Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, July 9, 2020. (MICK TSIKAS / AAP IMAGE VIA AP)

MELBOURNE / NEW DELHI / JAKARTA / BAGHDAD / JERUSALEM / BEIRUT / KUALA LUMPUR / ULAN BATOR / WELLINGTON / MUSCAT / RAMALLAH / MANILA / SINGAPORE / DUBAI - Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday delayed the opening of parliament for several weeks as the new coronavirus continued spreading through the country’s two most populous states.

Morrison asked the speaker of the parliament to cancel a two-week session due to start on Aug. 4, out of concern about the COVID-19 pandemic. The request was seen as a formality as the speaker is a member of Morrison’s Liberal Party and the opposition Labor Party accepted the call.

Lawmakers are to meet at the next planned session on Aug 24.

“The government cannot ignore the risk to parliamentarians, their staff, the staff within the parliament and the broader community,” Morrison said in a written statement, adding he acted based on the advice of medical authorities.

ALSO READ: India becomes third country to cross 1 million COVID-19 cases

Victoria state, on Saturday reported 217 new cases of the coronavirus cases, after a record 428 cases seen on Friday.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said two more people had died of COVID-19, bringing the state’s total deaths to 34 since the start of the pandemic.

Neighbouring New South Wales, the country’s most populous state, reported 15 new coronavirus cases on Saturday.

Andrews left open the possibility of further curbs, urging people not to leave their houses except for work, exercise or essential shopping.Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government will issue further income support to tackle deteriorating confidence across the country, in addition to an existing A$70 billion (US$49 billion) in wage subsidies.

In March, all parliamentary sittings were cancelled until August, but as the risks from the coronavirus decreased in the following months, special sessions and some sittings took place.

India

India's health ministry Saturday morning said 671 new deaths due to COVID-19, besides fresh 34,884 positive cases, were reported during the past 24 hours across the country, taking the number of deaths to 26,273 and total cases to 1,038,716.

"As on 8:00 am (local time) Saturday, 26,273 deaths related to novel coronavirus have been recorded in the country," reads information released by the ministry.

On Friday morning the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was 1,003,832, and the death toll 25,602.

According to ministry officials, so far 653,751 people have been discharged from hospitals after showing improvement.

"The number of active cases in the country right now is 358,692," said the information.

Presently the country has entered Unlock 2.0 phase, though restrictions remain in full force inside the COVID-19 Containment Zones. Commercial international flights to and from India are suspended until July 31.

Human trials of Corona vaccine - COVAXIN, developed by Bharat Biotech, started at a government-run hospital - PGI Rohtak, in northern state of Haryana on Friday.

"Three subjects were enrolled today. All have tolerated the vaccine very well. There were no adverse effects," the state's health minister Anil Vij has tweeted.

Indonesia

Indonesia reported 1,752 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, bringing total cases to 84,882, its Health Ministry said.

The number of fatalities from COVID-19 rose by 59 on Saturday to 4,016, ministry official Achmad Yurianto said.

Iran

Some 25 million Iranians are estimated to have contracted the coronavirus so far and up to 35 million more are at the risk of getting the infection, President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Saturday, citing a Health Ministry report.

Iran has recorded nearly 13,800 deaths and 270,000 confirmed cases since it detected its first case five months ago.

A health worker administers a coronavirus test at a drive-thru testing facility in the central Iraqi city of Najaf, on July 15, 2020. (STR / AFP)

Iraq

The Iraqi Health Ministry on Friday recorded 2,023 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 88,171.

The new cases included 521 in the capital Baghdad, 202 in Basra, 200 in Babil, 154 in Wasit, 141 in each of Karbala and Salahudin, and 121 in Sulaimaniyah, while the other cases were detected in the other provinces, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry reported 94 more deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 3,616.

It also said that 2,179 people recovered during the day, bringing the total recoveries from the disease to 56,495.

The new cases were recorded after 17,211 testing kits were used across the country during the day, and a total of 762,058 tests have been carried out since the outbreak of the disease, according to the statement.

Israel

Israel's Ministry of Health reported 1,400 new coronavirus cases on Friday, raising the total number in the country to 47,459.

The death toll rose from 384 to 392, while the number of patients in serious condition increased from 202 to 208, out of the 577 hospitalized patients, according to the ministry.

The number of recoveries rose to 20,744 after 374 more have recovered from the deadly disease, while the number of active cases reached 26,323, the highest since the outbreak in the country in late February.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli government imposed a new weekend closure in an effort to curb a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closure will be imposed only during Israeli weekends, from Friday at 5 pm until Sunday at 5 a.m., according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office.

It will be allowed to go out but gatherings of more than 10 people are prohibited.

Japan

Tokyo saw a third straight day of more than 200 new cases. Infections totaled 290 on Saturday, public broadcaster NHK said, citing sources at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. That’s close to the record 293 cases reported a day earlier.

Officials in Japan have so far resisted reimposing additional restrictions. There’s no need to declare a state of emergency right now and the Tokyo medical system isn’t under pressure, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Friday.

Lebanon

Lebanon's number of COVID-19 infections increased on Friday by 101 cases to 2,700 while the death toll remained at 40, the National News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, a tweet by Firas Abiad, director general of Rafic Hariri University Hospital revealed the surge in new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, critical cases and deaths.

Abiad also noted an increase in the number of infected healthcare workers.

The authorities have announced new measures but the effect remains invisible, he said.

Malaysia

Malaysia reported nine new COVID-19 infections, bringing the national total to 8,764, according to the country's Health Ministry on Saturday.

Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement that four of the new cases are imported and the rest are local transmissions.

Health authorities have also identified one new case cluster involving two cases from among traders at a market in the northern Borneo state of Sarawak.

Another five cases have been released, bringing the total cured and discharged to 8,546 or 97.5 percent of all cases.

Of the remaining 96 active cases, one is being held in intensive care and none of those are in need of assisted breathing.

No new deaths had been reported, leaving the total deaths at 122.

Mongolia

Mongolia reported 25 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking its total tally to 287, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Saturday.

"A total of 555 tests for COVID-19 were conducted across the country yesterday and 25 of them were positive," the NCCD's head Dulmaa Nyamkhuu told a daily press conference.

The newly confirmed cases are servicemen of the Mongolian Armed Forces who have recently returned home from Afghanistan on a chartered flight, Nyamkhuu said.

All the confirmed cases were imported, mostly from Russia, according to the center.

Among the confirmed cases, 211 patients have recovered.

No local transmissions or deaths have been reported in the country so far.

New Zealand

A new case of COVID-19 was reported in managed isolation in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health said  on Saturday.

According the ministry, Saturday's case is a man in his 50s who arrived in New Zealand on July 12 from Central Africa via Tanzania, Doha and Brisbane. The man is now in the quarantine facility in Auckland.

The number of active cases in New Zealand is 22. The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand is now 1,200, which is the number New Zealand reports to the World Health Organization, said the ministry.

There is no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.

It has been 78 days since the last case of COVID-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source, said the ministry.

New Zealand laboratories completed 2,403 tests on Friday and the total number of tests completed in New Zealand to date is 441,123.

Oman

Oman reported on Friday 1,619 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 64,139.

According to a statement issued by the ministry of health, 1,360 patients have recovered, bringing the total recoveries to 41,450.

In addition, eight new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 298 including 163 Omanis.

"There is a study to establish the first field hospital with a capacity of 200 to 300 patients, which will be intended to accommodate COVID-19 patients who do not need intensive care," Director General of the Royal Hospital Qasem Al-Salmi told Xinhua.

Palestine

Palestine recorded on Friday 439 new COVID-19 cases in the West Bank, raising the total number of cases in its territories to 9,056, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The new cases were found in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 319 in the southern West Bank district of Hebron, the ministry said in a press statement.

"Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Palestine on March 5, the health ministry recorded 9,056 infections in total, including 55 deaths, 1,666 recoveries, and 7,335 still receiving medical care," said the statement.

A spokesman of the Palestinian Interior Ministry said a complete lockdown came into force in all West Bank districts from Thursday night and will run until Sunday morning to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.

Philippines

The Philippines’ health ministry on Saturday reported 113 more new coronavirus deaths and 2,357 additional infections.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total deaths have increased to 1,773 while confirmed cases have reached 65,304, with the capital and Cebu City in central Philippines accounting for the bulk of the infections as the virus spreads.

The Philippines on Sunday confirmed 162 novel coronavirus deaths, Southeast Asia’s biggest daily rise in COVID-19 deaths.

People fish on a jetty at the Eastern Anchorage area in Singapore on July 17, 2020. (ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)

Singapore

Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 327 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 47,453.

Of the new cases, three are imported cases, nine are community cases and the rest are linked with the dormitories of foreign workers.

According to the ministry, 99 percent of the new infections are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

On Friday, 321 more cases have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 43,577 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, the ministry said.

There are currently 165 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Furthermore, 3,684 are isolated and cared for at community facilities. These are those who have mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19.

Altogether 27 people have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

READ MORE: Thailand plans Nov human testing for COVID-19 vaccine

Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum (center) attends the first "real life" conference in the Gulf city on July 16, 2020, since the coronavirus protective restrictions were put in place in March. (KARIM SAHIB / AFP)

UAE 

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Friday announced 293 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number in the country to 56,422.

The Ministry of Health and Prevention said in a statement that the new cases of many nationalities are all in a stable condition and receiving medical treatment.

Meanwhile, 1,036 more patients recovered from the virus, taking the tally of recoveries in the UAE to 48,448, according to the ministry.

It also confirmed two more deaths, pushing up the country's death toll to 337.