyond the total reported during the second wave, with the Omicron variant replacing the Delta variant as the dominant variant.
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan on Friday canceled quarantine for person who have been in contact with COVID-19 patients and removed mandatory PCR tests for people upon entering the country.
At a meeting of the Republican Headquarters for Combating COVID-19, the country's health ministry presented the information about the current epidemiological situation and the vaccination rate.
After the discussions, the health ministry was instructed to adopt the new measures starting Feb 11.
Arrivals can present either a certificate of a PCR test or a certificate of vaccination, said the headquarters.
Kyrgyzstan has so far registered 199,890 COVID-19 cases, with 192,232 recoveries and 2,920 deaths.
A total of 3,742 active cases are still being treated and monitored in Brunei and 102 patients have passed away so far in the country.
Myanmar
Myanmar registered 1,607 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, with over 1,000 infections for four straight days in February, according to a release from the Ministry of Health.
A daily positivity rate of 6.5 percent was recorded after 24,707 lab samples have been tested in the past 24 hours.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in the Southeast Asian country has risen to 543,511, including 515,816 recoveries, it said.
No new deaths from the coronavirus disease were reported on Friday, leaving the death toll unchanged at 19,310.
According to official data, more than 6.64 million samples have been tested for COVID-19 in the country so far.
South Korea
South Korea's daily number of COVID-19 cases hit a record high amid the spread of the Omicron variant, the health authorities said on Saturday.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the country reported 54,941 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 1,294,205.
The daily caseload was up from 53,926 in the previous day, hovering above 50,000 for the third consecutive day.
Among the new cases, 113 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 27,090.
The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 275, up four from the previous day.
READ MORE: S. Korea's daily COVID-19 cases hit record high of nearly 50,000
Thirty-three more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 7,045. The total fatality rate was 0.54 percent.
The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,725,434 people, or 87.2 percent of the total population, and the number of the fully inoculated people was 44,207,093, or 86.1 percent of the population.