People wearing face masks walk in the rain through a path to the Sensoji temple, lined with shops in Tokyo, July 2, 2021. (HIRO KOMAE / AP)

MELBOURNE / CAIRO / DHAKA / JAKARTA / JERUSALEM / KUWAIT CITY / BEIRUT / ULAN BATOR / YANGON / ISLAMABAD / SINGAPORE / ANKARA / GENEVA - Japan’s capital reported 716 new cases Saturday, the highest number in more than five weeks. The seven-day average of new cases rose to 563.1, in a worrying sign as Japan prepares to host the Tokyo Olympics in less than three weeks.

The new cases remained largely among people in their 20s and 30s, with only 40 new patients over the age of 65. The number of serious cases fell to 50, from 54 the previous day.

Japan’s vaccine czar Taro Kono said in a press conference Friday that workplace vaccines will restart Aug 9 onward for businesses that currently have their approvals pending, the Mainichi newspaper reported Saturday.

Following higher-than-expected demand for workplace vaccines, the government had stopped accepting new applications for workplace inoculation programs on June 25. 

Some of the applications already received were also pending approval, but the government will be looking into when inoculations should begin for those businesses, and how many more vaccines will be needed.

WHO

The World Health Organization, which is advising the International Olympic Committee in the run-up to the Tokyo Games opening later this month, is urging caution so as to stem the spread of the coronavirus, a senior WHO official said on Friday.

Crowds at Euro 2020 soccer stadiums and in pubs and bars in host cities are driving the current rise in COVID-19 infections in Europe, the WHO's regional office said on Thursday.

Maria van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead on COVID-19 at its global headquarters, was asked what lessons it was drawing from the Euro 2020 tournament in order to advise the IOC and Tokyo organisers ahead of the event's opening on July 23.

"The IOC and others have outlined their plans in taking their approach for the Olympics, and we have been engaging with them and advising them on the best use of those plans," van Kerkhove told a Geneva news conference.

She said the WHO was learning from Euro 2020, adding: "If the virus is present and precautions are not in place the virus will spread."

"We urge caution. We urge everyone to take caution in what they do," she added.

"We urge everybody to take a risk-based approach in what they do and the decisions that they make. The choices that they make and the events they attend have consequences, good and bad."

Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said last month that it would discuss managing COVID-19 risks with Japanese authorities and the IOC, after organisers announced some spectators would be permitted to attend, although fans from overseas have already been banned.

This general view shows people crossing the street in Tokyo's Shibuya district on June 17, 2021, as Japan plans to lift the city's virus emergency on June 20, a month before the Olympics. (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

Australia

Australia's New South Wales state recorded its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 infections this year, even as residents in several major cities across the country were released from snap lockdowns on Saturday.

Sydney, the New South Wales state capital and home to a fifth of Australia's 25 million population, has been hit hardest in a flurry of outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant around the country over the past two weeks.

State Premier Gladys Berejiklian reported 35 new cases, 29 of which were linked to previous cases. That eclipsed the 31 cases reported a day earlier, taking total infections under the current outbreak to more than 250.

Bangladesh

A commercial shipment of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Bangladesh early on Saturday.

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and Health Minister Zahid Maleque, among others, were present at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka to receive the vaccines.

A Biman Bangladesh Airlines jet carrying the vaccine arrived in the airport at about 1:00 am local time Saturday.

More Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines aboard a separate flight arrived later in the day.

Bangladesh reported 8,483 new COVID-19 cases and 132 new deaths on Friday, making the tally at 930,042 and death toll at 14,778, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

The official data showed that 30,012 samples were tested in the last 24 hours as of 8:00 am local time Friday across Bangladesh.

ALSO READ: Delta variant sweeps Asia, leads to curbs amid tepid vaccination

India

Phase-III trials of a vaccine made by India's Bharat Biotech showed it was 93.4 percent effective against severe symptomatic COVID-19, the firm said here on Saturday, a finding that could boost people's acceptance of Covaxin.

The data demonstrated 65.2 percent protection against the Delta variant, first identified in India, that led to a surge in infections in April and May, and the world’s highest daily death tolls.

India’s homegrown vaccine also showed effectiveness of 77.8 percent against symptomatic COVID-19 in the trial.

Last month, vaccine maker AstraZeneca Plc also said its vaccine was effective against the Delta and Kappa variants, citing a study.

India has been administering the AstraZeneca vaccine, made domestically by the Serum Institute of India, which said last month it planned to step up monthly production from July, to nearly 100 million doses.

Bharat Biotech now estimates it will make 23 million doses a month.

India's COVID-19 tally rose to 30,502,362 on Saturday as 44,111 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.

Besides, 738 deaths due to the pandemic since Friday morning took the death toll to 401,050.

Indonesia

Indonesia expects COVID-19 infections to keep rising for up to two weeks before curbs introduced on Saturday on more than 100 million people begin to reduce cases, a government minister said.

As it battles one of Asia’s worst coronavirus outbreaks, the world’s fourth-most populous nation has seen record new infections on eight of the past 12 days, with Friday bringing 25,830 cases and a record 539 deaths.

Saturday’s curbs on Java and Bali islands - from tighter travel checks to a ban on restaurant dining and outdoor sports and the closure of non-essential workplaces - are to run until July 20, but could be extended, if needed, to bring daily infections below 10,000.

The Indonesian government has decided to deploy 53,000 personnel for emergency community activity restrictions (locally known as PPKM) to be imposed in Java and Bali from July 3 to 20, a senior police officer said on Friday.

Inspector General Imam Sugianto said that the joint force consists of 21,000 policemen and 32,000 soldiers.

The joint force was expected to ensure that the emergency PPKM would run effectively and meet the target, Sugianto added.

The Indonesian government decided to impose an emergency PPKM as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to surge following the entry of the more contagious Delta variant. 

Israel

The total number of active COVID-19 cases in Israel rose to 2,215, the highest since April 18, said the Israeli Ministry of Health on Friday.

It reported 309 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total infections in the country to 842,371.

The death toll from the virus remained unchanged at 6,429, while the number of patients in serious condition remained at 27.

In this June 27, 2021, photo, Kuwaitis share a meal at a restaurant at The Avenues Mall in Kuwait City, the country's largest shopping centre. (YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / AFP)

Kuwait

Kuwait registered on Friday 1,895 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total infections in the country to 360,406, the Kuwaiti Health Ministry said.

The ministry also announced 16 more fatalities, taking the death toll from the virus in Kuwait to 1,995, while the tally of recoveries rose by 1,775 to 339,604.

Lebanon

Lebanese Health Minister Hamad Hassan announced on Friday that the ministry has detected three cases of the Delta Plus variant of COVID-19 in Lebanon, the National News Agency reported.

"The ministry is working on identifying the sources of these three cases," he said.

Hassan called upon citizens to register on the COVID-19 vaccination platform to help the ministry in its effort to prevent the spread of new variants in Lebanon.

Mongolia

Mongolia reported 17 more deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, a record daily death toll, bringing the national count to 631, the country's health ministry said Saturday.

The ministry also reported 2,401 new cases, raising the nationwide tally to 122,740.

Myanmar

Myanmar reported 1,863 new COVID-19  cases, bringing the tally to 161,210 on Friday, according to a release from the Health and Sports Ministry.

With 17 new deaths reported in the past 24 hours, the death toll increased to 3,364 on Friday, the release said, adding that the number of recoveries reached 137,415.

Pakistan

Pakistan on Friday confirmed 1,400 new COVID-19 cases, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said Saturday.

The NCOC said that the country's number of overall confirmed cases had risen to 961,085, including 906,387 recoveries.

The number of active cases has risen to 32,319 across the country, including 1,871 critical patients admitted to different hospitals.

According to the NCOC, the pandemic killed 34 people on Friday, raising the overall death toll to 22,379.

Singapore

Employers in Singapore should not make getting a COVID-19 vaccination mandatory, but may do so for those working in high-risk settings, according to an advisory from the government, unions and employers. 

The advisory states that while an employer may not terminate an employee in such a setting for refusing the vaccine, they may redeploy them to another job with lower risk of infection.

Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 10 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total tally to 62,599.

The new infections included three locally transmitted cases, two of which are linked to previous cases, and were detected through surveillance. The remaining case is currently unlinked.

In this May 17, 2021 photo, Saudi passengers arrive to King Khaled International airport in the capital Riyadh. (FAYEZ NURELDINE / AFP)

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia will restrict travel to and entry from Ethiopia, UAE, Vietnam and Afghanistan over coronavirus concerns, the state news agency (WAS) reported on Saturday.

The ban goes into effect on July 4 and will apply to anyone who has been in those four countries within the last 14 days, it said. Saudi citizens returning before Sunday will be exempted.

Elderly women wearing face masks attend a yoga class re-opened for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic at Seodaemun Senior Welfare Centre in Seoul on July 1, 2021. (JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)

South Korea

Virus cases in the South Korean capital and its metropolitan area hovered above 600 for a fourth day, according to data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, more than doubling from two weeks ago when authorities announced plans to relax social-distancing rules.

Measures that would allow restaurants and bars to extend indoor dining and raise the cap on the number of people permitted to gather were scheduled to be introduced nationwide at the start of July. But provincial governments in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province held off the adoption of those plans by at least a week, due to the recent spike in cases in the region.

Overall, South Korea reported 794 cases nationwide Saturday, down from 826 on Friday when it reported its biggest daily jump in about half a year. Seoul and its metropolitan area were responsible for most of the cases with 614.

The Philippines

Forced evacuation of hundreds of residents near the Philippines’ Taal volcano, which threatens to erupt after spewing kilometer-high steam and fragments in recent days, could complicate the nation’s fight against coronavirus.

Local governments in Batangas province where the volcano is located are appealing to the central government to prioritize vaccine delivery to small villages affected by Taal to prevent infections in evacuation centers. About 1,300 residents have been evacuated as of Friday.

Senator Joel Villanueva urged the government to prepare for possible delays in vaccine shipments due to disruptions on inbound and outbound flights should Taal erupt, the Philippine Star reported.

READ MORE: Malaysia to impose tighter virus curbs in capital

Turkey

Turkey on Friday confirmed 4,891 new COVID-19 cases, including 461 symptomatic ones, raising the total number in the country to 5,435,831, according to its health ministry.

The death toll from the virus in Turkey rose by 55 to 49,829, while the total recoveries climbed to 5,305,856 after 5,352 more people recovered in the last 24 hours.