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Extraordinary measures to fight Covid-19, including a ban on singing and chanting at events and a mask mandate for all participants, will be in place for the delayed Tokyo Games when they get under way in July 2021. Olympic organising officials unveiled the rules on February 3, 2021, acknowledging that the Games thi…
Pakistan received about half a million doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine on February 1, 2021. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi have thanked China for the donation. On February 2, Khan attended the launch of Pakistan’s nationwide Covid-19 vaccine drive.
Hong Kong’s new temporary Covid-19 hospital in North Lantau will go into service in February. The new facility is built to house patients with mild symptoms. It was completed in just four months, using the “modular integrated construction” (MiC) method. With the rise of Covid-19 cases in the city, this new hospital …
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on February 2, 2021 that one of the Covid-19 vaccines procured by the government is set to arrive in the city by the end of this month. Officials authorised the Fosun Pharma-BioNTech vaccine in January. Lam said the inoculation programme “will be able to star…
With a black bowler, walking cane, fake moustache and a little eyeliner, 28-year-old Pakistani Usman Khan dons the familiar costume of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Tramp” character. He strolls the streets of Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar in character, dodging traffic or even interrupting a ping-pong match at a …
China normally holds its most important annual political meetings in March, when the top political advisory body and national legislature gather. But in 2020, the meetings were postponed to May 22, 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic. Although the “two sessions” take place only days apart on the political cale…
Kawaii Monster Cafe, an iconic cafe and show venue that symbolises Japan’s cute “kawaii” pop culture, opened its doors for the last time on January 31, 2021. Once a hotspot for tourists and celebrities, the cafe’s operator decided to close the restaurant as business dried up amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has admitted he was “not in good health” after he was elected to another term as the country’s top leader. The 76-year-old said on February 1, 2021, that he was “old” and “wanted to rest” following the conclusion of the week-long national party congress. Tro…
A team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) visited the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, on January 31, 2021, as part of a long-delayed mission to trace the origins of the pandemic. 14 scientists and WHO officials are spending a month in China as part of the investigation.
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A team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) visited Wuhan's Huanan seafood market on January 31, 2021, as part of their investigations into the origins of the coronavirus. The Huanan market was linked to the earliest known cluster of Covid-19 cases, but its precise role in the outbreak has yet to be d…
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A World Health Organization team has kicked off on-the-ground investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China. The experts visited the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine on January 29, 2021, which treated some of the first known Covid-19 patients in the init…
A World Health Organization team visited the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine on January 29, 2021, as it kicked off investigations into the origins of Covid-19, in Wuhan, China. They spoke to doctors who treated some of the first known Covid-19 patients in the early days of the pa…
A supermarket chain in Britain has started offering Covid-19 vaccinations. Retail giant Asda partnered with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) to set up a centre for giving the jabs in West Bromwich on January 28, 2021. The company also converted a clothing department at its Birmingham store into a temporary vac…
Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Warsaw on January 28, 2021, to protest against a Polish government move to start implementing an abortion ban based on a ruling by one of the country’s top courts. Poland's Constitutional Tribunal decided in October 2020, to ban all abortions except in cases of rape, …
The volume of China’s railway cargo to Europe has set records last year. China State Railway Group said 12,400 China-Europe freight train trips were made in 2020, up 50 per cent compared to the previous year. The train service is also used to transport medical supplies from China to Europe amid the Covid-19 pandemic…
Beijing residents are lining up to get Covid-19 tests as China starts its annual Lunar New Year travel rush. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to make their way back home for the holiday, which begins on February 12 this year. Authorities have introduced strict travel restrictions as the country sees a res…
The World Health Organization (WHO) team sent to China to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic ended 14 days of hotel quarantine on January 28, 2021, kicking off the field portion of their month-long mission.
Japan began mock inoculations for Covid-19 vaccines in the city of Kawasaki on January 27, 2021. This was to prepare for the real vaccine roll-out, which has been slowed down by a lack of containers, dry ice and manpower. Japan is already one of the last major industrial countries to start mass vaccinations. Prime M…
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The Covid-19 pandemic has closed places of worship and halted religious gatherings around the world, but it has not stopped people of various religions from seeking solace in their faith. Here’s how some of the Buddhist, Catholic, Islamic and Jewish faithful have been coping during a time of great suffering and loss.
A golden retriever, Mao Mao, was filmed refusing to leave its owner when he uses a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to sleep in central China’s Henan province. His owner suffers from high blood pressure and heart disease, and has a danger of sudden cardiac arrests. From the first time its owner use…
The Seychelles announced on January 14, 2021, that visitors from all over the world who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 will be able to visit without going through quarantine. The rules for opening up the East African island country known for its beaches and giant tortoises, could point the way forward for tou…
Chinese President Xi Jinping held a virtual meeting with Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on January 27, 2021, to hear her annual work report. Xi said he was “very concerned and worried” about the city’s fourth wave of coronavirus infections and pledged Beijing’s utmost efforts to help fight the pandemic in the …
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Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said in parliament on January 27, 2021, that he felt “terribly sorry” for the nation’s health care system being unable to keep up with the strain of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the United Kingdom’s death toll from Covid-19 reached 100,000, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed regret and offered condolences as he said he takes “full responsibility”. Johnson made his remarks in a virtual press conference on January 26, 2021. Britain is the fifth nation in the world to reach the …
The Netherlands faced its worst civil unrest in four decades after a third night of rioting on January 25, 2021, against a government curfew aimed at curbing the coronavirus pandemic.
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Hong Kong-based engineering company Hanson Robotics is making plans to mass produce humanoid robots following its successful creation of Sophia, which became world famous when it was unveiled in 2016. Hanson officials say the company’s new robots will be able to help with health care, such as taking body temperature…
Nearly 70 per cent of the world’s footballs are manufactured in the city of Sialkot in eastern Pakistan. As the coronavirus pandemic that has forced the suspension of organised matches and most playgrounds to close, has left the Pakistani football production hub struggling to survive a massive drop in demand for foo…
Hong Kong is enduring its fourth wave, and sports facilities and gyms have now been closed for more than 140 days since the start of the pandemic. Heavy-handed restrictions on the entire industry have left locals with few options in terms of staying fit and active, says Patrick Blennerhassett. With no end in sight, …
Nearly 2 million people had been vaccinated in India as of January 25, 2021, about a week after the country launched the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drive. But even with airplanes and trucks rushing millions of doses of vaccines across the country from vaccine factories to the most remote villages, the coro…
Austrian company Nanographics made the first 3 dimensional image of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The real image, not a computer graphic or model of it, was unveiled by researchers from China's Tsinghua University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and the Austrian company Nanographics. The 3D scan of the …
Tse Chi Lop, the alleged ringleader of Asia’s biggest crime syndicate and one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in the Netherlands on January 22, 2021. The Chinese-born Canadian national was detained after Australia issued an Interpol request and warrant for his arres…
Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator under former US President Donald Trump, said he presented graphs she never made. In an interview released by American broadcast television CBS on January 24, 2021, Birx said Trump was given “parallel data streams” from another source on the Covid-19 p…
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Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said the Hong Kong government is “working very, very promptly” to get Covid-19 vaccines to the city. While speaking with the Post on January 21, 2021, Chan also thanked frontline healthcare workers and the people in the city for the effort against the coronavirus pa…
In an effort to help teach the public about how to respond to epidemics, Taiwan’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has created disease-related cartoon characters including one modelled on the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. The health agency recently introduced a calendar featuring 12 anime-style epidemic “charac…
A brewery in Cambodia has combined beer with yoga classes to help people relieve stress amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme first started in December 2020 during the country’s latest coronavirus lockdown, when restaurants and some venues were allowed to stay open.
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A fire broke out on January 21, 2021, at the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. Five people were killed in the accident in the city of Pune. The company said the fire was at a new facility it is building to increase the production of Covid-19 vaccines. It did not affect existing faci…
