Hong Kong to ban dining in after 6pm, close pools bars and gyms; introduce flight bans - CNA

The global finance hub has stuck to a zero-Covid strategy by largely isolating itself from the world and enforcing a draconian and costly quarantine regime.

On Dec 31, a streak of three months without community cases ended with the first local transmission of the new Omicron variant.

Since then, authorities have scrambled to track down and test hundreds of people who had been in contact with a handful of Omicron patients. One patient, however, had no known links, raising fears of a large outbreak.

"We are worried there may be silent transmission chains in the community," Lam said. "Some confirmed cases had a lot of activities before being aware they got infected."

The latest contact tracing campaign was sparked by a patient who danced with some 20 friends in a central park on New Year's Eve. Two of the fellow dancers, one of whom was a domestic helper, came up positive in preliminary tests.

The helper's employer and eight other of her close contacts then went on a cruise journey on Jan 2.

As part of its coronavirus restrictions, Hong Kong has restricted cruises to short trips in nearby waters, with ships asked to operate at reduced capacity and to only allow vaccinated passengers who test negative for the virus.

The "Spectrum of the Seas" ship, which returned a day early, had about 2,500 passengers and 1,200 staff on board. The nine close contact passengers were isolated from the rest of the people on board and preliminary tests taken during the journey returned negative results, authorities said.

"Spectrum of the Seas is taking appropriate measures under guidelines by the Department of Health," Royal Caribbean told Reuters in a statement.

The nine close contacts were sent to a quarantine centre, while the rest of the passengers and staff will have to undergo several compulsory tests in coming days, the government said.

Additionally, people who have been to dozens of places across Hong Kong around the same time as the close contacts of recent patients have been issued compulsory testing notices, the government said in a separate statement.

Victoria Park, in downtown Hong Kong, the newly-opened M+ modern art museum, ferry piers, restaurants, stores, clinics were among the places listed.

Gabriel Leung, University of Hong Kong dean of medicine and a government adviser, told public broadcaster RTHK there were probably "five-to-10 invisible transmission chains" in the city.

"There’s no time to waste," Leung said. "We need circuit-breaker measures."

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2022-01-05 08:41:00Z
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Djokovic will defend Australian Open title after exemption from COVID-19 vaccination - CNA

MELBOURNE: World number one Novak Djokovic said on Tuesday (Jan 4) he would defend his Australian Open title at Melbourne Park later this month after receiving a medical exemption from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Djokovic, who had declined to reveal his COVID-19 vaccination status, said previously that he was unsure whether he would compete at the Grand Slam due to concerns over Australia's quarantine rules.

"I've spent fantastic quality time with my loved ones over the break and today I'm heading Down Under with an exemption permission. Let's go 2022," the Serbian player said on Instagram.

Organisers of the Australian Open, which starts on Jan 17, had stipulated that all participants must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or have a medical exemption granted by an independent panel of experts.

But Djokovic pulled out of the Serbia team for the ATP Cup in Sydney to raise doubts over his participation in the year's first Grand Slam in Melbourne.

"I am ready to live and breathe tennis in the next few weeks of competition. Thanks everyone for the support," Djokovic added in his statement, which was accompanied by a picture of him in an airport.

Djokovic has won a record nine Australian Open titles, including the last three, and is in a three-way tie on 20 majors with Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal in the all-time list.

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2022-01-04 10:44:00Z
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Vietnam urges China to urgently reopen border gates as trade stalls - CNA

HANOI: Vietnam's trade ministry asked China's Guangxi authorities to take urgent measures to ease congestion at border crossings after China stepped up its border controls with neighbours to follow zero COVID-19 policies, state media reported.

Pictures and video footage from state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) showed thousands of trucks were held up at the border following reports that imported COVID-19 cases had been detected in Guangxi province.

"Anti-virus prevention measures that Guangxi is applying under the 'zero COVID' policies, including closing border gates or stopping fruit imports, are over-necessary," VNA reported, citing a trade ministry statement.

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2022-01-02 09:06:08Z
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Climate change, new construction mean more ruinous fires in the US - CNA

Many whose homes were spared remained without power while temperatures dropped to the single digits. The blaze burned at least 24 sq km.

The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, but experts say it's clear what allowed it to spread so fast.

“With any snow on the ground, this absolutely would not have happened in the way that it did,” said Keith Musselman, a snow hydrologist in Boulder.

“It was really the grass and the dry landscape that allowed this fire to jump long distances in a short period of time.”

Three ingredients were needed to start this fire – fuels, a warm climate and an ignition source, said Jennifer Balch, a fire scientist with the University of Colorado, Boulder. “And then you add a fourth ingredient, wind, and that's when it became a disaster.”

Temperatures in Colorado between June and December were the warmest on record, Balch said. The grasses grew thick because they had a wet spring, but saw no moisture until snow flurries arrived Friday night.

“All of Colorado is flammable, our grasses are flammable, our shrubs are flammable, our trees are flammable," Balch said.

"This is a dry landscape that is flammable for good chunks of the year, and those chunks of time are getting longer with climate change."

The lesson learned throughout this event is that the “wildland-urban interface is way bigger than we thought it was”, Balch said. That means a wider area is under threat of wildfire.

That border area, where structures built by people meet undeveloped wildland prone to fire, has always been the foothills, she said.

Firefighters in Boulder consider the interface west of Broadway, a busy road that passes through the centre of town. But Thursday's fire sparked east of that line, next to thousands of houses that have sprouted up on the east side of the Rockies since the 1990s, Balch said.

“There were stretches between Denver and Fort Collins that had no development, but now it’s just like one long continuous development track,” Balch said. “And those homes are built with materials that are very flammable — wood siding, asphalt roofing.

"We need to completely rethink how we’re building homes.”

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2022-01-02 06:06:00Z
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China to extend preferential tax policies for foreigners until end-2023 - CNA

BEIJING : China will extend preferential income tax policies for foreigners residing in the country to Dec. 31, 2023, the finance ministry said on Friday, as part of measures to ease the burden on taxpayers.

Previously, China said benefits and allowances for foreigners including housing rental and education for their children would cease to be income tax-exempt starting Jan. 1, 2022.

In recent days, the government has pledged to further cut taxes and fees in 2022 to support struggling businesses. China will also extend some favourable income tax policies to ease the burden for middle- and low-income groups.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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2022-01-01 02:59:21Z
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Alaska faces 'Icemageddon' as temperatures swing wildly - CNA

LOS ANGELES: Extreme weather in Alaska that has brought record high temperatures and torrential downpours has left authorities in the far northern US state warning of "Icemageddon".

Huge sheets of ice are blocking roads and choking traffic in Fairbanks, Alaska's second largest city, reported the state's transportation department, which has coined the neologism - a play on "Armageddon" - to describe the chilly impasse.

"We're experiencing an unprecedented series of winter storms," the department tweeted.

Scientists say the unchecked burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is changing the climate, making it more unpredictable and prone to wild swings.

Rick Thoman, a weather specialist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, called the conditions of the past few days "very unusual".

Hours after thermometers on Kodiak Island in the south reached 19.4 degrees Celsius - the warmest December temperature ever recorded in Alaska - the interior of the state saw 25mm of rain fall in just a few hours, a downpour unseen in decades.

Then when temperatures plummeted again, it all froze.

The rainstorm was caused by the same weather system that brought the soaring temperatures, transporting warm, moist air from Hawaii to the frigid far north.

This kind of thing - record high moisture content, record warm air - is exactly what we expect, of course, in our warming climate.

Unsettled weather was continuing to play havoc with flights in an out of Sea-Tac International Airport in Seattle, with hundreds of flights cancelled or delayed this week.

In California, snow and persistent rain also continue to cause problems, with localised flooding forcing evacuations in areas around Los Angeles.

In the north of the state, the tourist magnet of Lake Tahoe - where forest fires a few months ago caused residents to flee - has been buried in heavy snow, leaving some people cut off.

More than 5m of snow have now fallen on parts of the Sierra Nevada mountain range this month, an all-time record, according to the Central Sierra Nevada Snow Laboratory at University of California at Berkeley.

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2021-12-31 02:32:00Z
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Worst stage of the Covid-19 pandemic may end in 2022, WHO chief says - South China Morning Post

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1. Worst stage of the Covid-19 pandemic may end in 2022, WHO chief says  South China Morning Post
2. Deaths in 2021: Headline Names Against the Backdrop of Pandemic  The New York Times
3. 2022 year in preview  The Washington Post
4. The Pandemic Year 2021: Man vs Virus Fight, Global Vaccination Drives, and More | In GFX  News18
5. 5 Ways the Pandemic Will Be Different in 2022  AARP
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2021-12-30 09:00:15Z
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