In this March 16, 2020 file photo, a staff member displays samples of the COVID-19 inactivated vaccine at Sinovac Biotech Ltd, in Beijing.  (PHOTO / XINHUA)

SINGAPORE /  BENGALURU / SUVA / SYDNEY - The first batch of 3 million doses of China's SinoVac COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the Turkish capital Ankara early Wednesday.

Mass vaccination will start following 14 days of tests, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted Wednesday.

"As soon as the tests are completed, our vaccination program will take place under the coordination of the General Directorate of Public Health," he added.

Turkey bets on the vaccination program to pave the way for resuming face-to-face education shortly, Education Minister Ziya Selcuk said on Wednesday.

 "Starting from the riskiest groups and then moving toward a point that encompasses the whole society, the vaccination will make way for us to start face-to-face education," Selcuk said in an interview with the state-run Anadolu agency.

The total COVID-19 cases surged to 2,178,580 while the death toll from the disease climbed to 20,388 after 253 more fatalities were confirmed. The tally of recoveries in Turkey rose by 21,004 to 2,058,437.

Iran 

Iran will use money from its energy exports to Iraq to buy coronavirus vaccines from Europe, according to Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian.

He made the statement following a visit to Baghdad after Iran reduced natural gas supplies to Iraq over unpaid bills, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Iraq cleared a “considerable amount” of its debt for electricity purchases and part of the debt for natural gas imports from Iran, Ardakanian said.

Iran has pledged to “urgently resume gas flows, which had been slashed recently after technical problems,” Iraqi state-run newspaper Al-Sabah reported Wednesday after the meetings.

Iran's Health Ministry reported 6,272 overnight COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, raising the total nationwide infections to 1,218,753.

The pandemic has so far claimed 55,095 lives in Iran, up by 149 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing.

Afghanistan 

Afghanistan on Wednesday reported 98 new COVID-19 cases after health authorities conducted 1,607 tests within a day, bringing the number of nationwide cases to 52,428, the country's Ministry of Public Health said.

Up to 2,195 deaths have been recorded since the outbreak of the pandemic in February, an increase of six within the past 24 hours.

Kyrgyzstan 

A total of 189 new COVID-19 positive cases have been registered in Kyrgyzstan over the past 24 hours, bringing the number of patients infected with the disease to 80,843 in the country, said the Republican Headquarters for Combating COVID-19.

According to the agency, the number of recoveries from the coronavirus in Kyrgyzstan increased to 75,624 after 290 more were added, while the death toll reached 1,354 with one more death reported over the past day.

Brunei 

Brunei reported five new imported cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the national tally to 157.

According to Brunei's Ministry of Health, the five cases all arrived in the Southeast Asian country on Dec. 18 from India. Three of them reportedly have shown no signs of coronavirus infection.

The Ministry of Health has identified a total of 19 contacts related to the cases. They have tested negative for COVID-19 and are currently in quarantine.

Currently, there are five active cases being treated at the National Isolation Center. A total of 16 imported cases have been confirmed since the last local infection reported on May 6. So far, Brunei has recorded 238 days without local COVID-19 infections.

Singapore 

Singapore began vaccinating healthcare workers with Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, kicking off one of Asia’s first inoculation programmes against a pandemic that has killed more than 1.7 million people globally.

Sarah Lim, a 46-year-old nurse, and 43-year-old infectious diseases doctor Kalisvar Marimuthu were among the more than 30 staff at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases who were vaccinated on Wednesday, the health ministry said.

They will return for the second dose of the vaccine on Jan. 20.

“Vaccines have managed to bring pandemics down to their knees before. So I am hopeful that this vaccine will do the same,” Marimuthu said in recorded remarks provided by the health ministry.

Singapore is the first country in Asia to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It has also signed advance purchase agreements and made early down payments on several other vaccine candidates, including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac.

It expects to have enough vaccine doses for all 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021.

Singapore acted swiftly after the first cases of the virus were reported, and although it was blindsided by tens of thousands of infections in migrant workers’ dormitories, it has reported just a handful of new local cases in recent months. The country has one of the world’s lowest COVID-19 fatality rates; only 29 people have died of the virus.

To show the vaccine is safe, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, said he and his colleagues would be among the early recipients of the shots. They will be free and voluntary, but the government is encouraging all medically eligible residents to take them.

Wednesday’s vaccinations mark “a new chapter in our fight against the pandemic,” Lee said in a Facebook post. “The vaccine is key to living in a COVID-19 world, but it will still be some time before this storm will pass.”

Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 13 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 58,542.

Malaysia

Malaysia reported 1,870 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the national total to 110,485, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press statement that two of the new cases are imported and 1,868 are local transmissions.

Six new deaths have been reported, pushing the death toll to 463.

Bangladesh 

Bangladesh reported 1,235 new COVID-19 cases and 22 new deaths on Wednesday, making the tally at 512,496 and the death toll at 7,531, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

The official data showed that 15,229 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh.

The total number of recovered patients in the country stood at 456,070 including 1,507 new recoveries on Wednesday, said the DGHS.

South Korea

South Korean authorities scrambled to contain a cluster of coronavirus infections in a Seoul prison as inmates waved signs through barred windows pleading for help.

There were 1,050 new cases nationally as of Tuesday midnight, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Wednesday, bringing the total pandemic tally to 59,773 with 879 people having died.

A prison in southeastern Seoul had 771 inmates and 21 staff infected, bringing the total number of infections linked to the facility to 792, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the justice ministry.

Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae on Tuesday visited the prison and ordered the separation of infected inmates from those who were not and the expansion of granting parole to exemplary prisoners, the ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, media displayed pictures of the inmates holding up signs reading, “Please save us.”

The KDCA had said an inmate with underlying conditions had died this week from COVID-19.

Large crowds are seen at Bondi Beach on Dec 27, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

Australia

A second cluster of COVID-19 infections has emerged in Sydney, prompting authorities to further tighten restrictions on New Year’s Eve parties in an effort to prevent a wider outbreak.

Eighteen new local cases of the virus were reported overnight, New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters. Nine of those were in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where the cluster now stands at 138 and some 250,000 people remain under lockdown.

The new cluster in Croydon, a suburb in Sydney’s inner-west, involves six infections in an extended family group, Berejiklian said. With cases expected to grow in coming days, household gatherings across Greater Sydney to celebrate the New Year will be limited to 5 visitors. The maximum size of outdoor gatherings will be reduced to 30 from 50.

“We don’t want New Year’s Eve to be the cause of a super-spreader,” she said. “Our preferred advice is that people just stay home.”

The outbreak is a blow to Australia, which had largely suppressed community transmission through rigorous testing and contact tracing, and by shuttering the international border -- with all returned overseas travelers made to isolate for 14 days in quarantine hotels. Authorities are trying to pinpoint the source of the two clusters.

India

India has extended until Jan 7 its suspension of flights with Britain, the civil aviation minister said, as the South Asian nation reported 20 cases of a new infectious strain of coronavirus first detected in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, commercial international flights to and from India will remain suspended until Jan. 31 next year, India's civil aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) announced Wednesday.

Maharashtra on Wednesday extended COVID-19 lockdown restrictions by one more month till Jan. 31.

India's COVID-19 tally rose to 10,244,852 on Wednesday as 20,549 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, said the latest data from the federal health ministry.

Sunday was the first time in six months when the number of new cases had fallen below the 20,000-mark.

According to the data, the death toll mounted to 148,439 as 286 COVID-19 patients died since Tuesday morning.

There are still 262,272 active cases in the country, while 9,834,141 people have been discharged so far from hospitals after medical treatment. Sunday was also the first time in several months when the total active caseload had fallen below 280,000.

ALSO READ: State TV: Iran starts clinical trials of its own COVID-19 vaccine

Iraq

Iraq's Ministry of Health reported 1,013 new COVID-19 cases in the country, bringing its total infections to 593,541.

The ministry also reported nine new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 12,800, and 1,487 more recovered cases, bringing the total recoveries to 534,801.

Israel

Israel's Ministry of Health reported 5,352 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing the total to 409,338.

The death toll from the virus in Israel rose to 3,257 with 17 new fatalities, while the number of patients in serious condition remained unchanged at 609, out of 1,030 hospitalized patients.

The ministry said the number of vaccinated people in Israel had reached 495,000 since the vaccination campaign began on Dec. 20.

The total revenues of tourist hotels in Israel fell by nearly 58 percent year on year in the first three quarters of 2020, according to a report issued by the state's Central Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday.

The revenues amounted to 4 billion new shekels (about US$1.25 billion) in January-September this year, much lower than 9.5 billion shekels in the corresponding period last year, the report said.

Indonesia

The confirmed cases in Indonesia rose by 8,002 in the past 24 hours to 735,124, with the death toll adding by 241 to 21,944, the health ministry said.

According to the ministry, 6,958 more patients were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 603,741.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia reported 149 more COVID-19 cases and eight more fatalities, taking its tally of infections to 362,488 and its death toll to 6,204. The tally of recoveries in the kingdom surged by 159 to 353,512.

Jordan

Jordan announced 1,645 new coronavirus infections and 23 more deaths from the virus, taking the tally of confirmed cases to 291,393 and its death toll to 3,801.

The tally of recoveries in Jordan increased to 266,622 after 2,561 more patients recovered from the disease.

Lebanon

Lebanon recorded 2,298 new COVID-19 cases and 21 more deaths, bringing its tally to 175,118 and its death count to 1,430. The total recoveries in Lebanon climbed to 125,473 after 1,239 more patients recovered.

READ MORE: Indonesia bans foreign visitors for 2 weeks over new variant

Kuwait

Kuwait reported 236 new COVID-19 cases, taking its tally to 150,093, including 932 deaths and 146,056 recoveries.

Kuwait will resume flights at Kuwait International Airport at 4:00 p.m. local time (1300 GMT) on Saturday, Kuwait's Directorate-General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) said Tuesday.

The Kuwaiti government decided to suspend all international commercial flights and close its land and sea border crossings from Dec. 21, 2020 until Jan. 1, 2021 to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Qatar

Qatar's Health Ministry on Tuesday announced 206 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 143,428, while the total fatalities increased by one to 245. 

FIJI

Fiji's Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) announced on Wednesday three more imported cases of COVID-19.

According to a statement by the ministry, all three tested positive during routine testing while undergoing mandatory quarantine in the government designated border quarantine facilities in Nadi, Fiji's third largest city.

These new cases have been transferred to the isolation ward at the Lautoka hospital, according to the standard protocol for confirmed cases.

They have all been asymptomatic and well since this transfer. The frontline border and quarantine staff who were directly involved with the cases have followed Fiji's MHMS standard infection prevention and control protocols, and will be monitored and tested as necessary.

Fiji has had 49 cases in total since its first case was detected on March 19, with the last 31 cases detected in border quarantine.

It has been 255 days since the last case was detected outside border quarantine.

Japan

Japan’s total deaths fell by more than 14,000 in the year through October compared to 2019, as the nation’s largely successful efforts to quell the coronavirus pandemic seem to have prevented deaths from other causes.

Tokyo warned that if infections continue to rise at the current pace, its medical system faces the risk of collapse.

The comments from the vice chair of the Tokyo Medical Association came as the capital recorded 944 cases, just shy of a record. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike called the end-of-year holidays a watershed moment for stopping the spread of the disease, and warned that an explosive increase in cases could occur at any time.

The Philippines

The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines on Wednesday reported 1,014 new confirmed coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, bringing the total number in the country to 472,532.

The death toll climbed to 9,230 after 68 more patients died from the viral disease, the DOH said, adding that 518 more patients recovered, raising the total number of recoveries to 439,509.

The Philippines has tested over 6.3 million people so far since the disease emerged in January. The Philippines has a population of about 110 million. 

A glass medical vaccine vial in dry ice vapor in an arranged photograph in Wurzburg, Germany, on Nov 18, 2020. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

Pakistan

Pakistan's COVID-19 fatalities crossed the 10,000-mark in the past 24 hours after 55 more patients were reported to have died from the coronavirus epidemic, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Wednesday.

Most deaths occurred in the Punjab province followed by Sindh, said the center which monitors and devises plans to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

The NCOC said that 2,155 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, with the national positivity ratio recorded at 5.92 percent.

Pakistan has reported a total of 477,240 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 430,113 recoveries and 10,047 deaths. Currently, 2,219 patients are in critical condition and the number is rising fast, the NCOC said.

Mongolia 

Mongolia has reported its first death from COVID-19, according to the country's health ministry on Wednesday.

The patient was a 76-year-old woman who had been receiving medical treatment at the capital city Ulan Bator's Bayanzurkh District General Hospital, the ministry said in a statement.

"She had underlying health conditions such as chest muscle weakness, advanced respiratory and cardiovascular failure, high blood pressure, diabetes, and chronic hepatitis C. Her concomitant diagnosis was the COVID-19 infection," the ministry said in a statement.

The death is said to be the first related to COVID-19 in the country.

Thailand 

Thailand plans to extend its domestic travel subsidy program next year as a new outbreak of coronavirus cases hits people’s holiday travel plans, dealing a fresh blow to the tourism-dependent economy.

Thailand on Wednesday recorded 250 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, 241 of which were local infections, official data showed.

The new cases included two Myanmar migrant workers in the Samut Sakhon province, where the country's latest outbreak was first detected, and nine others in quarantine upon arrival from abroad, Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesman of the Center for the COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), told a daily news briefing.

Vietnam

Vietnam reported two new cases of COVID-19 infection on Wednesday, bringing its total confirmed cases to 1,456 with 35 deaths from the disease so far, according to the Ministry of Health.

Both new cases are Vietnamese citizens who recently returned to the country from abroad and were quarantined upon arrival, said the ministry.