Passengers wait in line before moving onto their temporary housing for quarantine as they come out of an arrival gate for international flights at the Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo, on Dec 2, 2021. (HIRO KOMAE / FILE / AP)
WELLINGTON / HANOI / BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN / SINGAPORE / AMMAN / SEOUL / NEW DELHI / TOKYO – Japan's COVID-19 border controls were eased on Tuesday with the limit on new entrants to the country being raised to 5,000 per day from an initial 3,500.
In addition, those entering the country, both Japanese and foreign, will be subjected to far less stringent quarantine measures and in some cases, quarantine protocols will be exempted.
The daily cap of 5,000 new entrants will include foreign nationals who are not tourists being allowed to gain access to the country.
According to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, however, more than 400,000 people eligible for visas to enter Japan have been prevented from entering the country as of Jan 4.
Japan's stringent border controls, a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly aimed at preventing the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the virus entering the country from overseas, have been strongly criticized by business and academic bodies both here and overseas, as students and business people have long been left in limbo.
Those coming to Japan will now be asked to quarantine here for three days and be required to test negative for COVID-19 on their final day of quarantine.
Inbound travelers who have been triple-vaccinated and have departed from countries where the virus situation is under control will be exempt from having to quarantine.
The logo of Valneva SE Group is pictured at the company's headquarters in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes, western France, on July 30, 2020. (JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP)
Bahrain
Bahrain has granted emergency use authorization to the COVID-19 vaccine developed by France's Valneva, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Valneva expects to deliver the first shipments of its VLA2001 vaccine to the kingdom at the end of March, after it signed an advance purchase deal for one million doses in December last year.
"As the only dual-adjuvanted, inactivated COVID-19 vaccine approved in Bahrain, VLA2001 will provide a differentiated vaccine option to the Bahraini population and medical community," said CEO Thomas Lingelbach.
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 4,095 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, another record daily high, bringing the national tally to 63,542.
As a country of 420,000 people, Brunei saw its daily cases exceeding the 4,000 mark for the first time on Monday, after recording more than 3,000 cases for six straight days since last Tuesday.
This is also the first time the total confirmed cases have stood above the 60,000 mark.
India
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 42,931,045 on Tuesday with 6,915 new cases registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the health ministry's latest data.
Besides, 180 more deaths due to the pandemic since Monday morning took the total death toll to 514,023.
Jordan
The Jordanian government announced Monday that relaxed COVID-19 related restrictions will start on Tuesday, the state-run Petra news agency reported.
The gradual removal of COVID-19 restrictions aims to restore "pre-COVID-19" normalcy and drive economic growth, Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs Faisal Shboul said Monday.
He noted that the country's vaccination campaigns succeeded in immunizing a high percentage of Jordanians of the age group 18 years and above, stressing the need to expand the vaccination drive to the age group of 5 to 17 years old.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Mohammad Al-Ississ announced Monday that he was tested positive for COVID-19.
The minister said that he was in "a stable health condition", and that he was self-isolating under the health protocols for people infected with the virus, the state-run Petra news agency reported.
On Monday, Jordan reported 8,234 new infections of the virus, increasing the caseload since the start of the pandemic to 1,631,708, the Jordanian Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The ministry also announced 21 deaths from the coronavirus, increasing the kingdom's COVID-19 death toll to 13,835.
Passengers and loved ones reunite at the arrivals hall on the first day of New Zealanders returning from Australia after the border reopened for travelers observing home self-isolation rules, at the Auckland international airport on Feb 28, 2022. (DAVID ROWLAND / AFP)
New Zealand
New Zealand officially opened its borders on Monday, lifting the COVID-19 border restrictions after two years.
Monday's border reopening was the first stage of New Zealand's five-step reconnecting plan, which allowed fully vaccinated Kiwis and other current eligible travellers from Australia to enter the country without the need for managed isolation.
According to Auckland International Airport, four Air New Zealand flights and one Qantas flight arrived from Australia's Melbourne, Sydney and Perth on Monday, with more than 900 passengers arriving.
More than 300 flights will be available between New Zealand and major Australian cities in March alone, said an Auckland airport spokesperson.
The airport's arrival terminal was full of tears and hugs. Families who have not seen each other for over two years reunited on Monday.
Under New Zealand's requirements, all passengers are required to have a negative pre-departure test, and undertake two rapid antigen tests on arrival and at day 5/6.
Meanwhile, the government is removing the self-isolation requirements for vaccinated travelers to New Zealand and Kiwis returning from the rest of the world from Thursday.
Travelers will still be required to be tested. If anyone returns a positive result, they will be required to report it and isolate for the same period of 10 days as a community case, said COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
In another development, New Zealanders will soon be able to access a third type of Novavax vaccine following the government's confirmation on Monday.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday that Novavax will soon be available to New Zealanders aged 18 and over.
"Novavax is a protein-based COVID-19 vaccine and while the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine remains the preferred vaccine of most New Zealanders. For some people, the arrival of Novavax will be the extra incentive required to get vaccinated against COVID-19," Hipkins said in a statement.
Philippines
Philippine health authorities on Tuesday urged people to remain vigilant amid the easing of the COVID-19 restrictions to accelerate the economic recovery from the two-year pandemic.
The government downgraded the pandemic restrictions in Metro Manila and 38 other areas to alert level 1 from March 1 to 15 as COVID-19 transmission slowed and the hospitalization rate declined. The rest of the country is under alert level 2.
Lowering the alert level means that more people can go back to work, take public transport, and more businesses can operate at full capacity.
"As the country shifts to alert level 1, we continue to urge the public to remain vigilant, so we can slowly but surely transition into the new normal," Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told an online press conference.
Carlito Galvez, the chief implementer of the government's measures to combat COVID-19, said the decision to lower the rules to the minimum comes one year after the government launched the vaccination rollout on March 1 last year.
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 13,544 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total tally to 724,424.
Of the new cases, 1,973 cases were detected through PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests and 11,571 through ARTs (antigen rapid tests), according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health.
South Korea
South Korea recorded 138,993 more COVID-19 cases as of midnight Monday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 3,273,449, the health authorities said Tuesday.
The daily caseload was slightly down from 139,626 in the previous day, staying below 140,000 for two straight days, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Vietnam
Vietnam logged a new daily record of 94,385 COVID-19 infections on Monday, taking the total to over 3.4 million cases, according to its Ministry of Health.
The new infections, up 7,395 cases from Sunday, logged in 61 localities nationwide, included 94,376 domestically transmitted and nine imported.
Vietnamese capital Hanoi remained the epidemic hotspot with 12,850 cases on Monday, also its highest ever daily number, followed by northern Quang Ninh province with 9,105 cases, and central Nghe An province with 3,958 cases.