People return to Melbourne's central business district on Nov 9, 2020 as Australia's Victoria state government announces an easing of restrictions. (WILLIAM WEST / AFP)

TOKYO / JERUSALEM / SEOUL / ANKARA / BAGHDAD / KUALA LUMPUR / BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN / DHAKA / HANOI / TEHRAN / YANGON / CANBERRA - Australians will be able to travel freely between all states and territories except Western Australia (WA) by the end of 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.

Morrison on Friday announced that the National Cabinet has reached an agreement to re-open the country's domestic borders by Christmas on December 25 after restrictions were introduced to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

As of Friday afternoon there had been 27,703 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia and the number of new cases in last 24 hours is seven, according to the latest figures from Department of Health.

Victoria, which accounts for more than 70 percent of Australia's total cases and 90 percent of deaths, on Friday marked 14 consecutive days with zero new cases of COVID-19.

Morrison said on Friday that the National Cabinet had also endorsed the COVID-19 Vaccination Policy to roll out an eventual vaccine.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo takes part in a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (not pictured) in the cabinet room at Parliament House in Canberra on Feb 10, 2020. (TRACEY NEARMY / POOL / AFP)

Indonesia

Indonesia has sought emergency authorisation to start a mass vaccination campaign by the end of the year to combat the coronavirus in the archipelago, the Southeast Asian nation’s president said on Friday.

In an interview with Reuters, President Joko Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, said plans were already advanced to distribute the vaccine across the entire country.

If approval is granted by the country’s food and drug agency, known by its Indonesian acronym BPOM, it will mean Indonesia - with 270 million people, the world’s fourth most populous country - will be among the first in the world to roll out a coronavirus vaccine.

“We expect to start the vaccination process by the end of this year following a series of tests by BPOM,” Jokowi said.

Indonesia has struggled to suppress the coronavirus for months but the steady rise in infection rates has plateaued in the past few weeks, according to official figures.

The country has Southeast Asia’s largest coronavirus caseload with about 15,000 deaths and 450,000 infections although health experts warn those numbers are likely to be higher due to low testing rates.

On Friday afternoon, after Reuters’ interview with Jokowi, Indonesia posted a record daily number of infections at 5,444, well above the daily average of fewer than 3,500 cases over the past two weeks.

India

Delhi’s COVID-19 deaths rose by a record high on Thursday and it also reported the most number of infections in India, an increase attributed to the city’s toxic air and a lack of physical distancing in public places around a major festival.

While daily case additions have come down significantly in the country as a whole since a mid-September peak, the capital city of 20 million people is going through its worst phase in the pandemic.

Delhi late on Thursday reported 104 new deaths and 7,053 new infections. Data from the federal health ministry early on Friday showed that infections in the country rose by 44,789 in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 8.73 million, only behind the U.S. tally.

India’s deaths increased by 547 to 128,668.

At a river-side crematorium in east Delhi located near a hospital, relatives of people who had succumbed to the disease waited as bodies burned on funeral pyres placed side by side.

The federal government has asked Delhi to prepare resources to handle cases of up to 15,000 a day during the winter season, when pollution peaks in the city and respiratory issues jump.

India's COVID-19 tally reached 8,728,795 on Friday as 44,879 new cases were registered across the country in the past 24 hours, said the latest data released by the health ministry.

With 547 deaths since Thursday morning, the death toll in the country due to the pandemic reached 128,668, showed the ministry's data.

Still there are 484,547 active COVID-19 cases in the country, while 8,115,580 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far.

South Korea

South Korea will begin fining people who fail to wear masks in public on Friday as it reported 191 new coronavirus cases, with daily infections continuing to creep higher.

People caught without masks in public venues, including nightclubs, malls, theme parks and hair salons, face fines of up to 100,000 won (US$89.75), while the operators of those places could pay up to 3 million won in fines.

The country had been praised for its response to the pandemic including aggressive testing and contact tracing, but has struggled to contain small cluster outbreaks, with daily cases hovering around 100 in recent weeks.

The strengthening of the policy comes as authorities also expanded mandatory mask usage earlier this month to 23 new types of places, including spas, wedding halls and department stores.

Of the new cases, 162 were locally transmitted and over 50 percent of the infections in the past two weeks were from the densely populated metropolitan Seoul area, according to health authorities.

The new cases brought the country’s total number of infections to 28,133 as of Thursday midnight with COVID-19 deaths reaching 488, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

The government is in final talks with global drugmakers over potential COVID-19 vaccines as it seeks to secure supplies to cover 60% of its population this year.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks to the media after he held the telephone talk with US President-elect Joe Biden, at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Nov 12, 2020. (PHOTO / AP)

Japan 

Japan on Friday reported 1,693 new confirmed  COVID-19 cases, marking a fresh record of daily spike following the previous day's tally.

The latest rise in cases brings the nation's cumulative total of novel coronavirus infections to 115,516, not including those connected to a cruise ship that was quarantined near Tokyo earlier in the year.

Israel

Israel will sign a provisional deal with Pfizer Inc on Friday to receive 8 million doses of the drugmaker’s still-experimental coronavirus vaccine from January, the Israeli health minister said.

The deal, implementation of which would be subject to approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Israel’s Health Ministry, would provide vaccines for close to half of the Israeli population, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said.

“The supply would begin in January 2021, with the remainder arriving throughout the course of 2021,” he said in a statement on Thursday, adding that the order would be for 8 million doses, enough for 4 million people.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech SE confirmed the deal in a Thursday statement and said it would not disclose financial details but deal terms would be tied to the timing of delivery and the volume of doses provided.

“Our goal remains to create a global supply of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine for many people around the world, as quickly as we can,” said Sean Marett, the chief business officer at BioNTech, in a statement.

Pfizer on Monday announced that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine had been more than 90% effective based on initial trial results, a major victory in the war against a virus that has killed over a million people and battered the world’s economy.

A spokesman for Pfizer said final signing will take place on Friday.

ALSO READ: Japan posts record daily virus cases amid fears of winter wave

Turkey

Turkey confirmed 2,841 new COVID-19 patients on Thursday, raising the total diagnosed patients to 404,894, the Turkish Health Ministry announced.

Meanwhile, 88 people died in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 11,233.

A total of 2,181 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, raising the total recoveries to 346,794 in Turkey since the outbreak.

The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients is 4.2 percent and the number of seriously ill patients is 3,230.

Turkey reported the first COVID-19 case on March 11.

Turkey and China have supported each other in the fight against COVID-19. Chinese doctors and medical experts held video conferences with Turkish counterparts to share China's experience in treating coronavirus patients, protecting medical workers, and controlling the spread of the virus. 

Iraq

The Iraqi Health Ministry reported on Thursday 3,298 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total nationwide infections to 511,806.

The ministry also reported 50 new deaths and 2,571 more recovered cases, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 11,532 and the total recoveries to 439,228.

Meanwhile, Riyadh Abdul-Amir, head of the Ministry's Public Health Department, told the official Iraqi News Agency that the ministry plans to increase the capacity of hospitals specialized in treating the coronavirus and diagnostic laboratories.

"The capacity of hospitals treating coronavirus has more than 10,000 beds, which has been added in recent months, and will be further increased in the coming weeks in preparation for the expected increase in infections," Abdul-Amir said.

Wafaa Hussein, a member of the parliamentary health committee, said in a press release that the committee has reservations about the Ministry of Education's decision to start the new school year, warning of an increase in infections with the coronavirus.

Iraq has taken a series of measures to contain the pandemic since February when the first coronavirus case appeared in the country.

READ MORE: Nepal virus cases cross 200,000 amid fears of health catastrophe

Singapore

Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 11 newly imported COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 58,102.

On Thursday, 12 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 58,002 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, the ministry said.

There are 48 confirmed cases that are still in the hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia reported 311 new coronavirus cases and 15 more deaths on Thursday, raising the tally of infections in the kingdom to 352,160 and the total death count to 5,605.

The total number of recoveries rose by 412 to 339,114, while 798 patients remained in critical condition, according to the Saudi Health Ministry.

The United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recorded 1,136 new COVID-19 cases and three more deaths, raising the total infections to 146,735 and the death toll to 523.

The tally of recoveries in the UAE rose to 141,215, while there are 4,997 active coronavirus cases.

Kuwait 

Kuwait reported 773 new COVID-19 cases and four more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 134,932 and the death toll to 830 in the country.

The Kuwaiti health ministry also announced the recovery of 688 more patients, taking the total recoveries in the country to 125,593.

Jordan 

Jordan reported 5,685 new COVID-19 cases and 80 more deaths from the virus, pushing the tally of infections in the kingdom to 132,086 and the death toll to 1,547.

Jordanian Interior Minister Tawfiq Halalmeh resigned on Thursday following two days of festive gun-firing and protests after Tuesday's parliamentary elections.

Domestic travelers wear face masks as they arrive at the Wellington International Airport on August 12, 2020. (PHOTO / AFP)

New Zealand

New Zealand reopened downtown Auckland on Friday after contact tracing of a new coronavirus case revealed it was linked to a known case from a border isolation facility, reversing an earlier call for people to work from home.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins said genome sequence testing of the locally transmitted case, which was discovered on Thursday, had shown it was linked to a known case and there was less risk of a wider unseen spread.

“Though we do want to increase testing over the weekend and over the coming weeks to give ourselves greater assurance on that,” he told a news conference.

Auckland will remain at alert level 1, which means there are no restrictions on movement but he added the government is making mask wearing mandatory on public transport in the city and on airlines.

Hipkins added that scanning of QR codes for contact tracing purposes may become mandatory at places where a lot of people gather, such as large public events, he said.

Authorities have also asked everyone who attended locations of interest in Auckland at key times to get tested for COVID-19, regardless of whether they have symptoms.

New Zealand, which has managed to virtually eliminate community-transmitted COVID-19 twice, reported four new cases on Friday, all in managed isolation. It has had 1,639 infections and 25 deaths.

Mongolia

A suspected case of local COVID-19 transmission in northern Mongolia's Selenge province has been confirmed by lab test results, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Friday.

"A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for a 74-year-old resident of Selenge province turned positive. Her daughter-in-law and grandson also contracted the virus," Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the NCCD's Surveillance Department, said at a press conference.

Relevant staff are working to identify all people who have had contact with them, Ambaselmaa said.

The daughter-in-law traveled to neighboring Darkhan-Uul province with her son and visited major shopping malls a few days ago, while the grandson played with more than 60 children at a toy center there, according to the authorities.

They are considered to be a new epicenter of domestic  of COVID-19  transmissions.

A total of 1,030 tests for COVID-19 were conducted across Mongolia in the past 24 hours and six of them were positive, bringing the total tally of infections in the country to 412.

Afghanistan

The Afghan Ministry of Public Health confirmed 174 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total number of patients in the country to 42,969, including 6,338 active cases.

A total of 591 tests were conducted within the past 24 hours, and 174 were positive in 15 provinces out of 34 Afghan provinces, the ministry said in a statement.

Four patients died within the period, taking the death toll to 1,595 since February, the statement added.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's Army Commander and Head of the National Operation Center for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak Lt General Shavendra Silva on Friday said authorities would resume the repatriation of local nationals stranded overseas from next week.

The repatriation had been halted last month due to a sudden surge in COVID-19 patients in the island country.

Those returning will be subjected to PCR tests and will be sent to government-run quarantine centers or paid quarantine facilities.

The Philippines

The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,902 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection on Friday, bringing the total number in the country to 404,713.

The DOH said 506 more patients in the Philippines recovered, raising the total number of recoveries to 362,903. The death toll climbed to 7,752 after 31 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH added.

Malaysia

Malaysia reported 1,304 new COVID-19 infections, the Health Ministry said on Friday, bringing the national total to 45,095.

Brunei

Brunei reported no new cases of COVID-19 on Friday with the national tally of cases standing at 148.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh reported 1,767 new COVID-19 cases and 19 new deaths on Friday, making the tally at 428,965 and death toll at 6,159, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

Vietnam

Vietnam reported three new cases of COVID-19 infection on Friday, bringing its total confirmed cases to 1,256 with 35 deaths from the disease so far, according to its Ministry of Health.

The new cases include a Vietnamese woman and her two children aged 9 and 10. They recently entered the country from abroad and were quarantined upon arrival, said the ministry.

Iran

The Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education reported on Friday 11,737 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, raising the nationwide number to 738,322.

Sima Sadat Lari, the spokeswoman for the ministry, said at her daily briefing that 461 more deaths from the virus were confirmed, bringing the death toll to 40,582 in the country.

Myanmar

The number of COVID-19 cases has risen to 66,734, with 1,136 more cases reported in Myanmar, according to a release from the Health and Sports Ministry on Friday.

Twenty-six more deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 1,534 on Friday, the release said.

Thailand

Tens of thousands of migrant workers in Thailand whose work permits are expiring have been granted permission to stay in the country for another two years, yet campaigners said the cost of the extension could fuel debt bondage and worker exploitation.

The Thai labour ministry this week said a total of about 130,000 migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos who had entered the country under bilateral labour agreements and whose permits expired from this month through December 2021 would be eligible.

Thailand has about 2.8 million registered migrant workers, mainly from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. But the United Nations estimates that 2 million more work informally across the country in sectors including fishing, construction and agriculture.

At least 90,000 migrant workers scrambled to leave Thailand when its land borders were closed in March to stem the spread of coronavirus. The Southeast Asian nation has so far recorded 60 deaths related to COVID-19 among at least 3,850 infections.

Migrants who wish to extend their permits will have to undergo health checks and pay a fee of 1,900 baht (US$63), causing concern among campaigners who said the cost could be inflated by employers and labour brokers and drive workers deeper into debt.