COVID: 'Cancel' Olympic torch relay in Osaka, say officials

The governor of Japan's western Osaka prefecture and mayor of Osaka city have called for the cancellation of the Olympic torch relay in its largest city, amid concerns over rising coronavirus cases.

The request has come less than four months ahead of the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics' start date.

Osaka prefecture and two others have been selected on Thursday to come under strict new measures to curb COVID-19 infections. The new rules, an expansion of those previously in operation in Tokyo, go into force on Monday and last until May 5.

"When I watch the torch relay elsewhere in Japan, people tend to gather and those places get crowded," Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui said Thursday. "It's very unfortunate but I think we should call it off."

Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura echoed the mayor: "I think the torch relay through the middle of Osaka should be canceled."

There was confusion over whether the relay in Osaka was officially off: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga suggested on Thursday that the Osaka relay was cancelled. But Tokyo organizers quickly said that was not the case and a decision had not yet been made.

The relay is being seen as the first major test of the Games in holding a large-scale event while implementing stringent health protocols.

The relay kicked off in tsunami-hit Fukushima last week. Around 10,000 runners are set to carry the torch through the country's 47 prefectures over 121 days.

Americas

Seattle-based company Amazon said it plans to bring its employees back into the office in the second half of the year to return to an "office-centric culture." Amazon was one of the first large companies to send its workers home during the first outbreak of COVID-19 in the Seattle area in March 2020.

Europe

Germany has reported a total of 24,300 new COVID cases within 24 hours, according to the country's Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases. This is around 1,600 more than the same time last week. In addition, the seven-day incidence has increased to 134.2, up from 132.3 on Wednesday. The seven-day incidence measures the number of cases per 100,000 residents within this time period.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has received his first dose of the vaccine produced by AstraZeneca, his office announced. The news comes just two days after German authorities recommended the jab only to those aged 60 and over.

France will prohibit the consumption of alcoholic drinks in parks and other outdoor public spaces as part of the new limited nationwide lockdown, Prime Minister Jean Castex has announced.

Castex also said authorities would be quick to disperse groups of more than six people on riverbanks or squares after the new restrictions were issued by President Emmanuel Macron late Wednesday.

Castex said he "unreservedly" condemned those who had not been respecting the rules, after images emerged of crowds enjoying the spring sunshine with beverages in cities such as Paris and Lyon.

Poland has unexpectedly opened vaccine registrations for people aged over 40, in a sudden shift that led to so many applications that the website crashed.

More than 2 million Poles have so far received both shots of a vaccine, but the prime minister's chief of staff, Michal Dworczyk, who has been put in charge of the rollout, said a reluctance to register among older people meant the government had decided to widen access.

The development came as Poland registered a new daily record of 35,251 coronavirus cases on Thursday.

Ukraine has reported a record daily high of COVID deaths for the second day in a row, according to the country's health minister Maksym Stepanov.

There have been 421 coronavirus-related deaths over 24 hours, breaking the previous high of 407 deaths, reported by Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday.

In Austria, two provinces are joining capital Vienna in in extending their restrictions by five days over the Easter break, until April 11.

Burgenland, which borders Hungary and Lower Austria have introduced the lockdowns because their hospitals are approaching their full intensive-care capacity. They have high levels of the dangerous British coronavirus variant and infections are rising.

Africa

India's temporary hold on major exports of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot will undermine Africa's vaccination plans and could have a "catastrophic" impact if extended, the head of the continent's disease control body John Nkengasong has warned.

More than half of Africa's vaccines have come through the COVAX global vaccine initiative. But the Serum Institute of India recently announced that as many as 90 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine destined for COVAX will be delayed through the end of April due to a national spike in infections

Asia and Oceania

Uzbekistan on Thursday began coronavirus vaccinations, offering citizens a choice between AstraZeneca and a Chinese-made vaccine that the Central Asian country plans to start producing soon.

Uzbekistan has received over 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the Covax global inoculation program. The republic of 34 million people is targeting medics and citizens over 65 in its first wave of inoculations.

The Australian city of Brisbane was set to end its snap lockdown on Thursday. Health authorities in the city recorded four locally transmitted infections with the British variant on Monday. Following a short, strict lockdown and widespread testing, authorities said that it was safe again to ease some restrictions.

Hong Kong is set to resume the use of a COVID-19 vaccine from Germany's BioNTech next Monday. The semi-autonomous territory abruptly halted inoculations 9 days ago due to defective packaging.

ab, jsi, kmm/msh (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)