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.
Four people were stabbed near a shopping centre in Tampere, Finland's third-largest city, on Thursday and one person has been arrested, the police said.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has strongly condemned ongoing Israeli aggression and forced displacement in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem.
Hamas is seeking guarantees that a new US ceasefire proposal for Gaza would lead to the war's end, a source close to the group said on Thursday, as medics said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed scores more people.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US strikes 10 days ago had degraded Iran's nuclear programme by up to two years, suggesting the US military operation likely achieved its goals despite a far more cautious initial assessment that leaked to the public.
Hundreds of firefighters battled a blaze Thursday on Crete island, which burnt swathes of forest and olive groves and forced the evacuation of over 1,000 people, officials said, underscoring the region's vulnerability to destructive wildfires.
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