Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday announced plans to downgrade the legal status of COVID-19 to the equivalent of seasonal influenza in the spring, a move that would further relax mask wearing and other preventive measures as the country seeks to return to normalcy.

Kishida said he has instructed experts and government officials to discuss the details on lowering COVID-19's status. A change would also remove self-isolation rules and other anti-virus requirements and allow COVID-19 patients to seek treatment at any hospital instead of only specialized facilities.

Hong Kong will scrap its mandatory isolation rule for people infected with COVID-19 starting Jan. 30 as part of its strategy to return the semi-autonomous Chinese city to normalcy, the city's leader said Thursday.

For most of the pandemic over the last three years, Hong Kong has aligned itself with mainland China's "zero COVID" strategy, requiring those who test positive to undergo quarantine. Many residents had to be sent to hospitals or government-run quarantine facilities even when their symptoms were mild.

The World Health Organization has issued an alert warning against the use of two Indian cough syrups blamed for the deaths of at least 20 children in Uzbekistan.

Uganda's latest outbreak of the Ebola virus is over, the government and the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Health Minister Ruth Aceng told journalists that no new cases had been registered in the past 42 days.

Wang Jian is anxious to get back to work teaching basketball to children now that China has lifted anti-COVID-19 restrictions. But his gym in the eastern city of Shenyang has been closed for a month because all its coaches are infected.

The most optimistic forecasts say China's business and consumer activity might revive as early as the first quarter of this year. But before that happens, entrepreneurs and families face a painful squeeze from a surge in virus cases that has left employers without enough healthy workers and kept wary customers away from shopping malls, restaurants, hair salons and gyms.

Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China's capital Beijing.

The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city's east was packed with newly arrived patients on Thursday. By midmorning beds had run out, even as ambulances continued to bring those in need.

European Union nations are fine-tuning a coordinated response to China's COVID-19 crisis on Wednesday and are zeroing in on travel restrictions that would upset both Beijing and the global airline industry.

China has already vehemently rejected travel restrictions that some EU nations have started to impose and has warned of "countermeasures" if such actions should be expanded in coming days.

France, Spain and England will implement tougher COVID-19 measures for passengers arriving from China, authorities said.

France's government is requiring negative tests, and is urging French citizens to avoid nonessential travel to China. France is also reintroducing mask requirements on flights from China to France.

Germany currently sees no need to impose routine tests on arrivals from China, but is seeking a coordinated system to monitor variants across European airports, said health minister Karl Lauterbach on Friday.

The European Union's health agency said Thursday it believed that the introduction of mandatory Covid screenings of travellers from China was "unjustified," despite a surge in cases in China.