Pedestrians walk on a street in Tokyo's Shinjuku area on Jan 5, 2021, as the city reported 1,278 infections of the COVID-19 coronavirus. (KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP)

KABUL / JERUSALEM / SYDNEY / NEW DELHI / JAKARTA / BAGHDAD / ULAN BATOR / YANGON / MUSCAT / DOHA / SINGAPORE / SEOUL / BANGKOK / MANILA - Japan’s COVID-19 cases reached a new daily record on Wednesday, as the government faced mounting pressure from health experts to impose a strict state of emergency for the Tokyo greater metropolitan area.

Rising infections have driven Tokyo and surrounding areas to the highest level of a four-stage alert, prompting regional governors to call for a declaration of emergency that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to announce on Thursday.

The health ministry held a meeting of infectious disease experts on Wednesday, the second in as many days. They have called for stricter and longer countermeasures, while Suga has sought a more limited response to avoid damaging the economy.

“Even if we take strong measures immediately, it will be difficult to bring the Tokyo metropolitan area down to stage 3 by the end of January,” Takaji Wakita, chief of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, told reporters after the meeting.

New infections nationwide reached at least 6,001, a new daily record according to a tally by national broadcaster NHK. Tokyo reported 1,591 cases, also an all-time high.

Without new measures, daily infections in Tokyo could nearly triple to 3,500 per day by February and hit 7,000 by March, according to simulations by Kyoto University scientist Hiroshi Nishiura. An emergency declaration would need to last at least two months to bring infections to manageable levels, he said.

A senior ruling party lawmaker said on Tuesday it should be imposed for one month, and extended if necessary. The government is anxious about the economic impact as it prepares to host the Olympics this summer.

The government’s top spokesman, Katsunobu Kato, said a decision would likely come on Thursday on whether and for how long to impose the second state of emergency since the start of the pandemic.

Economists warned of a big hit to gross domestic product (GDP) if restrictions are prolonged or expanded, but said that could be unavoidable.

India 

Deaths due to COVID-19 pandemic crossed the 150,000-mark in India on Wednesday, reaching 150,114, said the data released by the federal health ministry.

India's federal health ministry Wednesday said 13 new cases of mutant COVID-19 strain have been traced in the country, which has taken the tally to 71.

As many as 264 deaths took place during the past 24 hours, according to the data.

According to it, the total number of COVID-19 cases rose to 10,374,932, even as 18,088 new cases were registered since Tuesday.

There are still 227,546 active cases in the country, while 9,997,272 people have been successfully treated and discharged from hospitals.

India continues to be the second worst-affected country globally by the pandemic, after the U.S.

Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, even as over 170 million tests have been conducted so far.

Delhi, which has been one of the most COVID-19 affected places in the country, has been witnessing a downward trend over the past few days. As many as 442 new cases and 12 deaths were registered in the national capital through Tuesday.

So far as many as 10,609 people have died in the national capital due to COVID-19, confirmed the Delhi's health department.

ALSO READ: PM: Thailand to order another 35m COVID-19 vaccine doses

Australia

Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt announced on Wednesday that the country's coronavirus vaccine rollout will begin weeks earlier than previously planned.

Hunt said the country's first COVID-19 vaccines will now be administered in early March rather than at the end of the month.

Under the planned rollout the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, of which Australia has secured 10 million doses, will be administered first in Australia, with priority access given to frontline workers and the elderly.

The vaccine from AstraZeneca and University of Oxford, which the government has acquired 53.8 million doses, will be available in Australia by the end of March after Britain began administering it on Monday.

The government is expecting every Australian who wants the vaccine to have received it by October this year.

The acceleration in the COVID-19 vaccination program comes amid heightened concern about the spread of the virus globally.

Australia’s national cabinet will meet a month earlier than scheduled on Friday, Morrison said, as authorities seek to stop the spread of a more contagious variant of COVID-19 that emerged in Britain. A handful of international arrivals in Australia have tested positive to the UK-strain.

Meanwhile, Australia's largest stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) was identified as a potential COVID-19 transmission site on Wednesday, after a person who attended a cricket match last month tested positive for the virus.

Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said the man attended the cricket on Dec 27 last year and called for anyone who was seated in the same section as him to get tested and isolate themselves until they receive a negative result.

A shopping center that the man attended the day before was also named as a possible acquisition site and 10 stores identified as venues of concern.

Sydney recorded four new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, two of which were linked to known clusters and two were under investigation.

Indonesian health staff check Sinovac vaccines for the Covid-19 coronavirus at a storage facility before they are distributed to other provinces, in Banda Aceh on Jan 5, 2021. (CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN / AFP)

Indonesia

Indonesia’s highest Muslim clerical council hopes to issue a ruling on whether a COVID-19 vaccine is halal, or permissible under Islam, before the country is due to start a mass inoculation programme using a Chinese vaccine next week. The world’s largest Muslim-majority country plans to launch vaccinations on Jan. 13 after obtaining 3 million doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech.

Controversy over whether vaccines adhere to Islamic principles has stymied public health responses before, including in 2018, when the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa declaring that a measles vaccine was forbidden under Islam.

Indonesia recorded its highest daily rise in COVID-19 infections on Wednesday.

The confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world's fourth most populous country rose by 8,854 in the past 24 hours to 788,402, with the death toll adding by 187 to 23,296, the Health Ministry said.

According to the ministry, 6,767 more patients were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 652,513.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has set a target of distributing 29.55 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to various regions in the country in the first three months of this year.

At a meeting with the ministers for handling the COVID-19 pandemic held Wednesday, Widodo said that until the end of January a total of 5.8 million doses of vaccine will be distributed, ahead of 10.45 million doses in February.

Iraq

The Iraqi Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday 757 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total nationwide infections to 599,126.

It reported in a statement 12 new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 12,856, and 1,928 more recovered cases, bringing the total recoveries to 547,457.

Meanwhile, Riyadh Abdul-Amir, head of the ministry's Public Health Department, said in a press release that the ministry had not reported any infection with the new strain of coronavirus so far, despite its spread in many European and neighboring countries.

Israelis walk by the sea in the Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv on Jan 4, 2021. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)

Israel

Israel will tighten lockdown restrictions in a bid to reverse the sharp rise in coronavirus infections that’s taking place as vaccine supplies dwindle.

The cabinet voted to close all schools and non-essential businesses for two weeks, beginning midnight Thursday. Airline travel will be permitted only for those who purchased tickets before.

A partial lockdown, which began Dec 27 and restricted movement and banned most client-facing business activity, hasn’t managed to tame the virus.

While Israel says it has inoculated about 15 percent of the population with a first dose of vaccine, it is running low on supply. Second doses have been set aside for those already immunized, but the government has warned that there will be a lull in new inoculations until more supplies arrive.

A first shipment of 100,000 Moderna Inc doses are to arrive this week, according to reports in the local press.

The virus variant identified in Britain is spreading in Israel as well, exacerbating the outbreak, according to the government. More than 8,000 new cases in the country of 9.3 million were confirmed in each of the past two days, bringing the total since the beginning of the pandemic to more than 458,000, including 3,495 fatalities.

Mongolia

Mongolia confirmed 41 more COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing its national tally to 1,349, according to the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD).

The latest confirmed cases were locally transmitted, including five health workers of the NCCD, Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the surveillance department of the center, said at a daily press conference.

Myanmar

The number of COVID-19 cases in Myanmar has increased to 128,178 as of Wednesday, according to a release from the Ministry of Health and Sports.

A total of 596 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the country on Wednesday.

Oman

The Omani health ministry on Wednesday reported the first case of a new coronavirus strain in a foreigner permanently residing in the Sultanate who has arrived from Britain.

Meanwhile, the ministry announced 114 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Sultanate to 129,888.

Qatar

The Qatari health ministry on Wednesday announced 209 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 145,061, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

Meanwhile, 126 more recovered from the virus, bringing the overall recoveries to 142,182, while the fatalities remained 245 for the ninth consecutive day, according to a ministry statement quoted by QNA.

READ MORE: Indonesia says to start virus vaccinations program next week

People wearing face masks walk along a street in Chinatown, Singapore on Jan 5, 2021. (ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP)

Singapore

Singapore is requiring an additional seven day testing routine for newly arrived foreign workers, adding to the 14-day stay-home notice currently mandated, to minimize risk of COVID-19 cases in dormitories. The rule takes effect Jan 6.

Separately, the government defended the use of contact tracing data in police investigations, as a senior lawmaker said information from the widely-adopted program would only be used for serious crimes. TraceTogether is being used by 78 percent of Singapore’s population. 

According to its website, the program does not collect data about individual GPS locations, Wifi or mobile networks being used. But a clause about data being only used to contact trace people exposed to the coronavirus was removed and replaced with a statement noting that police “can obtain any data, including TraceTogether data, for criminal investigations.”


Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 28 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 58,749.

Among the new cases, 26 are imported cases and two are community cases.

South Korea


South Korea rolled out mass testing for 52 prisons in the country after a massive prison outbreak and decided on Wednesday to extend flight suspensions from Britain for two weeks as part of efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus infections.

Over half of the total 2,292 inmates and personnel in a prison in southeastern Seoul tested positive after a first cluster infection was reported within the prison last month, Yoon Tae-ho, a senior health ministry official, told a briefing.

The justice ministry is separating the infected inmates by transferring them to a designated hospital, said Yoon.

Authorities will complete mass testing on some 70,000 prison inmates and staff nationwide, as the number of confirmed cases linked to prisons throughout the country surged to 1,191.

Authorities decided later on Wednesday to extend flight suspensions from Britain until Jan 21, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, after at least 12 cases of a new strain of the coronavirus were found.

The country had extended a ban on direct flights from Britain until Jan. 7, and required any passengers arriving from that country or South Africa to undergo testing before departure.

The country reported 840 new cases as of midnight on Tuesday, a slight uptick from 715 a day before, bringing the national tally to 65,818 infections with 1,027 deaths.

The number of deaths linked to the coronavirus in South Korea passed 1,000 on Tuesday.

Employees of the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority clean and disinfect the Yodpiman Flower Market in Bangkok on Jan 6, 2021, after the government imposed further restrictions due to the recent COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. (MLADEN ANTONOV / AFP)

Thailand


Thailand on Wednesday recorded 365 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing its total tally to 9,331, official data showed.

Of the new infections, 99 were detected through proactive testing among migrant workers, 250 were local transmission cases, and 16 others were quarantined arrivals, according to the Center for the COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).

CCSA's spokesman Taweesin Visanuyothin also reported one new death on Wednesday, a 63-year-old Thai male resident in the Samut Sakhon province, raising the total number of COVID-19 fatalities to 66.

The Philippines

The Philippines plans to buy 148 million coronavirus vaccine doses to inoculate more than half of the population this year.

The government is seeking to close deals this month with AstraZeneca Plc, Novavax Inc., Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac Biotech Ltd, and Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said at a televised briefing Wednesday. Up to 70 million Filipinos are expected to be vaccinated this year, he said.

The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines on Wednesday reported 1,047 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the country's total tally to 480,737.

The death toll rose to 9,347 after 26 more patients died from the coronavirus epidemic, the DOH said. It added that 339 more patients recovered, raising the total number of recoveries to 448,700.

Meanwhile, the ministry said that the new, highly-infectious coronavirus variant spreading in Britain has not been detected in the Philippines so far.

The Philippines will block foreign travelers from six more countries starting Friday following the detection of the new and more infectious coronavirus variant in these places, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Wednesday.

Foreign travelers from Portugal, India, Finland, Norway, Jordan, and Brazil and who have been in any of these countries within 14 days before arrival in the Philippines are prohibited to enter the Southeast Asian country from Jan. 8 to 15, Roque said.

Vietnam 

Vietnam recorded one new confirmed case of COVID-19 on Wednesday, raising its total tally to 1,505 with 35 deaths, according to its Ministry of Health.

The new case is a 26-year-old Vietnamese woman who recently returned from abroad and was quarantined upon arrival.

The ministry said that 14 more patients have been given the all-clear, raising the number of cured cases in the country to 1,353.

Meanwhile, nearly 19,400 people are being quarantined and monitored, the ministry said.

Malaysia 

Malaysia reported 2,593 new COVID-19 infections in the highest daily spike since the outbreak, bringing the national total to 125,438, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press briefing that four of the new cases are imported and 2,589 are local transmissions.

Another four deaths have been reported, pushing the total deaths to 513.

Some 1,129 more patients have been released after recovery, bringing the total cured and discharged to 100,578, or 80.2 percent of all cases.

Of the remaining 24,347 active cases, 141 are being held in intensive care and 67 of those are in need of assisted breathing. 

Bangladesh 

Bangladesh recorded 978 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 17 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing its total tally to 518,898 with 7,687 deaths, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

The official data showed that 15,544 samples were tested in the last 24 hours across Bangladesh.

The total number of recovered patients in the country stood at 463,480 including 1,021 new recoveries on Wednesday, said the DGHS.

The COVID-19 fatality rate in Bangladesh stands currently at 1.48 percent and recovery rate at 89.32 percent.

Bangladesh recorded the highest daily new cases of 4,019 on July 2 and the highest number of deaths of 64 on June 30 last year.

Afghanistan

A total of 102 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the past 24 hours in Afghanistan, bringing the country's total tally to 53,207, said a statement of Public Health Ministry released  Wednesday.

The statement said that nine more patients died from the coronavirus epidemic, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 2,253 since the virus outbreak in February.

It added that 174 more patients recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the total number of recoveries to 42,840 in Afghanistan.

The Public Health Ministry has warned of the spread of virus in a second wave, calling on the Afghan people to observe related health guidelines including avoiding unnecessary trips to markets and crowded places.

Iran

Iranian health authorities announced on Wednesday 6,283 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 1,261,903, state TV reported.

At her daily briefing, spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education Sima Sadat Lari said 603 of the newly infected in the past 24 hours had to be hospitalized.

And 82 deaths related to the coronavirus were registered between Tuesday and Wednesday, which takes the death toll of the epidemic in Iran to 55,830 so far.