Vaccinated international travelers can apply for quarantine free visa under Thailand’s Test & Go Scheme on Feb 1, which require them to take Covid-19 tests upon arrival and on the fifth day. Before its current suspension, Thailand’s Test & Go scheme helped attract about 350,000 vaccinated travelers in around two months.

In mid-January, the WHO regional office for Africa also said cases of Covid-19 and related deaths in that region started declining since the Omicron-dominated fourth wave.

WHO Europe director Hans Kluge said on Jan 23 that once the current surge of Omicron subsides, “there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity”, which happen “before Covid-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back”!

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said on Jan 18 that due to varying degrees of mobility restrictions, vaccination rates and traveler confidence result in uneven recovery across world regions, international arrivals not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024 in the earliest.

On Jan 12, the Chief Executive of HKSAR said in the Legislative Council Q&A session, preparation works with the mainland on resuming quarantine-free travel almost completed, and date will be fixed once when Hong Kong does not have new locally transmitted Covid cases for 14 consecutive days.

On Jan 18, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reported global tourism arrivals saw a 4% growth in 2021 over 2020, and predicted a 30% to 78% growth in international arrivals this year over 2021! Thus, 2022 will be a year of recovery, though Omicron will cause disruptions in the early months!

Hong Kong in the past 14 days (January 2 to 15), a total of 363 cases that tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus have been reported, which averaged 26 cases per day. 61 of them are epidemiologically linked with imported cases/possibly import-related cases, two are local cases, and the rest are imported cases. However, there been days with new cases only in single digit.

ACCA Hong Kong conducted a survey polling 170 of its certified accountant members in December 2021, 85% of respondents expect Hong Kong GDP to grow positively this year, with 44% believing growth ranging from 0 to 1.9%; 35% growth from 2 to 3.9% and 6% over 4%.

Media reported daily new cases in UK in the second week of January dropped to an average of 140,000 from previous high of nearly 200,000. The Covid-19 Modeling Consortium by the University of Texas projected daily new cases in USA will peak in the second week of January.

From 11 Jan 2022, fully vaccinated international travellers can also enter Thailand under the Sandbox programme at either Krabi, Phang-Nga, and Surat Thani (Ko Samui, Ko Pha-ngan, and Ko Tao), in addition to Phuket. Travelers do not need to do quarantine but they must stay there for at least 7 nights and will then be allowed to visit other destinations in Thailand.

Despite recent spreading of Omicron in China, Chinese Olympic officials said on Jan 11 there is no plan to lock down Beijing in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics, which will take place from Feb 4 to Feb 20, as the situation is largely under control. But a large scale outbreak within the Olympic Covid-19 bubble would be different!

Hong Kong confirmed the first Omicron case on Dec 30 and a total of 354 cases as of Jan 10 (or around 30 new cases per day), of which 312 imported, 41 locally infected but related to imported case and only 1 local case of unknown source.

Indonesia sets a target of attracting 1.8 to 3.6 million international visitors this year, up from the 1.5 million visitor arrivals in 2021 but fewer than the 4.05 million arrivals in 2020.

As of Jan 6 this year, 86% or 1.213 billion Chinese citizens had been fully vaccinated. Theoretically speaking, China’s herd immunity goal has been achieved, says expert. In fact, China has the lowest COVID-19 mortality rate in the world, with a prevalence rate of 9.4 per 100,000 and a mortality rate of 0.4 per 100,000.

Macau will ban civil aircraft from carrying passengers from places outside China to Macau for two weeks starting from midnight on the coming Sunday. (9 Jan)

On Jan 5, Hong Kong Chief Executive announced tightening measures to fight omicron, which include cancelling large scale public events like Cyclothon scheduled to be held within 14 days and cruise trips; ban all passenger flights including indirect arrivals from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, Philippines, UK, and USA from Jan 8 for 14 days etc. There will be a review 7 days after implementation of above.

As of Jan 5, Hong Kong so far recorded 114 omicron cases, and all can be traced to the source.

Hong Kong so far has 107 Omicron cases, of which 102 imported, 5 related and no case of unknown source, according to media report in the morning on Jan 4. In past two years till Jan 3, the city has cumulatively 12677 confirmed Covid-19 cases.

Hong Kong Chief Executive told media in the morning on Jan 4 omicron cases recorded in the city will delay quarantine free border crossing with the mainland.

Over the past two years, the European region, which includes 52 countries and territories from the Atlantic coast to Russia and Azerbaijan, recorded over 100 million infections of Covid-19, of which over 4.9 million new cases confirmed the past 7 days from Jan 1.

From US John Hopkins University, the world recorded over 289 million infections of Covid-19 in the past two years.

On when international tourism will recover to 2019 levels, 43% of members of UNWTO Committee of Experts predict it happen by 2023 while 45% by 2024 or later, according to Secretary General of UNWTO in December 2021.