COVID digest: South Korean PM tests positive

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum tested positive for COVID on Thursday, his office said, as the country faces a wave of infections fuelled by the omicron variant. 

He is receiving treatment at home and meetings about containing the surge in cases will be led by other officials, his office said in a statement. "He was coughing a bit this morning but is now only having mild cold symptoms," an official told Reuters. 

Kim has steered the nation's COVID-19 control measures by holding meetings with other officials and experts, and visiting medical and educational institutes to check quarantine work and promote vaccination. 

Here are the latest coronavirus developments from around the world:

Asia 

Japan is set to extend border rules to allow more people to enter the country. The number of people who can enter Japan per day will be raised from 5,000 to 7,000.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is expected to announce the new measures, along with an extended coronavirus quasi-emergency, at a news conference on Thursday. 

The move will provide relief for some 150,000 foreign students, as well as workers who have not been able to enter Japan. While cases in the country are now falling, health care facilities remain strained. February was the deadliest month of the pandemic for Japan, said national broadcaster NHK, causing as many as 4,856 fatalities.

The subway operator, bus companies and one of the biggest supermarket chains in Hong Kong said they were reducing services this week, due to the worsening COVID-19 situation.

Daily infections have spiked since early February, even as authorities remained firm with their decision to follow the "dynamic zero" coronavirus strategy, similar to China. 

"We have been striving to maintain train service despite the worsening COVID-19 situation. However, the latest development of the pandemic is affecting the manpower for daily operations," said the city's subway operator MTR Corp on its website. 

Oceania

Authorities in New Zealand have voiced concern about the COVID-19 threat at the upcoming Women's Cricket World Cup.

The eight-nation event begins on Friday, when hosts New Zealand take on the West Indies.

Australia's star all-rounder Ashleigh Gardner tested positive, and will be missing the first two matches. "All remaining Australian players and support staff have tested negative following subsequent RATs (Rapid Antigen Tests), and will proceed with existing plans," said Cricket Australia in a statement.

Organizers will allow matches to be rescheduled in the event of an outbreak, but also have an extraordinary plan in an extreme scenario which would allow teams to field nine players and two substitutes drawn from their management contingents. 

Americas

Governor Ron DeSantis of the state Florida in the United States admonished a group of students for wearing masks at a press conference on Wednesday.

"You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it's not doing anything. We've got to stop with this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous," DeSantis, a fierce opponent of vaccine and mask mandates, told the students.

Europe

From Saturday, Greece will lift its requirement of wearing masks outdoors, as infections continue to recede. "But it is highly recommended to wear masks outdoors when there is a lot of crowding," added Health Minister Thanos Plevris.

Earlier this month, Greece once again allowed standing customers at bars and night entertainment
establishments. School excursions have also resumed. 

Global

A study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal has found that COVID-related restrictions led to a significant decline in dengue fever infections. The study found almost 750,000 fewer cases of dengue than expected globally in 2020, when the pandemic began.

"It was a strange trend that we didn't expect — a surprising result that opens the doors to thinking about conducting more detailed trials of interventions," said senior author Oliver Brady.

Scientists previously believed that dengue fever, caused by a virus spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is usually contracted indoors. However, a limit on peoples' movements and social interactions also seems to have affected spread of this disease. 

An experimental oral drug being developed by Redhill Biopharma blocks proteins that help the coronavirus infect cells, and may keep patients from being severely ill, said the company.

Meanwhile, a French study involving 7 million people found that those receiving Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine were five times as likely to be hospitalized, as compared to those who received the BioNTech-Pfizer shot.

By the time half the participants had been fully vaccinated for at least six weeks, there had been 129 hospitalizations among J&J vaccine recipients versus 23 among the BioNTech-Pfizer group, the researchers reported in JAMA Network.

Pfizer is expected to provide around 10 million courses of its COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid to low and middle-income countries this year. Health care nongovernmental organization Global Fund confirmed this, and said the pharma company would increase shipments later if organizations involved show they are able to distribute the pills. 

tg/nm (AFP, AP, Reuters)