Still, the wave may take a few weeks yet to subside, and authorities have appealed to the public to stay home and recover if symptoms are mild, to avoid straining the health care system. This comes as local cases breach 20,000 for the second straight day.

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The government will soon announce a revised effective date for the consolidated easing of restrictions in one go instead. The city state will keep to current measures in the meantime, according to the health ministry.

The planned easing of some rules included allowing groups of five to visit homes at any one time, social gatherings of up to five people at workplaces, as well as the resumption of team sports.

Other measures were due to be simplified and updated, such as dropping the 1 metre safe distancing requirement in mask-on environments. This will include letting people wash their hands side-by-side in public toilets or sit next to each other on park benches.

Not all rules will be dropped, however. For example, mask wearing remains the default in the island nation.

04:52

Breaking down Hong Kong's dynamic zero Covid-19 strategy

Breaking down Hong Kong's dynamic zero Covid-19 strategy

Thailand posts record cases

It also logged 38 new deaths, according to the country’s Covid-19 centre.

The daily death toll from the virus, however, was well below the 184 fatalities reported on August 13 last year, when Thailand recorded its previous daily record of 23,418 infections.

A World Health Organization official said last month there is evidence the Omicron variant causes milder symptoms than previous variants and while case numbers have surged to records in many places hospitalisation and death rates have often been lower than in earlier phases of the pandemic.

In Thailand, there are currently just below 181,000 people receiving treatment in hospital or isolating in the community, versus more than 212,000 on August 13 last year, data from the health ministry showed.

Up to now, about 69 per cent of people in Thailand have been fully vaccinated, compared with about 12 per cent at the end of August.

Thailand has so far reported a total of about 2.79 million Covid-19 infections and 22,768 deaths.

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Qantas profit takes hit from Omicron

Qantas said it had now lost more than A$20 billion (US$14 billion) in revenue since the start of the pandemic.

The airline said it could see a gradual recovery ahead for flights in the second half of its financial year, which ends on June 30, 2022.

Domestic flights were expected to be operating at 90-100 per cent of pre-pandemic capacity by June 30 this year, Qantas said.

But international flights were still expected to be running at less than half of pre-pandemic level by the same time.

Qantas said its underlying loss – a closely watched measure of its performance – grew to A$1.28 billion in the six months to December 31 from a loss of A$1.01 billion a year earlier.

Chief executive Alan Joyce said an outbreak of the Delta variant in July 2021 cut most Australians off from each other for months, just as travel had been starting to return to normal.

“And then, just as demand was building again for the Christmas holidays, the Omicron variant emerged, putting another dent in consumer confidence,” Joyce said.

“In all honesty, it’s been a real roller coaster.”

Qantas said revenue grew 32 per cent year-on-year to A$3.07 billion in the six months to December 31. But spending on staff and aircraft rose in the period.

Qantas’ net loss narrowed to A$456 million from more than A$1.0 billion a year earlier, but this was largely thanks to a sale of surplus land in Sydney.

Reporting by Bloomberg, Reuters, Agence France-Presse