Virus case in Blinken press curtails his SE Asia tour

KUALA LUMPUR－US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has cut short a trip to Southeast Asia after a journalist traveling with him was found to have the coronavirus, said a spokesman for the US State Department on Wednesday.

The top US diplomat was due to meet Thai officials in Bangkok on Thursday after visiting Indonesia and Malaysia, but this final leg of the three-country tour has been canceled.

Blinken told Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai that he "would be returning to Washington, out of the abundance of caution", the spokesman said.

A journalist with the traveling party tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Malaysia on Tuesday night. The journalist is now in isolation in Kuala Lumpur.

Blinken's tour was aimed at reestablishing the United States' influence in Asia after the turbulence and unpredictability of the Donald Trump era.

He began the trip in Jakarta where he met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, before giving a joint news conference on Wednesday with Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah in Kuala Lumpur.

Before arriving in Indonesia, Blinken participated in a G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Britain.

Indonesia detected its first case of Omicron in a cleaning service worker at a hospital for COVID-19 patients in the capital Jakarta, said Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin on Thursday.

The patient, who works at the Wisma Atlet emergency hospital, showed no symptoms such as fever or cough, said Sadikin during a news conference held online, adding that the patient has never been abroad.

Meanwhile, Malaysia has announced new COVID-19 restrictions, including the banning of mass gatherings and requiring booster doses for high-risk groups, as it reported its second case of the Omicron variant.

Malaysian Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin told reporters that its second Omicron case was an 8-year-old child traveling with family from Nigeria, where the family resided, via Qatar.

Malaysia reported its first case of Omicron earlier this month in a traveler from South Africa.

South Korea said on Thursday it will reinstate stricter social distancing rules after easing them under a "living with COVID-19" policy, as the number of new infections and serious cases spiral.

In India, the total tally of Omicron has surpassed 60 as the variant has spread to nearly 80 countries.

In Europe, France will tighten restrictions on travel from Britain to slow the spread of Omicron that is causing record numbers of cases on the other side of the English Channel, according to the government on Thursday.

"Our strategy is to delay as much as we can the development of Omicron in our country and take advantage to push ahead with the booster drive," government spokesman Gabriel Attal told BFM television.

Britain recorded a record 78,610 laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with scientists predicting even higher rates as Omicron is believed to spread much faster than the currently dominant Delta variant.

Agencies - Xinhua