Heidi Huang, a Chinese businesswoman, said she was grateful for Thailand's reopening program Test and Go after she returned from a recent business trip to Dubai.

Instead of spending several days in quarantine, the 23-year-old from Zhejiang province said she could move about freely in Bangkok after she received her negative COVID-19 test result, the day after she arrived on Dec 6.

Huang is one of the fortunate ones. On Dec 21 Thailand announced it was suspending the approval of new applications for its quarantine exemption programs for foreign visitors from Dec 22 for at least two weeks. This was a day after the country reported the first locally transmitted case of the Omicron variant.

Thailand, one of the first countries in Asia to reopen for foreign travelers, began to allow quarantine-free entry of fully vaccinated tourists from 63 countries and regions, including China, on Nov 1.Eligible travelers need to prepare a number of documents, including a Thailand Pass that generates a QR code for entry to visit Thailand under the Test and Go program.

However, like Thailand, countries in the region that have been gradually moving toward reopening, albeit with strictures and protocols of varying stringency, are now facing uncertainties caused by Omicron, the new coronavirus variant. It appears to be more transmissible than Delta and has spread to 110 countries as of Dec 22, according to the WHO.

On Wednesday the World Health Organization warned that Omicron still poses "very high" risk and could overwhelm healthcare systems, as the highly transmissible variant fueled record outbreaks in many countries.

On Dec 18, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that his country would extend its ban on the arrival of all foreigners until at least early next year to prevent the spread of Omicron, Kyodo News reported.

Singapore's Ministry of Health said on Dec 22 that the city-state would freeze all new ticket sales for arrivals under the vaccinated travel lane program from Dec 23 to Jan 20.

Despite the uncertainties caused by the emergence of Omicron and other potential new variants, Christopher Khoo, managing director of MasterConsult Services, an international tourism consultancy, said reopening is not an option, but rather a question of when and how.

"Many (countries), in slowly and cautiously reopening, will do so at a pace they are comfortable with, bearing in mind the state of their healthcare and public health infrastructure," Khoo said, noting the travel and tourism industry has been severely hit by the pandemic.

Progress, though small, has been made toward an eventual recovery by the region's tourism industry. For example, the consumer confidence index of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, according to the Bangkok Post on Dec 20, showed Thailand's reopening helped to boost people's sentiments, with a third consecutive monthly increase recorded in November, which was also a seven-month high.

The Straits Times reported that the number of passengers passing through Singapore Changi Airport crossed the 5 percent mark of pre-pandemic levels for the first time in November as the launch of vaccinated travel lanes, totaling 24 by Dec 16, had resulted in a gradual return of passengers since September.

Only 45 international tourists visited Bali between January and October, compared with more than 1 million last year and about 6 million in 2019, according to Bali province figures. The globally renowned Indonesian island province reopened to international travelers in mid-October after 80 percent of its population was fully vaccinated.

In general, the pace of recovery in the Asia-Pacific region remains slow as tourist arrivals fell 95 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, as many destinations remained closed to nonessential travel, according to the World Tourism Organization of the UN. In comparison, there was a fall of 53 percent in Europe and 60 percent in the Americas.

Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at the global consultancy IHS Markit, said the region has been successful with its vaccination distribution, and a new wave of infections driven by the Delta variant has eased considerably in many countries in the past three months.

'Fresh uncertainties'

However, "the new Omicron variant has created fresh uncertainties about the outlook", Biswas said. GDP growth across the Asia-Pacific region is estimated at 6 percent because of the rebound in domestic private consumption amid an easing of pandemic-related measures, he said.

"Omicron is the new Delta that preoccupies us," said Lim Wee Kiat, associate director of the Centre for Management Practice at Singapore Management University, noting close monitoring and decisive actions will be needed for dealing with the new variant.

Lim, a disaster sociologist by training, said people must remember that Omicron is not the first variant of concern and will probably not be the last. "Governments still need to work with one another and within their societies to ensure all of us can balance the multiple priorities swiftly and wisely."

Khoo of MasterConsult said it is important to avoid lifting and reintroducing anti-pandemic restrictions too frequently because it will be disruptive to society.

"Omicron may slow down the reopening but it won't entirely halt or derail it," Khoo said, adding that he hopes COVID-19 can become an endemic like the common cold by the end of next year or in mid-2023.

Biswas of IHS Markit said Omicron could create some near-term disruption to Asia-Pacific economies early next year but said he does not expect it to derail the gradual reopening of many economies.

Huang, the Chinese businesswoman, said she realized how serious the impact on Thailand's tourism industry was when sales representatives in a shop took more than an hour to give her a tax refund form on her purchase because they were unfamiliar with the process. "They told me I was the first foreign tourist in their shop in two years."

Thailand ranked eighth among top destinations globally in 2019, with nearly 40 million international tourist arrivals, the World Tourism Organization said. China was a key source market for the tourism-dependent country.

It is ridiculous for these countries, with their own democracy in a state of mess, to comment on the democratic progress in Hong Kong, said a spokesperson for the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council.

Opinion polls have shown that the United States is facing serious crises of trust among its people, and many countries no longer see US democracy as a "model" to emulate, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson noted that for some time in the past, certain people in Hong Kong have blindly followed the U.S. model of democracy, and hostile forces inside and outside Hong Kong have taken advantage of the situation and the loopholes in the previous electoral system.

This had resulted in endless political wrangling and turmoil, and lingering problems concerning the economy and people's livelihood in Hong Kong, which, ultimately, made local residents suffer, the spokesperson said.

Noting that to bring Hong Kong's democratic development back on the right track, the central government has improved Hong Kong's electoral system in accordance with the law, the spokesperson said, adding that the advantages of Hong Kong's new electoral system have been fully demonstrated in its seventh Legislative Council (LegCo) election.

According to recent poll results, 70.8 percent of respondents said they believe the new LegCo would better safeguard Hong Kong's overall interests; and 72.8 percent expressed confidence in the new LegCo members executing their duties in accordance with the law and advancing good governance.

"We firmly believe that under the principle of 'one country, two systems,' Hong Kong will surely make new success in its democratic development, which will serve as a new model for democracy," the spokesperson said.

In the final WHO media briefing of the year, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO, said that while science has delivered hope in the form of vaccines that saved lives this year, the inequitable sharing of vaccines has cost many lives.

Around 50 thousand people are still dying every week from the disease, Tedros said on Wednesday.

The WHO chief said while some countries are now rolling out blanket booster programmes, only half of the WHO's member states have been able to reach the target of vaccinating 40 percent of their populations by the end of the year, because of distortions in global supply.

"It's frankly difficult to understand how a year since the first vaccines were administered, 3 in 4 health workers in Africa remain unvaccinated," he said. "Enough vaccines were administered globally this year, (s0) that the 40 percent target could have been reached in every country by September, if those vaccines had been distributed equitably, through COVAX and AVAT."

However, he said there are encouraging signs that supply is improving, with COVAX, a facility co-led by the WHO that focuses on proportional allocation of doses among its 140-plus beneficiary states in accordance with population size, shipping its 800 millionth vaccine dose on Wednesday. Half of those doses have been shipped in the past three months.

"Our projections show that supply should be sufficient to vaccinate the entire global adult population, and to give boosters to high-risk populations, by the first quarter of 2022," Tedros said. "However, only later in 2022 will supply be sufficient for extensive use of boosters in all adults."

He stressed that blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, "by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate".

Tedros said: "It's important to remember that the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are in unvaccinated people, not un-boosted people."

The WHO wants all countries to reach the 40 percent target as quickly as possible, and the 70 percent target by the middle of next year.

"No country can boost its way out of the pandemic," he said. "And boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with planned celebrations, without the need for other precautions."

The monoclonal neutralizing antibody cocktail is jointly developed by Brii Biosciences, Tsinghua University and the Third People's Hospital of Shenzhen.

Compared with other similar drugs available around the world, what's the advantage of this therapy? How does it work? Is it effective against the Omicron and other variants? Can it be used for prevention? Finally, when will it be ready for clinical use?

In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Zhang Linqi, leader of the research team and director of the Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research Center and Comprehensive AIDS Research Center at the Tsinghua University's School of Medicine, shared with us the story behind the latest breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19.

The evolving Chinese philosophy on advancing human rights, as presented by President Xi Jinping, offers a viable approach to tackling difficulties facing the world amid the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, leaders, officials and experts said.

They made the observation as China has made notable progress in basic elements constituting human rights, including people's livelihoods, health and democracy.

A book collecting Xi's discourses in recent years on respecting and protecting human rights was published this month by the Central Party Literature Press and distributed across the country.

In his articles, remarks and comments, Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, underscored the consistent Chinese philosophy of advancing human rights through development as well as the country's dedication to whole-process people's democracy.

"The ultimate human right is that people can lead a happy life. Since the first day of its founding, the CPC has fully committed itself to the well-being of the Chinese people and human development," Xi wrote in a letter in 2018 to a symposium celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Han Dayuan, a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China and director of the university's Human Rights Center, said, "In the early days of the founding of the Party, human rights became the goal pursued by the CPC. It can be said that the 100-year history of the Party is the history of exploring and realizing human rights in China."

Siddharth Chatterjee, the United Nations resident coordinator in China, highlighted the country's philosophy on advancing human rights in a recent interview, in which he cited a congratulatory letter sent by Xi on Dec 8 to the 2021 South-South Human Rights Forum.

In the letter, Xi noted that putting people first and taking people's desire for a better life as the goal is the responsibility of all countries, and China is willing to "contribute wisdom and strength to the sound development of the international human rights cause".

Chatterjee said Xi's message was "about people's human rights being an aspect of human civilization and how important it is to adopt a people-centered approach".

"After all, 750 million people were lifted out of poverty in a matter of four decades. The UN has been a part of this journey since 1979 in China," he said.

According to Chatterjee, one of the most important principles of the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals is to "leave no one behind", and this principle has been echoed by Xi's message, as well as the Global Development Initiative proposed by Xi earlier this year.

As for human rights in the global context, Xi's discourses stress that the practicing of human rights is varied, and countries around the world should and can choose the development path of human rights that suits their own national conditions.

"In terms of human rights protection, there is no best way, only the better one," Xi said in a congratulatory letter to a forum on human rights in 2015.

Xi's comments were made at a time when "quite a few politicians in some Western countries made paradoxical gestures on human rights", said Tian Dewen, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of European Studies.

"They ignore basic rights including health and safety while prioritizing political rights. They turn a blind eye to their own country's human rights problems, and they arbitrarily seek unilateral sanctions on other nations using the excuse of human rights," Tian said.

At the heart of all these paradoxical gestures is the Cold War era mentality fixating on confrontation, and "developing countries should shore up their unity in preserving human rights based on the overwhelming public will and needs in their countries, boycott human rights-based diplomacy sought by Western countries and boost their global say in human rights", Tian said.

John Ross, former director of the London Economic and Business Policy Office, said at a symposium earlier this month that fewer than 5,000 people on the Chinese mainland had died from COVID-19, but "the US claims human rights and democracy are better in the US than China".

"What type of absurd reasoning can try to justify such a conclusion, which is in violation of all the facts on literal matters of life and death－the most fundamental of all human rights?" said Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China.

Under the proposed legislation, expected to be put before Parliament early next year, anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking," Ayesha Verrall, New Zealand's associate health minister, said on Dec 9 when announcing implementation of the government's Smoke-free 2025 Action Plan.

Under the plan, authorities aim to reduce the national smoking rate to below 5 percent by 2025, with a goal of eventually bringing it down to zero.

Doctors and health experts have welcomed the "world-leading "reforms, which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

If enacted as expected next year, people ages 14 and under will not be allowed to legally purchase tobacco in New Zealand, with the legal smoking age rising each year.

A Maori Advisory Taskforce is being created to help achieve better outcomes for Maori indigenous people, while support measures will be prioritized to help current smokers quit and to prevent people from lighting up in the first place.

As of now, 13 percent of New Zealand's adults smoke, while the rate is almost 29 percent among the indigenous Maori adult population. Maori also suffer higher rates of disease and death.

According to the health ministry, smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for the nation's 5 million people. The tobacco industry has been the target of lawmakers for more than a decade, but with little effect.

Natalie Walker, associate professor in population health and director of the Centre for Addiction Research at the faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, described the government's action plan as a "game changer" in the fight against smoking.

"New Zealand once again leads the world, … this time with a cutting-edge smoke-free 2025 implementation plan," Walker said in an interview with China Daily.

"We know from experience that utilizing a combination of policy interventions will have the biggest impact on tobacco use in New Zealand, particularly in those populations with higher smoking rates than the general population. The proposed combination of policies is perfect."

Janet Hoek, a professor of public health at the University of Otago, Wellington, said the government's plan recognizes that the death of 4,500 people each year from diseases caused by smoking is "completely unacceptable".

"The measures outlined draw on robust research evidence and will save thousands of New Zealanders from a painful and premature death," she told China Daily.

"For the first time since the smoke-free 2025 goal was announced 10 years ago, we have a realistic prospect of achieving and sustaining the goal."

Health experts say New Zealand's plan will have global implications that could change the WHO's trajectory and make ending what is seen as a smoking pandemic a realistic prospect.

Chris Bullen, a professor of public health at the University of Auckland, said, "As a doctor, tobacco control researcher and advocate for many years, I was hoping to see a plan that would have the best chance of getting rid of the harm and misery caused by tobacco smoking, for all people in Aotearoa." Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand.

Bullen said the action plan is "very good news".

"If implemented as outlined, it could just be the single most significant step we take as a nation in reducing preventable death and disease and reducing health inequities in the next few years."

Collin Tukuitonga, a professor and associate dean at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, said the government is to be "commended" for a trendsetting strategy to accelerate the reduction of smoking.

"It is important that a focus on these efforts should be in neighborhoods where Maori and Pacific people live," he said.

"Experience with the COVID-19 vaccination rollout has reminded us of the importance and impact of community-led events. Maori and Pacific communities should be trusted, empowered and resourced to lead the design and delivery of community information and education," Tukuitonga told China Daily.

A focus on Maori and Pacific smoking "would accelerate our progress towards a smoke-free Aotearoa", he added.

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