Singapore will do away with requirements to wear masks indoors starting August 29, as the country sees its COVID-19 situation stabilise further, the health minister said on Wednesday.
For the first time in more than two years, people in the Southeast Asian city-state will no longer be required to wear masks indoors except on public transport and in high-risk settings like healthcare facilities.
The health ministry also updated rules for non-vaccinated travellers, dropping a 7-day quarantine requirement starting next week.
Singapore, which is a major Asian financial and travel hub, lifted most pandemic curbs, including travel restrictions, earlier this year.
About 70 per cent of the city-state's 5.5 million population has already contracted COVID-19, Ong Ye Kung, the health minister said in a news conference, adding that the re-infection rate is so far "very low".
Singapore has vaccinated more than 90 per cent of its population and has among the lowest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world.
The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surpassed 5,000, government data showed on Friday, as authorities had yet to find a way to control the country's deadliest Ebola epidemic on record.
Four planes carrying residents evacuated from the Russian-controlled Ukrainian town of Oleshky landed in Belarus on Saturday, the Belarusian Belta state news agency and a senior Ukrainian official said.
France deployed a 70,000-strong police presence to contain a widely expected bout of fresh unrest on Saturday in the latest nationwide protests driven by anger over living costs, public services and President Emmanuel Macron's government.
Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced the closure of three major roads on Sunday, November 1 for over six hours due to Dubai Ride 2026.
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, has presented the Dubai-it Award for companies in the business category to Ziina for making "accepting payments by phone simpler for thousands of businesses".