/asia

Coronavirus: Japan reopens to business travel, students; Australians search for fake vaccination certificates | South China Morning Post
►https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3155220/coronavirus-japan-reopens-business-travel-students-singapore-launches

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Coronavirus: Japan reopens to business travel, students;
Japan on Monday began easing border controls for fully vaccinated visitors excluding tourists, responding to requests from the business community following a rapid decline in infections. The new rules allow business travellers to undergo quarantine for three days, down from the 10-day period formerly applied to vaccinated Japanese nationals and foreigners with residency in Japan when returning from business trips. Those seeking to stay in the country over the long term, including foreign students and workers on so-called technical internship programmes, from Monday morning can again apply for entry – but must undergo at least 10 days’ quarantine upon arrival. All travellers must have been fully inoculated with one of the three vaccines approved by the Japanese government – those developed by Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca. Companies need to submit documentation for business travellers, including planned itineraries and written pledges to follow antivirus measures while in Japan. A health ministry official said it may take a week or two before the first travellers granted shorter quarantine periods arrive in the country. Japan closed its borders to virtually all foreign visitors in January, except for those with special permits and for humanitarian purposes. Daily cases have fallen sharply since September, in a trend generally attributed to vaccinations and extensive mask-wearing. About 73 per cent of the population have been fully vaccinated. Japan saw no deaths from Covid-19 on Sunday for the first time in about 15 months, with just 162 infections reported nationwide.
The easing of border controls is part of the country’s move to gradually resume social and economic activity. The government is experimenting with package tours, at restaurants and sports events before further resumption of daily activities. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said Japan is considering allowing foreign tour groups by the end of the year after studying ways to control and monitor their activities.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#japon#sante#frontiere#circulation#vaccination#etudiant#business#economie

Coronavirus: Thailand ends quarantine for vaccinated visitors from China, US, Singapore, others | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3154374/coronavirus-thailand-ends-quarantine-vaccinated-visitors-china-us

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Coronavirus: Thailand ends quarantine for vaccinated visitors from China, US, Singapore, others From Monday, fully-inoculated travellers will be able to freely tour Thai beaches, temples and tropical islands after testing negative for Covid-19 on arrival. Elsewhere, Singapore is boosting the number of ICU beds, while hundreds of workers at seafood firms in south Vietnam have tested positive for Covid-19
Thailand is ending quarantine for vaccinated visitors from more than 60 countries including China, India, Japan, Singapore and the US, in the biggest reopening gamble in Asia and one that could mark a turning point for the revival of mass tourism during the pandemic. From Monday, fully-vaccinated travellers will be able to freely tour Thailand’s sandy beaches, temples and tropical islands after testing negative for Covid-19 on arrival.
Inoculated visitors from countries not on the list can travel to Bangkok and 16 other regions, but they will be confined to their initial destination for the first seven days before being allowed to travel elsewhere.
It is the biggest step Thailand has taken to welcome back a slice of the nearly 40 million visitors it hosted the year before the pandemic, and is billed as a “fight to win foreign tourists” as countries from Australia to the UK also loosen Covid-19 curbs.A successful Thai experiment could help salvage its battered economy and serve as a model for countries wary of a virus resurgence from reopenings.To boost the confidence of tourists and the public, Thailand is linking the reopening to a higher vaccination rate, which “is a measured approach that has a lot of logic to it”, according to Amar Lalvani, chairman of US boutique hotel operator Standard International.
Meanwhile in Australia, the government will from November 21 allow fully vaccinated travellers from Singapore to travel to the country without quarantine, starting with New South Wales and Victoria, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Sunday.It will be up to the other Australian states and territories to decide if they similarly want to accept vaccinated travellers without the need for 14 days of hotel quarantine, according to the report.The decision follows an announcement by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) earlier this week on extending the vaccinated travel lane to Australia and Switzerland, which will allow vaccinated travellers from both countries to enter Singapore without the need for quarantine from November 8.
Singapore Transport Minister S Iswaran called it a “significant move”.
“Families and loved ones can reunite, students can resume their studies, and businesspeople and tourists can once again travel,” Iswaran said in a Facebook post on Sunday.Singapore is increasing the number of hospital beds in intensive care units as serious Covid-19 infections in the current outbreak remain at an elevated level.Authorities will set up 280 ICU beds this week, up from about 200 now, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said in a Facebook post on Sunday. About 70 per cent of Singapore’s ICU beds are occupied, he said.“Our hospital capacity is dynamic – we step them up as the number of cases that require acute or ICU care goes up, and vice versa,” Ong said. “But with each increase, health care workers will come under even greater strain. There is a human limit.” Singapore is trying to ease the strain on the health care system by maintaining domestic restrictions at least until late November, including limiting social gatherings to two people.Janil Puthucheary, senior minister of state at the health ministry, will give an update in Parliament on Monday on the ICU situation and hospital capacity. He will also explain the possible course of action and the trade-offs Singapore is facing, Ong said.Singapore has one of the highest inoculation rates in the world, allowing its government to open borders up with vaccinated travel lanes including to parts of Europe, Australia, Canada and the US.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#thailande#australie#singapour#sante#vaccination#frontiere#circulation#tourisme#retour

Coronavirus: Singapore expands no-quarantine scheme for vaccinated travellers despite reporting record cases | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3152808/coronavirus-singapore-expands-no-quarantine-scheme

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Coronavirus: Singapore expands no-quarantine scheme for vaccinated travellers despite reporting record cases
Singapore on Tuesday began quarantine-free entry for fully vaccinated passengers from eight countries, part of a plan to ease restrictions as the business hub gears up to live with the coronavirus.This came as its health ministry reported 3,994 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic, while it recorded seven new deaths from the disease.The latest easing expanded a programme that began with vaccinated air travel lanes with Germany and Brunei last month, and is now open to passengers from the United States, Canada, Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.Singapore Airlines said flights under the scheme were expected to depart from Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles and New York on Tuesday.“We have seen very strong demand for our Vaccinated Travel Lane flights,” it said. “This is across all cabin classes, as well as various travel segments including leisure, families, and business travel.”Passengers arriving as part of this scheme – which will include South Korea from November 15 – will not have to quarantine if they have been fully vaccinated and test negative for the virus before they depart and when they arrive.To enable families to travel, Singapore has allowed entry to unvaccinated children aged 12 years and under if they are accompanied by someone flying under the scheme.In the almost deserted tourist district, restaurant manager Raj Samuel said he was optimistic about the potential for more business.“I think it’s an excellent move by the country to help open up the economy … especially for the food and beverage sector,” the 36-year-old said.Kylie Jens, a 29-year-old lawyer from New Zealand based in Singapore, said she was planning to go to Britain for Christmas under the scheme.“Singapore is just such a small island, it’s nice to have a chance to get away and know that that’s possible pretty soon,” she said.
The city state initially fought the Covid-19 pandemic by shutting borders, imposing lockdowns of varying intensity and aggressive contact tracing. But with more than 80 per cent of the population fully vaccinated, authorities are keen to revive the economy. “Singapore cannot stay locked down and closed off indefinitely,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said earlier this month when he announced a raft of measures under the “Living with Covid-19” strategy.“The Delta variant is highly infectious, and has spread all over the world. Even with the whole population vaccinated, we still will not be able to stamp it out,” he said. “Almost every country has accepted this reality.”The regional offices of thousands of multinational corporations are in Singapore, which rely on its status as a business and aviation hub for their operations.“We must continue to reopen our borders safely,” Lee said. “Companies and investors need to carry out regional and global business from Singapore. People working for them need to travel to earn a living.”
Vaccinated travel is a “very significant step forward in re-establishing Singapore’s role as one of the Asia-Pacific’s leading international hubs for finance, regional headquartering and commercial aviation,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit.The scheme may also provide a shot in the arm for the pandemic-hammered airline and tourism industries, analysts said. Before the pandemic, tourism accounted for about 5 per cent of Singapore’s GDP, said Song Seng Wun, a regional economist with CIMB Private Banking. “We used to get 1.6 million tourists every month, our airport used to handle over a thousand flights a day pre-pandemic. Now it is just over 300 flights a day,” he said. Statistics from the Singapore tourism board showed international visitor arrivals plunging to less than 2.8 million last year from a record 19.1 million in 2019. Allowing in travellers without quarantine “instils a bit of fear” in some people, said Singaporean Simon Chow, 22, but added that people need to live with the virus. “At the end of the day, we’re a country that needs travel.”

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#sante#frontiere#circulation#vaccination#quarantaine#tourisme#economie#asie#pacifique

Coronavirus: Fiji to reopen for tourism | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3151754/coronavirus-sydney-nears-freedom-day-30-million-fully

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Coronavirus: Fiji to reopen for tourism Fiji will ease Covid-19 restrictions and announce its reopening for international travel after the country hit a vaccination milestone. Changes to the country’s virus restrictions would be announced on Sunday afternoon after 80 per cent of the adult population received both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said. Last month officials said once the target was reached, Fiji would reopen travel for “green list” locations, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Singapore and parts of the United States.Visitors must be fully vaccinated and test negative for Covid-19 before departure under the previously announced plan. Once in Fiji, they would stay in designated zones where all contacts, from hospitality staff to tour operators, would be fully vaccinated.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#fidji#sante#frontiere#pandemie#tourisme#Australianouvellezelande#japon#canada#coreedusud#singapour#etatsunis#vaccination

Coronavirus: WHO sending aid to North Korea through China border | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3151498/coronavirus-who-sending-aid-north-korea-through-china-border

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Coronavirus: WHO sending aid to North Korea through China border. The WHO said it recently began sending medical supplies through China’s Dalian port, although it did not elaborate if the aid had actually reached North Korea

In the WHO’s latest weekly report for South and East Asia, which covers the period to the end of September, it said it had begun shipments through China’s Dalian port, which is near the border with North Korea.“To support DPR Korea with essential Covid-19 medical supplies, WHO started the shipment through Dalian port, China, for strategic stockpiling and further dispatch to DPR Korea,” the agency said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name. The WHO did not elaborate on whether the aid had actually reached North Korea, and a spokesperson for the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.North Korea imposed tough restrictions when the pandemic began last year, sealing its borders and other measures in what it saw as a matter of national survival. It had tested at least 40,700 people for the coronavirus with no positive results as of Sept. 23, the WHO reported. An official for South Korea’s unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, told the Yonhap news agency that while Chinese customs data showed that maritime shipping routes between North Korea and China appeared to be opening, signs of movement of goods through land routes between the two countries had not been detected.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#coreedunord#chine#sante#circulation#frontiere#aidemedicale#pandemie

Coronavirus: no international tourists to Australia until 2022 | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3151213/coronavirus-no-international-tourists-australia-until-2022

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Coronavirus: no international tourists to Australia until 2022; Singapore reports biggest daily rise in cases. Skilled migrants and students will be given priority after Australians when borders reopen from November, PM Scott Morrison said

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said international tourists will be welcomed only after fully vaccinated residents, skilled workers and students are able to enter the country.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said international tourists will be welcomed only after fully vaccinated residents, skilled workers and students are able to enter the country. International tourists will not be welcomed back to Australia until next year, with the return of skilled migrants and students given higher priority, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday.Australia was also expected to reach the vaccination benchmark on Tuesday at which the country could begin to open up: 80 per cent of the population aged 16 and older having a second shot. Last week, Morrison outlined plans to allow vaccinated citizens and permanent residents to fly overseas from November for the first time since an extraordinarily tough travel ban took effect in March last year. But Morrison on Tuesday said that after Australians, the next priority would be skilled migrants and international students entering Australia before tourists.
Australian immigration has been at its lowest since World War II because of coronavirus pandemic restrictions. The pandemic has also had a disastrous effect on Australian universities that rely heavily on fees paid by international students. The education sector fears that students will enrol in other countries unless Australia opens its border to them soon.“The next priorities are skilled migrants that are very important for the country and who are double vaccinated, as well as students who are coming and returning to Australia for their studies,” Morrison told Seven Network television. “We will get to international visitors as well, I believe next year.”
The Australian Tourism Export Council, which represents a sector that made A$45 billion (US$33 billion) a year from international tourists before the pandemic, wants international visitors to return by March.Australia is racing to inoculate its population as an outbreak of the more contagious Delta variant that began in Sydney in June continues to spread..

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#australie#sante#pandemie#immigration#tourisme#travailleurqualifié#politiquemigratoire#vaccination#retour#etudiant#economie

Coronavirus: Australia to reopen border for vaccinated residents from November; Japan’s state of emergency ends | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3150825/coronavirus-japans-state-emergency-ends-cases-fall

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Coronavirus: Australia to reopen border for vaccinated residents from November; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday said the country would begin to reopen its borders next month, 18 months after citizens were banned from travelling overseas without permission.
Morrison said vaccinated Australians would be able to return home and travel overseas “within weeks” as 80 per cent vaccination targets are met.
For the last 560 days, countless international flights have been grounded, and overseas travel has slowed to a trickle. Families have been split across continents, an estimated 30,000 nationals were stranded overseas and foreign residents were stuck in the country unable to see friends or relatives. More than 100,000 requests to enter or leave the country were denied in the first five months of this year alone, according to Department of Home Affairs data.“The time has come to give Australians their life back. We’re getting ready for that, and Australia will be ready for take-off, very soon,” Morrison said. He also announced that inoculated residents would be able to home quarantine for seven days on their return, dodging the current mandatory and costly 14-day hotel quarantine.The exact timing of the border reopenings will depend on when Australian states reach their 80 per cent vaccination targets, and crucially on local political approval.The most populous state of New South Wales currently has 64 per cent of those aged over 16 fully vaccinated, and has indicated it will hit 70 and 80 per cent targets this month.Australian flag carrier Qantas welcomed the decision, announcing it would restart flights to London and Los Angeles on November 14.But most Australian states – notably West Australia and Queensland – still have no widespread community transmission, are maintaining a “Covid-zero” strategy.Responding to the announcement, WA Premier Mark McGowan said he did not expect international travel to return to his state until 2022, and would not set a date for lifting even domestic borders.
McGowan described life in Melbourne under the current lockdown as a “bleak, dim, hard, dark place” compared to a “pre-Covid” lifestyle in his state. He shrugged off concerns that it could mean Sydneysiders would more easily travel to Paris than Perth. “If that means in the interim, we don’t have mass deaths. We don’t have huge dislocation in our economy,” he said. “Well then, I think the choice is clear; we wait till it’s safe.”

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#australie#sante#pandemie#frontiere#retour#vacinnation#zerocovid

Coronavirus: Thailand, Japan cut quarantine for vaccinated travellers | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3150247/australian-pm-plans-border-reopening-new-south-wales-seeks

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Coronavirus: Thailand, Japan cut quarantine for vaccinated travellers
Thailand will halve its quarantine to seven days as it seeks to revive its tourism-dependent economy, while Japan will cut it from 14 to 10 days
Thailand agreed to halve its mandatory quarantine to seven days for fully vaccinated visitors starting next month, and will remove any isolation period for such travellers in 10 key provinces including Bangkok in November to help revive its tourism-dependent economy. The country’s main Covid-19 task force also approved the reopening of a variety of businesses and services, including theatres, sports venues and nail salons, as of October 1, when a nightly curfew in many parts of the country will be cut by one hour, according to spokesman Taweesilp Visanuyothin. The new curfew hours will be from 10pm to 4am. The Southeast Asian nation previously delayed and adjusted its tourism-reopening programme several times due to low vaccination rates and concerns that the easing of rules would enable infections and hospitalisation to surge again. The programme began in July in the resort island of Phuket, after a high number of vaccine doses were delivered and administered.The latest decisions by the virus panel, chaired by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, are part of its “living with Covid” strategy to restart the economy, while maintaining infections at a level that does not overwhelm Thailand’s health care system. The moves come after the pace of inoculations have been ramped up to major population and economic centres, with as many as 1 million doses administered daily in the past week. Before the pandemic in 2019, Thailand’s tourism sector attracted nearly 40 million visitors annually and generated about US$60 billion per year. Various plans to ease restrictions on both domestic and international travel, as well as an array of businesses have been hampered by vaccine shortages and clusters of infections in markets and factories.
Quarantine days for unvaccinated air travellers cut to 10 days from 14
Japan to shorten quarantine for vaccinated travellers. The Japanese government also said on Monday it will ease quarantine rules for people vaccinated against Covid-19 entering the country starting October 1, shortening the required period for self-isolating at home from 14 days to 10 days as it looks to restart international travel.
People who have been fully vaccinated will be able to go outside as long as they test negative for the virus after 10 days following their arrival, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference. Only shots developed by Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca are eligible. People travelling from any of 45 countries including Britain, India and the Philippines had been required to spend three of the 14 days in a government-designated facility, but will no longer be required to do so if they are fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Japan plans to lift its Covid-19 state of emergency, which covers 19 prefectures, in all of the regions at the end of September, broadcaster NHK reported on Monday.Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he discussed easing measures with relevant ministers on Monday, and would seek the views of a government panel of advisers on Tuesday.“We will make a final decision on the matter based on the advice and discussions we have with the government expert panel tomorrow,” he told reporters on Monday evening.If approved, Japan would be free of such emergency restrictions for the first time in nearly six months. Current measures require restaurants to close early and refrain from serving alcohol. People have been asked to avoid non-urgent outings and refrain from crossing prefectural borders.
Japan saw a spike in cases over the summer as it struggled to contain the contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, reaching a record high of 25,000 new daily infections. However, that number has dropped in recent weeks, and the country recorded just over 2,000 cases on Sunday. Over 57 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#thailande#japon#economie#tourisme#sante#frontiere#circurlation#vaccination

Coronavirus: South Korea reports record daily cases; Nepal resumes visas on arrival for vaccinated tourists | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/3150076/coronavirus-south-korea-reports-record-daily-cases-nepal-resumes-visas

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Nepal resumes visas on arrival for vaccinated tourists.
Nepal has restarted visas on arrival for vaccinated tourists as South Asian nations attempt to revive tourism businesses devastated after 18 months of the pandemic. A near travel shutdown has been in place in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka for more than a year as successive waves of coronavirus took a deadly toll. Nepal reopened to tourists and scrapped quarantine requirements for vaccinated foreigners on Thursday and its neighbours are expected to quickly follow as they seek to bolster linchpin industries in their economies.“The resumption of on-arrival visas is aimed at reopening the tourism sector which is one of the mainstays of Nepal’s economy,” said Tourism Ministry spokesman Tara Nath Adhikari.
Indians blast ‘racist’ UK quarantine decision for vaccinated travellers
21 Sep 2021. All visitors must still take a pandemic test on arrival and unvaccinated travellers have to quarantine for 10 days. The decision came just as monsoon clouds cleared for the autumn trekking season, and many are hopeful it will help drive up the arrivals.“So many have lost jobs and livelihoods. This decision is crucial for all of us and we are hopeful that at least some visitors will return,” said Nabin Trital of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal.Neighbouring India is soon to announce that it will give away 500,000 free tourist visas as it also starts to reopen after more than a year, officials said.The country had more than 12.5 million tourists in 2019 but lost hundreds of millions of dollars after the shutters came down in March last year.New Delhi is negotiating with international airlines to get scheduled flights resumed from main markets in North America and Europe, the officials said.Bhutan recently let in its first foreign tourist, an American who spent three weeks in quarantine.Vaccinated tourists began entering Sri Lanka in July, without having to quarantine if they test negative for Covid-19 on arrival.South Asia is highly dependent on tourism, which accounted for some 47 million jobs in 2019, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.But the pandemic left beaches and mountains deserted, from Everest to the Indian Ocean, and the fall in tourism played a major role in recessions seen by most of the countries last year.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#nepal#inde#bouthan#asiedusud#sante#tourisme#frontiere#circulation#vaccination

Coronavirus : Australia plans Christmas border reopening | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3149646/coronavirus-australia-plans-christmas-border-reopening

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Coronavirus: Australia plans Christmas border reopening;
plans to open its international border by Christmas at the latest, unwinding one of the world’s strictest controls on overseas travel since the pandemic began.Australians will be able to travel abroad, with no restrictions on the destination, once the vaccination rate in their respective home state hits 80 per cent, Tourism Minister Dan Tehan said at a National Press Club of Australia event on Wednesday. “People will be able to freely travel outside Australia with no restrictions” under the national plan governing the country’s emergence from Covid-19, Tehan said. Australians would still be subject to rules governing the countries they visit. The government is exploring opening travel bubbles with several countries to reduce quarantine time, and hopes home quarantine will be operational before Christmas, Tehan said. Meanwhile, hundreds took to the steps of a Melbourne war memorial on Wednesday in a third day of protest
against mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for the construction sector.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#australie#sante#pandemie#frontiere#bulledevoyage#vaccination

Coronavirus: Singapore eases curbs for migrant workers in dorms | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3148158/coronavirus-japan-extends-emergency-september-30-singapore

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Coronavirus: Singapore eases curbs for migrant workers in dorms Singapore’s manpower ministry on Thursday said it would begin easing measures for migrant workers living in dormitories, more than a year after imposing harsh movement restrictions that kept the labourers separated from the community.Under a pilot programme that begins on September 13, about 500 vaccinated workers from dormitories with a high inoculation rate and having had no Covid-19 cases in the past two weeks will be permitted to visit pre-identified locations for six hours each week.
The first area under the scheme is Little India, a neighbourhood popular with Singapore’s Indian community.The workers are required to take an antigen rapid test before and three days after the visit, the ministry added.
Separately, excursions to local attractions will resume and all other workers will also be allowed to visit recreation centres twice a week, up from once currently.Activists and migrant rights groups have long urged the government to loosen the strict measures imposed on the migrant workers.
There are 323,000 low-wage workers in the city state who take on jobs shunned by Singaporeans in industries such as construction and estate maintenance. Most of them live in mega-dormitories or quarters at construction sites.After a large Covid-19 outbreak swept through the dormitories last year, the workers had most of their movement curbed. They were subjected to regular testing and ferried from dormitories to workplaces with minimal interaction with the outside world. Meanwhile, Singapore is shifting the focus of its daily reports to hospitalisation to turn attention to its medical capacity alongside plans to manage the virus as endemic, as the city state’s daily count of Covid-19 cases in the local community rose to the highest it’s ever been.At 81 per cent, Singapore has the highest vaccination rate in the world among countries of more than 1 million people. Yet daily cases – the vast majority of which are mild or asymptomatic – are on the rise.
Migrant workers in Singapore fear job loss after coronavirus quarantine ends There’s signs that Singapore’s mass vaccination is holding down serious cases. While the overall number of daily local cases has doubled in the past week to 347, the number of serious infections requiring supplemental oxygen or intensive care is about the same as last week.
Singapore is changing the way it reports the Covid-19 situation. The Ministry of Health is now leading its daily report with data on serious cases in a shift that focuses attention on its hospital capacity instead of the rising number of cases.The city state will no longer report the number of linked and unlinked cases “as this is no longer as relevant as before, given our current strategy of living with Covid-19”, the ministry said in a statement accompanying its daily update, which will also be cut to once instead of twice a day from Thursday.“We are now in a very different stage of our battle against Covid-19,” the health ministry said. The revamped reports will “reflect the salient issues” such as whether hospital capacity is getting overwhelmed, it said.While the daily report doesn’t list Singapore’s system-wide capacity, previous statements suggest the city state isn’t anywhere close to its limits. For example, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung in July said as many as 1,000 ICU beds could be made available to Covid-19 patients if needed. Just six are in ICU now. At its peak, in April of 2020, there were as many as 32 people in ICU.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#singapour#sante#travailleurmigrant#dortoir
#vaccination#inclusion#quarantaine#economie#santepublique

Japan’s Olympics chief says there is ‘no way’ to prevent Covid-19 cases among visiting teams | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3139068/japans-olympics-chief-says-there-no-way-prevent-covid-19-cases

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Japan’s Olympics chief says there is ‘no way’ to prevent Covid-19 cases among visiting teams. Two members of Uganda’s team tested positive last week following their arrival in Japan, heightening concerns about the spread of infections at the Games ‘No matter what measures are put in place, there is no way we will have zero positive cases arriving,’ Yasuhiro Yamashita told reporters on Monday.
Q: Will Japan cave in to Olympics opposition?

Japan’s Olympic chief on Monday said there was “no way” to ensure zero coronavirus cases among teams arriving for the Tokyo Games
, as officials prepare to tighten screening procedures.Japanese Olympic Committee president Yasuhiro Yamashita said “thorough measures” would be necessary at airports, after two members of Uganda’s team tested positive last week following their arrival in Japan. The incident sparked concern among local governments planning to host Olympic delegations, with one governor saying they should be held at or near the airport if a member tested positive upon arrival.“No matter what measures are put in place, there is no way we will have zero positive cases arriving,” Yamashita told reporters on Monday. “Even if you’ve had two vaccine doses, it doesn’t guarantee every individual will be negative.“In order to make sure no clusters arise, we need to have thorough measures at the border at the time of entry to Japan,” Yamashita said, adding that daily virus testing would also help reduce the risk of infections spreading.
Yamashita, a former Olympic judo gold medallist, said he sympathised with the athletes, who will be confined to the village when they are not training or competing.Athletes must sign a written pledge promising to abide by antivirus rules in Tokyo, including staying away from tourist areas, shops and bars, limiting contact with other people, and not using public transport.
Japan PM rejects claims emperor ‘concerned’ Olympics could spread
Yamashita said: “How can international athletes have some time to relax and create some positive memories? Of course, the top priority is to make it safe and secure, but I think we need to make an effort to give athletes that kind of space.”Many Japanese remain sceptical about the possibility of safely holding even a scaled-down Games during the pandemic, which caused the event to be postponed last year.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#japon#sante#jeuxolympiques#contamination#variant#cluster#frontiere#circulation

Coronavirus: Singapore’s migrant workers remain segregated, weeks after new cases among them dropped to near zero | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3130225/coronavirus-singapores-migrant-workers-remain-segregated

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Coronavirus: Singapore’s migrant workers remain segregated, weeks after new cases among them dropped to near zero. Most workers remain confined to their dormitories, only able to mix with the wider community on ‘essential errands’ after requesting permission. The government is concerned that, until vaccination is widespread, dormitories remain potential sites for a fresh outbreak

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#singapour#sante#travailleurmigrant#segregation#dortoir#vaccination#etranger

Coronavirus: Thailand to allow vaccinated tourists to enter Phuket without quarantine | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3127125/coronavirus-india-suspends-astrazeneca-vaccine-exports-cases

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Coronavirus: Thailand to allow vaccinated tourists to enter Phuket without quarantine. Vaccinated visitors will be permitted to enter from July, after the resort island inoculates 70 per cent of its residents. Elsewhere, India has halted exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine as cases rise, while Indonesia is barring people from going to their hometowns for the Eid al-Fitr
Q: What you need to know about the Pfizer-BioNTech scare in Hong Kong
What you need to know about Hong Kong’s expanded Covid-19 vaccine driveHong Kong has widened its vaccination scheme, meaning 5.5 million people are now eligible. Photo: Nora Tam
What can Hong Kong do to give Covid-19 jabs drive a shot in the arm?
The BioNTech vaccine is one of two types available in Hong Kong.
What are booster shots, and could mixing Covid-19 vaccines boost immunity? Why has Hong Kong’s vaccine drive stumbled, and should side effects concern?
Hongkongers line up at a vaccination centre where the newly available BioNTech jab was being administered on Wednesday.
Q: When will Hong Kong, mainland China get Covid-19 shots?
The first of millions of Covid-19 vaccine jabs are expected to arrive in Hong Kong in early 2021.
Q: What do the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine efficacy results mean?
Confusion surrounds the results of a Sinovac Biotech vaccine clinical trial in Brazil.
Q: What are the coronavirus mRNA vaccines and how do they work?
What are mRNA vaccines, how do they work against Covid-19 and what are their implications for public health? Photo: AFP
Q: How many people need a Covid-19 vaccination to halt its spread?
The first Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines for Belgium are defrosted at a hospital. As vaccination against the virus is rolled out around the world, governments will be calculating how much of their people need to receive the vaccine to achieve herd immunity and allow a return to normality.
Q: Vaccines will save 2021? Not so fast, here’s what the experts think
Thai authorities agreed on Friday to allow foreigners inoculated against the coronavirusto travel to its biggest holiday island without undergoing quarantine, and announced a new order for five million more doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. With arrival numbers plummeting this past year, tourism-reliant Thailand is racing to secure vaccines for its population and reopen the country to foreigners in a pilot project for vaccine passports.
“If we can inoculate 50-60 per cent of the population we can open the country safely and move the economy and tourism forward,” senior health official Kiattiphum Wongraijit said.
Its main vaccination drive is expected to start in June, with the goal of immunising half of its population by year-end.It will receive an additional 5 million AstraZeneca doses, as well as 5 million more doses procured from Sinovac Biotech, the health ministry said on Friday. That would take its overall vaccine order to 73 million doses.The Covid-19 task force on Friday gave the green light to Phuket, a major tourist destination, to receive vaccinated visitors directly from July, without subjecting them to quarantine, after the island inoculates 70 per cent of its residents.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#thailande#sante#vaccination#tourisme#economie

Coronavirus: Singapore tightens travel rules for Hong Kong visitors amid surge in cases | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3113668/coronavirus-singapore-tightens-travel-rules-hong-kong

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Singapore’s border controls for people coming in from Hong Kong will be revised given the “deteriorating” Covid-19 outbreak in the Chinese city, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Friday.Travellers who have been to Hong Kong in the last 14 days and are entering Singapore from next Monday will need to serve a two-week stay-home notice at dedicated facilities.
From December 19, travellers from Hong Kong planning to enter Singapore must take a Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test within 72 hours before departure and present a valid negative test.
The PCR test does not apply to Singapore citizens and permanent residents. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) announced earlier this month that the launch of the Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble has been delayed to next year, with the exact start date to be reviewed in late December, given the Covid-19 situation in Hong Kong.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#chine#singapour#sante#test#voyageur#bullevoyage

Coronavirus: China, Japan set to resume business travel; Manila cuts curfew hours | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3106223/coronavirus-china-japan-set-resume-business-travel-manila-cuts

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Japan and China are expected to agree as early as this month on resuming travel by both short- and long-term businesspeople between the two countries, Japanese government sources said on Tuesday.
The nations are looking to revive their coronavirus-hit economies, the world’s second and third largest, through a restart of two-way business travel. Some 9.59 million people visited Japan from China in 2019, including around 370,000 for business, both the largest numbers among all countries and regions, according to the Japan National Tourism Organisation.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#japon#chine#sante#economie#business#circulation

Why Peru opened Machu Picchu for a single Japanese tourist | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3105234/japanese-tourist-stranded-peru-due-coronavirus-granted-special

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Jesse Takayama’s entry into the ruins came thanks to a special request he submitted while stranded since mid-March because of coronavirus
Minister of Culture said the stone ruins of Machu Picchu will be reopened for national and foreign tourists in Novembe

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#perou#japon#tourisme#sante

Coronavirus spurs discrimination towards Chinese, migrants, foreigners in Asia: IFRC | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3101918/coronavirus-spurs-discrimination-towards-chinese-migrants

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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned on Thursday that the novel coronavirus
is driving discrimination towards vulnerable communities in Asia
, including migrants and foreigners. The humanitarian agency surveyed 5,000 people in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Pakistan and found about half blamed a specific group for spreading the coronavirus, with many mentioning Chinese people, immigrants and foreigners.“It is particularly concerning that both national migrant and foreign workers are blamed for the spread of Covid-19 as they are quite vulnerable already,” said Dr Viviane Fluck, one of the lead researchers and the agency’s Asia-Pacific community engagement and accountability coordinator.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#asie#discrimination#travailleurmigrant#etranger#vulnerabilite#sante#immigrant

Coronavirus hits India’s remote Great Andamanese tribe, of whom only 53 people remain | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3099153/coronavirus-hits-indias-remote-great-andamanese-tribe

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“The Andaman authorities must act urgently to prevent the virus reaching more Great Andamanese and to prevent infection in the other tribes,” said Sophie Grig, a senior researcher with Survival.“The waters around North Sentinel must be properly policed and no outsiders should enter the territories of any of the Andaman tribes without their consent,” she said. “We’ve certainly seen in the US, in Brazil, in Peru, indigenous communities [being] disproportionately hit. In Brazil where there are more than a hundred uncontacted tribes still living, fear of the disease is getting into those communities.”

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#inde#insularite#sante#contamination#minorite#autochtone#circulation

Chinese students in Australia leave as coronavirus upends study | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3098250/chinese-students-australia-return-home-coronavirus-upends

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Just a few months after arriving in Sydney for a planned two-year stay, university students Maggie Zhang and boyfriend Sunny Gu sat down to make a “pros and cons” list about life in Australia. The list was very quickly unbalanced. On the positive side, staying to complete their Masters in Commerce at the University of Sydney would keep the couple, who had met in Australia, together.Weighing down the other side of the equation was a host of negatives, almost all spurred by the coronavirus pandemic

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#australie#chine#politiquemigratoire#sante#etudiant#retour