Workers clear snow at Gyeongbokgung palace in central Seoul on Jan 28, 2021. (ED JONES / AFP)
SYDNEY / NEW DELHI / TEHRAN / BAGHDAD / JERUSALEM / TOKYO / BEIRUT / ULAN BATOR / YANGON / WELLINGTON / RAMALLAH / SINGAPORE / SEOUL / MANILA / ANKARA / HANOI – South Korea will extend its social distancing curbs by two weeks until the end of the Lunar New Year holidays as new infection clusters emerge in the country, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Sunday.
The announcement dashed earlier expectations that the government would ease the rules from the current highest levels, which include a restaurant curfew and a ban on gatherings of more than four people and have been in place since early December.
But health authorities decided to maintain the curbs after a new large outbreak emerged from missionary training schools across the country last week, reversing a recent downtrend in daily infections ahead of the Lunar New Year break, which begins on Feb 11.
In line with the decision, indoor cafe and restaurant dining after 9 p.m. and any gatherings of more than four people – two key measures that have proved effective – will continue to be prohibited.
In this Oct 16, 2020 photo, a passenger wearing a face mask arrives from New Zealand at Sydney International Airport. (DAVID GRAY / AFP)
Australia
The Australian city of Perth was ordered into lockdown on Sunday after a security guard working in hotel quarantine tested positive for COVID-19, ending the country’s longest coronavirus-free run.
From Sunday evening until Friday, people in the city of 2 million must stay home, except for essential work, healthcare, grocery shopping or exercise, with visits to hospitals and nursing homes banned, said Western Australia state Premier Mark McGowan.
Australia’s fourth-most populous city had recorded no cases of the virus for 10 months, and Australia just hours earlier had announced 14 days without a locally acquired infection.
Australia reopened its “travel bubble” with New Zealand on Sunday after the neighbouring country reported no new locally acquired COVID-19 cases, but added new screening measures as it marked its longest infection-free run since the outbreak began.
The decision marks the resumption of the only international arrivals into Australia who do not require 14 days in hotel quarantine.
Australia had paused quarantine exemptions for trans-Tasman arrivals six days earlier after New Zealand reported its first new case in months.
Arrivals from New Zealand “are now judged to be sufficiently low risk, given New Zealand’s strong public health response to COVID-19”, acting Australian Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd told reporters.
However, Australia would require screening of travellers from New Zealand before and after flights for the next 10 days, Kidd added, “given there is still a small risk of further associated cases being detected and with an abundance of caution”.
The resumption came as Australia marked two weeks without a locally acquired case of the virus, which has infected 29,000 in the country and killed 909.
India
India added 13,052 new infections to take its total tally to 10,746,183 confirmed cases, according to the latest data from the federal health ministry. COVID-19 related deaths rose to 154,274, the ministry said Sunday.
In this Dec 30, 2020 photo, an Iranian woman wearing a protective mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic, sits in a bus in the capital Tehran. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Iran
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday reiterated the necessity for people to abide by health protocols, or the country would face another wave of COVID-19 within the next two months, official news agency IRNA reported.
He said that Iran has taken the primary steps to develop and produce the COVID-19 vaccine and the country's experts are confident that the project will be finalized in March so that Iran will begin mass vaccination with the domestically-produced vaccine.
Iranian health authorities raised the country's overall count of COVID-19 infections to 1,411,731 on Saturday, after 6,317 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours, IRNA reported.
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Iraq
The Iraqi Health Ministry reported on Saturday 775 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total nationwide number of cases to 618,922.
The ministry also reported five new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 13,041.
Israel
The number of people vaccinated against the COVID-19 in Israel has exceeded 3 million, the state's Ministry of Health said on Sunday.
Israel has thus vaccinated over 32.2 percent of its population of about 9.3 million since the vaccination campaign began on Dec 20, 2020.
The figures also show that about 90 percent of people aged 70 and over in Israel have already been vaccinated.
The ministry also reported that the total number of COVID-19 cases in Israel reached 640,644, of which 72,026 are active cases.
Commuters wearing face masks use an escalator in a train station in Tokyo on Jan 27, 2021. (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Japan
Japan is set to extend the state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic and began arrangements of the extension for up to another month on Saturday as Tokyo and other areas continue to log a high number of infections, local media reported.
The final decision on whether to extend the current state of emergency in 11 of the country's 47 prefectures beyond Feb. 7 will be made next week.
However, local media quoted a source close to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as saying that eight of the 11 prefectures are subject to an extension, covering Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka.
Suga said Saturday that he needs to "observe the situation a little more" before making a decision, local media quoted government officials.
Lebanon
Lebanon registered on Saturday 2,631 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number to 298,913, the Health Ministry said.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the virus increased by 61 to 3,031, the ministry added.
Earlier in the day, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan said his ministry is preparing a strategy to gradually open the sectors after three weeks of total lockdown imposed in Lebanon.
Mongolia
Mongolia added 37 more COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours after 11,202 tests were conducted nationwide, bringing its caseload to 1,779, the National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Sunday.
The new cases were locally transmitted or reported in the country's capital Ulan Bator, Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the NCCD's surveillance department, told a press conference.
Myanmar
Myanmar's Ministry of Transport and Communications has further extended the suspension of international commercial flights until the end of February.
The ministry on Saturday announced the extension of the restriction over COVID-19 due to end on Sunday.
Under the management of the national-level Central Committee on Prevention, Control and Treatment of COVID-19, the anti-coronavirus measure will continue as COVID-19 cases remain increasing in most of the countries and regions around the world, and the new coronavirus variant found in Britain has spread to other countries including those in Asia, the announcement said.
Official data released on Saturday showed that Myanmar recorded 349 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 10 more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing its total tally to 139,864 with 3,125 deaths.
New Zealand
New Zealand reported one new case of COVID-19 in the managed isolation facility, said the Ministry of Health in a statement on Sunday.
There was no new case in the wider community in New Zealand, said the ministry.
The total number of active cases of COVID-19 remained at 71 and the total number of confirmed cases reached 1,948, according to the statement.
Palestine
Palestine reported on Saturday 11 cases of new COVID-19 strain, bringing the total number of patients tested positive for the new strain in Palestine to 28.
Kamal al-Shakhra, a spokesman of the Palestinian health ministry, said the new cases were recorded in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, as well as in al-Ram town in northern Jerusalem.
A worker wearing a protective face mask and shield wipes the railing of the Helix bridge in Singapore on Jan 28, 2021. (ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)
Singapore
Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported three new COVID-19 community cases on Saturday, after recording no community case for one week.
The total cases in the city-state stood at 59,507 on Saturday.
South Korea
South Korea reported 355 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Saturday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 78,205.
The daily caseload fell below 400 in five days due to a lower number of tests during the weekend.
The daily number of infections hovered above 100 since Nov 8 owing to small cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases.
Of the new cases, 98 were Seoul residents and 107 were people residing in Gyeonggi province.
Thirty cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 6,308.
Six more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 1,420. The total fatality rate stood at 1.82 percent.
Thailand
Thailand reported 829 new novel coronavirus cases, raising the total to 18,782, the government said in a statement Sunday. There was no new deaths, leaving the nation’s COVID-19 death toll at 77.
The Philippines
The Philippines’ health ministry on Sunday welcomed the offer of the country’s group of Catholic bishops to help in the coronavirus vaccination drive of the government, which is struggling to persuade many Filipinos to get the shots.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has offered to transform church facilities in the country into COVID-19 vaccination sites, and said its members were also willing to get vaccinated in public to help build confidence in the campaign.
“We are happy with the CBCP’s offer,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in a statement. “Churches really can be alternative sites to areas that lack facility, especially those in hard-to-reach municipalities.”
The health ministry has acknowledged they face an uphill struggle to persuade many people to take the vaccine shots, on top of the logistical difficulties in reaching 2,000 inhabited islands with precarious health systems.
Turkey
Turkey on Saturday confirmed 6,871 new COVID-19 cases, including 658 symptomatic patients, as the total number of positive cases in the country reached 2,470,901, according to its health ministry.
The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 129 to 25,865, while the total recoveries climbed to 2,355,409 after 7,100 more cases recovered in the last 24 hours.
The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients stands at 4.7 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 1,692 in the country, said the ministry.
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Vietnam
Vietnam recorded 14 new cases of COVID-19 infection on Sunday morning, all locally transmitted, according to its Ministry of Health.
The new cases brought the total confirmed cases in the country to 1,781 with 35 deaths as of 6 a.m. local time on Sunday.
The new infections included five in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, four in northern Vietnam's Hai Duong province, two each in northern Hoa Binh province and central highlands Gia Lai province, and one in northern Bac Ninh province, said the ministry.