Singapore's health officials Wednesday said the country is set to receive a batch of Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccines, as the government ramps up supplies to get as many people immunized as possible.
The Ministry of Health said the vaccines are the same as those of Pfizer-BioNTech's that are now used in the national inoculation campaign.
In Thailand, officials approved a proposal to allow isolation-free travel to the country's resort destination Phuket starting July 1, government representative Anucha Burapachaisri said.
The plan, called the "Phuket Sandbox," will allow foreign visitors to enter and travel freely on the island without undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine, as long as they've been fully immunized against the virus.
In Vietnam, 1 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine will be distributed to Vietnam weekly starting July to fulfil its order of 30 million shots within this year, according to health authorities.
Vietnam has had one of Asia's best records for containing the virus, but an outbreak since late April has hastened government efforts to increase vaccine supplies.
Over in Malaysia, the government has completed the procurement and payments for vaccine supplies to meet the demand for fast-track inoculation in the country.
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said he had directed government officials involved in the National Covid-19 Immunization Program to ask vaccine producers to provide Malaysia with the supplies faster.
In China, health authorities plan to keep border restrictions in place for at least another year in the wake of fears over the emergence of new variants, reports said.
The provisional timeframe for the second half of next year was set in a meeting of China's State Council in mid-May, The Wall Street Journal said.
In India, the country declared Tuesday a new coronavirus variant to be of concern, and said almost two dozen cases had been detected in three regions.
Identified domestically as "Delta Plus", the variant was detected in 16 cases in the state of Maharashtra, Federal Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.
In Indonesia, officials said they would tighten movement restrictions following an increase in infections, triggered by the Delta variant, that has overwhelmed the country's health system and forced tourism officials to reconsider proposals to reopen parts of Riau and Bali to international tourists.
Meanwhile, the United States will donate some 800,000 to 1 million vaccine doses to the Philippines next month, as the country continues to battle one of Asia's longest running outbreaks.
"We're going to get something close to 800 (thousand) to 1 million doses, either AstraZeneca or Moderna, from their stockpile, which is expected to be given to us by next month," Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Manuel Romualdez said.
Worldwide, there are currently 179 cases of Covid-19, with 3.88 deaths.
