(Bloomberg) — Beijing reported a pickup in new Covid infections among arrivals for the Winter Olympics. China locked down a city of 3.6 million people, and a top epidemiologist said the country has no plans to adjust its zero-Covid policy.
Hong Kong is set to report another record number of coronavirus infections, ramping up pressure on the government to contain the worsening outbreak.
Canada’s capital Ottawa declared a state of emergency Sunday as police struggled to rein in ongoing protests largely among truckers against vaccine mandates.
A group of anti-vaccination demonstrators and conspiracy theorists have also blocked roads and targeted businesses in the Australian capital of Canberra.
Key Developments:
- Virus Tracker: Cases top 394.7 million; deaths pass 5.7 million
- Vaccine Tracker: More than 10.2 billion shots administered
- Beijing Olympics locks out omicron but internet is open
- CDC expands hunt for early warnings of Covid in sewage waste
- Covid rebellion brews in Canada, sending warning across globe
- Is Covid becoming endemic?
What would that mean?: QuickTake
Hong Kong to Report More Than 600 Cases (11:05 a.m. HK)
Hong Kong is set to report another record number of coronavirus infections, ramping up pressure on the government to contain the worsening outbreak.
The city saw more than 600 cases on Monday, local media reported, citing people they didn’t identify.
The surge in infections followed Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s announcement on Friday of measures to provide “tens of millions” of home testing kits to the city’s 7.4 million residents.
She also signaled that the government might tighten social-distancing measures to curb the spread of the virus, in a city that has pursued a Covid Zero strategy.
“There are invisible transmission chains in the community,” said Ronald Lam, director of health.
He added that it is impossible to project the peak of the current wave.
Chinese City Locked Down (10:58 a.m. HK)
A southwestern Chinese border city was locked down after mass testing identified nearly 100 people with Covid, yet another outbreak that’s extending the country’s protracted battle to bring its Covid infections back to zero.
A total of 98 people tested positive on Sunday in Baise, a city of 3.6 million people next to Vietnam in the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi.
Travel was banned within the city and to the rest of China to prevent the virus from spreading further. All residents were asked to stay at home.
China has no plans to adjust its zero-Covid-tolerance policy for the time being, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times in an interview.
Protesters Cause Chaos in Australian Capital (10:46 a.m.
HK)
A group of anti-vaccination demonstrators and conspiracy theorists have blocked roads and targeted businesses in the Australian capital of Canberra ahead of the return of federal parliament on Tuesday.
Hundreds of cars and trucks waving Australian flags, military insignia and campaign banners for former U.S.
President Donald Trump descended on the city over the past week to call for the end to vaccination requirements in businesses and places of employment.
The protests in Canberra have echoed similar demonstrations in the Canadian capital Ottawa.
Philippines Starts Vaccinating Kids (10:37 a.m.
HK)
The Philippines started giving Covid-19 shots to children aged 5 to 11, after receiving 780,000 Pfizer doses last week. The Southeast Asian nation aims to inoculate 15.5 million from this age group, as economic managers see allowing more activities for kids and their families as key to reviving consumer demand.
Korea Says Cases Could Reach 170,000 (10:26 a.m.
HK)
South Korea’s daily cases could increase to up to 130,000-170,000 at the end of February with the surge of the omicron variant, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. The numbers are based on forecast modeling conducted by experts.
President Moon Jae-in said it is a serious situation as it’s difficult to predict how much the number of confirmed cases will increase and when the peak will be.
But he said there is no need to be too concerned about the current situation. South Korea confirmed 35,286 more cases on Monday.
Thai Ministry to Propose More Easing: Post (9:04 a.m. HK)
Thailand’s Health Ministry will propose further easing of containment measures to the nation’s main virus task force later this week, the Bangkok Post reported, citing Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the ministry’s Department of Disease Control.
The ministry will encourage people to live with the virus rather than cope with lockdowns, the newspaper reported.
Opas didn’t give details of measures that may be relaxed.
Japan PM Pushes for a Million Daily Shots (8:54 a.m. HK)
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida set a target of speeding booster vaccinations to a million shots a day by the end of the month, as two new polls showed his support falling.
While most of the population has received two doses of a vaccine, only about 5% has received a third shot, by far the lowest among advanced nations.
The Japanese government is making final arrangements to extend a quasi-state of emergency in Tokyo and 12 other prefectures due to expire on Feb.
13, the Asahi reported, citing several unidentified officials.
Ottawa Declares Emergency as Protests Intensify (5 p.m. NY)
Canada’s capital declared a state of emergency Sunday as police struggled to rein in ongoing protests against vaccine mandates.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, who declared the emergency, said in a statement that the increasingly rowdy demonstrations posed a “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents.” Hundreds of trucks continued to occupy the downtown area near Canada’s parliament with no sign that the protesters planned to leave.
The protests started in reaction to Canadian and U.S.
laws that went into effect in January, requiring truckers crossing the border to be fully vaccinated. They have since morphed into a rally against Covid restrictions more broadly.
Gottlieb Expects U.S.
Schools to Ease Masking (1:23 p.m. NY)
More U.S. schools are likely to begin lifting mask mandates soon as the overall risk from the omicron wave eases, said Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
“We can start to lean forward and take a little bit more risk and try to at least make sure that students in schools have some semblance of normalcy for this spring term,” Gottlieb, a Pfizer Inc.
board member, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “A lot of kids haven’t really known a normal school day for two years now.”
He said, however, “we’re tragically still in this fight,” even as infections decline around the U.S.
“Some parts of the country still are in the thick of their omicron wave, coming down, but still in the thick of it,” he said.
Tributes to India’s ‘Nightingale’ (11:55 p.m. NY)
India’s central bank postponed its interest-rate review by a day as the nation and its neighbors mourn the death of celebrated singer Lata Mangeshkar after being diagnosed with Covid-19.
She was 92.
The Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy committee will now meet Feb. 8-10, the authority said in a statement late Sunday. Its decision will be announced Thursday.
Mangeshkar, known as the “Nightingale of India,” received her home country’s highest civilian award during a career spanning more than six decades, as well as love and respect for her music from across the subcontinent.
She had been hospitalized since Jan. 8 after testing positive.
Australia to Reopen to Tourists (11:49 a.m. NY)
Australia plans to open its borders to international tourists as soon as possible, a government minister said Sunday, following a report that they will be allowed back by the end of February after a Covid-related hiatus of almost two years.
“We are getting ready to open as soon as we can,” Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said in an ABC TV interview.
“We don’t have all the information we need to be able to take the decision, but we are very close.”
Overseas tourists could be back within two or three weeks, the Herald Sun paper reported earlier on Sunday, citing an unnamed senior government source.
An announcement from the government may come as soon as Monday following a meeting of the National Security Committee, the paper said.
U.K. Cases Lowest Since December (11:22 a.m. NY)
The U.K.
reported another 54,095 cases on Sunday, the lowest figure since Dec. 12. Infections have been declining since the omicron wave peaked in early January, with the seven-day average down 5% to 83,474. Another 75 fatalities were reported Sunday.
The country has stopped requiring those who test positive on lateral-flow devices to confirm the result with a laboratory PCR test.
However, reinfections are also included as of last week.
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