Asian nations see surge after Lunar New Year

Many Asian countries are facing a spike in coronavirus infections after the widely celebrated Lunar New Year holidays, as health officials grapple with the highly transmissible omicron variant and expectations that numbers will continue to rise in coming weeks.

The Lunar New Year, which is China’s biggest holiday, was celebrated across Asia on Feb. 1 even as pandemic restrictions in many countries kept crowds and family outings to a minimum.

Hong Kong’s authorities are confronting record cases that are straining its so-called “zero-COVID” policy. On Monday, the city reported a new high of 614 local infections.

In Singapore, a dramatic rise in coronavirus infections followed last week’s holiday, with cases tripling to 13,000 on Friday.

Across Asia, authorities are confronting a similar pattern as omicron becomes dominant, even as health officials in several countries report that omicron surges are not driving hospitalizations or deaths as high as the previous delta variant.

In Japan, nearly 90,000 new cases nationwide were reported on Sunday, including 17,526 in Tokyo.

Local outbreak numbers are similarly rising in Indonesia, edging toward the caseloads that marked the height of last year’s devastating delta outbreak.

In Thailand, officials on Monday reported more than 10,000 daily cases for the third day in a row, but the Department of Disease Control said that the number of severely ill patients was dropping, while the fatality rate has remained stable.

In other countries where the Lunar New Year is a major holiday, governments are likewise on high alert ahead of expectations that omicron will continue to stoke higher infections.