its definition of what would be counted as a covid-19 death to include solely respiratory failure, which led to skepticism by health experts of the government's total death count at a time when hospitals reported being overwhelmed with cases following the abrupt discontinuation of zero-covid. on 29 december 2022, the u.s. joined italy, japan, taiwan and india in requiring negative covid-19 test results from all people traveling from china due to the new surge in cases. the european union initially refused similar measures, stating that the bf7 omicron variant had already spread throughout europe without becoming dominant, but changed its stance following an emergency meeting of eu diplomats on 4 january 2023. christmas island on 8 march, the australian external territory of christmas island reported its first case of covid-19. cyprus main articles: covid-19 pandemic in cyprus, northern cyprus, and akrotiri and dhekelia on 9 march, cyprus confirmed its first 2 cases, one in nicosia and one in limassol. east timor main article: covid-19 pandemic in east timor on 20 march, east timor confirmed its first covid-19 case. georgia main article: covid-19 pandemic in georgia (country) the outbreak in georgia (as of 15 april): red dots represent medical centers currently treating patients strict quarantine regime confirmed cases reported all flights from china and wuhan to tbilisi international airport were cancelled until 27 january. the health ministry announced that all arriving passengers from china would be screened. georgia also temporarily shut down all flights to iran. on 26 february, georgia confirmed its first covid-19 case. a 50-year-old man, who returned to georgia from iran, was admitted to infectious diseases hospital in tbilisi. he came back to the georgian border via azerbaijan by taxi. on 28 february, georgia confirmed that a 31-year-old georgia woman who had travelled to italy tested positive and was admitted to infectious diseases hospital in tbilisi. 29 more are being kept in isolation in a tbilisi hospital, with head of the georgian national centre for disease control, amiran gamkrelidze stating there was a "high probability" that some of them have the virus. on 5 march, five people have tested positive for the new coronavirus covid-19 in georgia increasing the total number of people infected in the country to nine. head of the georgian national centre for disease control amiran gamkrelidze made the announcement at the recent news briefing following today. he said, all of the five people belong to the same cluster who travelled together to italy and returned to georgia on sunday. on 7 march, three people have tested positive for the new coronavirus in georgia increasing the total number of people infected individuals in the country to twelve. head of the georgian national centre for disease control amiran gamkrelidze said at a news briefing the following day that there is still no reason to panic. one of the infected individuals is gamkrelidze's son nikoloz. gamkrelidze wrote on his facebook page that he contracted the illness from a coworker, who has been tested positive for covid-19 on wednesday. georgia has suspended direct flights with italy to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country. coronavirus in georgia has mostly been detected in passengers who have travelled in italy recently. hong kong main article: covid-19 pandemic in hong kong as of 1 march, hong kong's centre for health protection had identified 100 cases (including 2 suspected recovered cases) in hong kong, with 36 patients since recovered and 2 died. by 2 april, the number of confirmed or probable cases in hong kong has risen to 767 after an influx of returning overseas students. 467, or 60.89% of cases were imported cases. india india covid-19 cumulative cases map this section is an excerpt from covid-19 pandemic in india. the covid-19 pandemic in india is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2). as of 13 may 2023, according to indian government figures, india has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world (after the united states of america) with 44,972,800 reported cases of covid-19 infection and the third-highest number of covid-19 deaths (after the united states and brazil) at 531,707 deaths. in october 2021, the world health organization estimated 4.7 million excess deaths, both directly and indirectly related to covid-19 to have taken place in india. the first cases of covid-19 in india were reported on 30 january 2020 in three towns of kerala, among three indian medical students who had returned from wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic. lockdowns were announced in kerala on 23 march, and in the rest of the country on 25 march. infection rates started to drop in september. daily cases peaked mid-september with over 90,000 cases reported per-day, dropping to below 15,000 in january 2021. a second wave beginning in march 2021 was much more devastating than the first, with shortages of vaccines, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies in parts of the country. by late april, india led the world in new and active cases. on 30 april 2021, it became the first country to report over 400,000 new cases in a 24-hour period. experts stated that the virus may reach an endemic stage in india rather than completely disappear; in late august 2021, soumya swaminathan said india may be in some stage of endemicity where the country learns to live with the virus. india began its vaccination programme on 16 january 2021 with astrazeneca vaccine (covishield) and the indigenous covaxin. later, sputnik v and the moderna vaccine was approved for emergency use too. on january 30, 2022, india announced that it administered about 1.7 billion doses of vaccines and more than 720 million people were fully vaccinated. indonesia main article: covid-19 pandemic in indonesia covid-19 was confirmed to have spread to indonesia on 2 march 2020, after a dance instructor and her mother tested positive for the virus. both were infected from a japanese national. by 9 april 2020, the pandemic had spread to all 34 provinces in the country at that time. jakarta, west java, and central java are the worst-hit provinces, together accounting more than half of the national total cases. on 13 july 2020, the recoveries exceeded active cases for the first time. as of 11 may 2023, indonesia has reported 6,793,750 cases, the second highest in southeast asia, behind vietnam. with 161,547 deaths, indonesia ranks second in asia and ninth in the world. review of data, however, indicated that the number of deaths may be much higher than what has been reported as those who died with acute covid-19 symptoms but had not been confirmed or tested were not counted in the official death figure. indonesia has tested 75,464,457 people against its 270 million population so far, or around 279,287 people per million. the world health organization has urged the nation to perform more tests, especially on suspected patients. instead of implementing a nationwide lockdown, the government applied "large-scale social restrictions" (indonesian: pembatasan sosial berskala besar, abbreviated as psbb), which was later modified into the "community activities restrictions enforcement" (indonesian: pemberlakuan pembatasan kegiatan masyarakat, abbreviated as ppkm). on 30 december 2022, the restrictions were lifted for all regions in indonesia since satisfied population immunity exceeded the expectation, although it did not lift the pandemic status. on 13 january 2021, president joko widodo was vaccinated at the presidential palace, officially kicking off indonesia's vaccination program. as of 5 february 2023 at 18:00 wib (utc+7), 204,266,655 people had received the first dose of the vaccine and 175,131,893 people had been fully vaccinated; 69,597,474 of them had been inoculated with the booster or the third dose. iran main article: covid-19 pandemic in iran iran reported its first confirmed cases of sars-cov-2 infections on 19 february 2020 in qom. later that day, the ministry of health and medical education stated that both had died. by 21 february, a total of 18 people had been confirmed to have sars-cov-2 infections and four covid-19 deaths had occurred. on 24 february, according to the ministry of health and medical education, twelve covid-19 deaths had occurred in iran, out of a total of 64 sars-cov-2 confirmed infections. on 25 february, iran's deputy health minister, iraj harirchi tested positive for covid-19, having shown some signs of infection during the press conference. on 3 march, the official number of deaths in iran rose to 77, the second highest deaths recorded outside china after italy which has surpassed iran, although the number of deaths is believed to be higher, up to 1,200 deaths due to iranian government's censorship and its eventual mishandling of virus outbreak. iran currently has the most cases in western asia as well as the fourth most cases worldwide, with china, south korea, and italy surpassing iran. iran's death toll goes to 2,234 on 26 march as 29,000 cases are reported. public gatherings are banned as is transportation between cities; public parks are closed. iraq main article: covid-19 pandemic in iraq the first case in the country was confirmed on 22 february. israel main article: covid-19 pandemic in israel on 21 february, israel confirmed the first case of covid-19. on 20 march, the first confirmed death in israel was reported. as of 9 august, there are a total of 82,324 confirmed cases, with 57,071 recovered and 593 deaths. japan main article: covid-19 pandemic in japan