More military personnel could start roaming the streets on strict patrol in Sydney starting next week to enforce lockdown protocols.
Sydney health authorities warned Friday of a surge in COVID-19 infections in Australia's biggest city after it registered its biggest daily increase in cases yet.
In China, officials rejected Friday the World Health Organization's calls for a renewed investigation into the origins of the virus, saying it is in favor of "scientific" over "political" efforts to determine how and where it originated.
The WHO urged China on Thursday to share data from the earliest known cases of the disease to revive its inquiry into its source.
In Hong Kong, a nurse who incorrectly injected a patient with two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine has been placed on suspension in the face of an ongoing probe by authorities.
Health officials said Thursday they were notified the day before that a 66-year-old man had received two doses of the BioNTech vaccine at the Yau Oi Sports Center in Tuen Mun. The man was later on sent to a hospital for monitoring.
In the Philippines, officials have found 177 more cases of the highly infections Delta variant, which was first detected in India. The country now has a total of 627 Delta cases, the Department of Health said Thursday.
Authorities said the effects of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) would take some time to be reflected in the pandemic statistics, and a steady rise in the number of infections can still be expected in the coming days.
Over in Malaysia, the country detected a new record of 21,667 infections Thursday, according to health officials.
The figure is the highest daily tally so far since the pandemic broke out.
Currently, Malaysia has 237,021 active cases, with 11,691 deaths.
In Thailand, the country posted 146 new deaths and a record 22,781 new infections over the previous 24 hours, officials said Thursday.
Thailand has 22,406 cases in the general population and 374 among prison inmates.
In Japan, the new COVID-19 cases in the country hit 15,811 Wednesday, surpassing the previous record of 15,752 on Saturday, based on a Kyodo News tally.
The country's capital, Tokyo, reported 4,201 new infections Wednesday as the number of severely sick people under the city's criteria rose by 21 to reach a record 196.
Worldwide, there are currently 205 million cases of COVID-19, with 4.33 million deaths.
