BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije has tested positive for COVID-19, the church said on Tuesday, amid a surge in infections in the country and elsewhere in the Balkan region.

Porfirije has developed “very mild symptoms of the virus infection” and remains in home isolation, said the statement. It added that Porfirije is carrying out administrative duties entirely without problems.

The 60-year-old patriarch became the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church after the previous patriarch, Irinej, died in November 2020 after contracting the coronavirus.

Porfirije on Sunday attended a mass ceremony in Republika Srpska, the Serb-run part of neighboring Bosnia, where few people wore face masks.

Serbia reported nearly 9,000 new infections on Monday in the country of 7 million people. The number of daily new cases has risen sharply after the New Year celebrations that included open-air concerts and relaxed anti-virus rules.

Experts say the current rise in cases is driven by the fast-spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus and is likely to worsen further. Epidemiologist Predrag Kon on Monday criticized the virus policies by the authorities.

“Everything that was organized should not have happened,” said Kon. “Belgrade exploded after New Year and now it's spreading to the rest of Serbia.”

Serbia has recorded over 1.3 million cases of infection since the start of the pandemic while nearly 13,000 people have died of COVID-19.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland has become the latest European nation to reach the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths related to the coronavirus.

Nearly a quarter of those deaths — some 24,000 — occurred in the most recent wave of infection that began in October, a period in which vaccines have been widely available in the European Union nation.

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said early Tuesday that 493 deaths of people with COVID-19 had been registered in the past day, pushing the death toll to over 100,000.

The vast majority of the deaths are among people who have not been vaccinated. The vaccination rate in Poland is 55.8%.

Poland now joins Italy, the U.K, France and Germany as those European nations that have recorded 100,000 deaths.

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BEIJING (AP) — A third Chinese city has locked down its residents because of a COVID-19 outbreak, raising the number confined to their homes in China to about 20 million people.

It wasn't clear how long the lockdown of Anyang city, home to 5.5 million, would last as a notice said it was being done to facilitate mass testing but did not indicate if it would end when the testing is completed.

Another 13 million people are locked down in the city of Xi’an and 1.1 million in Yuzhou.

The lockdown of Anyang followed the confirmation of two cases of omicron on Monday that are believed to be linked to two other cases found Saturday in the city of Tianjin. It appears to be the first time omicron has spread in China beyond people who arrived from abroad and their immediate contacts.

Residents are not allowed to leave their homes, non-essential vehicles are banned from streets and stores have been ordered shut except for those selling necessities, according to a city notice shared by state media late Monday.

Xi'an and Yuzhou are both battling the delta variant and neither has reported any omicron cases. About 2,000 people have been infected in Xi'an, an ancient capital that is home to the Terracotta Warrior ruins, in what is by far the largest outbreak in China.

Japan keeps border controls as it prepares for omicron surge

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan will keep its borders closed to most foreign citizens through February as it attempts to accelerate coronavirus booster shots for elderly people and expand hospital capacity to cope with the rapidly spreading omicron variant, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday.

Japan briefly eased border controls in November after COVID-19 cases rapidly declined, but quickly reinstated a ban on most foreign entrants after the highly transmissible new variant emerged.

Kishida said the stringent border controls have helped slow the variant's spread and "bought time" to prepare for an imminent surge.

Japan had few cases until late December, but infections have since shot up to thousands a day.

Last week, Kishida placed three prefectures where infections apparently spread from U.S. military bases — Okinawa, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima — under a pre-emergency status in which eateries were requested to shorten service hours.

But the rollout of booster vaccines, which started with medical workers in December, has been slow. As of Friday, only 0.6% of Japan's population has received a third shot, prompting experts to urge the government to speed up doses for elderly people.

Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto on Tuesday attributed the delay to preparations by local municipalities, rather than shortages of imported vaccines.

Kishida said government and municipal mass vaccination centers will be set up to speed the booster shots.

A further upsurge in cases is feared following the New Year holidays and a three-day weekend, a time for traveling and parties for many Japanese.

On Monday, Tokyo reported 871 new COVID-19 cases, an eight-fold increase from a week earlier. Nationwide, Japan reported 6,438 new cases for an accumulated total of about 1.77 million, including about 18,400 deaths.

Experts say a majority of the cases are now caused by omicron.

Kishida noted that there still are many "unknowns" about omicron, but it could be milder and less fatal than previous variants. That could mean that more patients will stay at home. The government has been working to reinforce remote monitoring and medical care by community doctors, Kishida said.

"We will respond flexibly to new findings," Kishida said. "What's important is to protect people's lives."

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's president announced Monday he has come down with COVID-19 a second time, as coronavirus infections spike in Mexico and virus tests become scarce.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote that he tested positive, after he had sounded hoarse at a morning news briefing. He contracted COVID-19 and recovered from it the first time in early 2021.

"Even though the symptoms are light, I will remain isolated and only work from the office and hold on-line meetings until further notice," the president wrote in his social media accounts. "In the meantime, Interior Secretary Adán Augusto López Hernández will take over for me at press conferences and other events."

Two of the president's Cabinet secretaries, the heads of the Environment and Economy departments, announced they had tested positive in recent days.

Earlier on in the day, the president told Mexicans to just assume they had COVID-19 if they had symptoms. The number of confirmed cases spiked by 186% last week. .

López Obrador claimed the Omicron variant is "a little COVID," noting hospitalizations and deaths had not increased at the same rate. However, experts say those are both lagging indicators that may not show up for weeks after infections spike.

Reading advice posted on Twitter, the president said Mexicans with symptoms should just stay at home, take paracetamol and isolate, rather than going out and trying to find tests.

Since Christmas, private pharmacies and the few available testing centers have been overwhelmed by long lines. The Twitter advice drew on guidelines from Mexico City and other health authorities.

López Obrador's administration has long refused to implement mass testing, calling it a waste of money. He called on companies not to require COVID tests for employees.

Mexico passed 300,000 test-confirmed coronavirus deaths last week, but so little testing is done in the country of 126 million that a government review of death certificates puts the real toll at almost 460,000.

The virus spike was largely responsible for the cancelation of 260 flights between Jan. 6 and Jan. 10, the president said, as airline employees got infected and had to isolate, causing staff shortages.

José Merino, the head of Mexico City's Digital Innovation Agency, said the capital had the same number of Covid cases as the peak of January 2020, but only 6% as many people hospitalized. he wrote in his Twitter account that 70% of those hospitalized were not vaccinated.

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BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union ended travel restrictions on flights from southern Africa on Monday well over a month after imposing them to in hopes of containing the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The highly contagious variant was first discovered in southern Africa in late November and the 27-nation bloc restricted travel for visitors from that region, where the variant brought on a sudden surge of infections.

Omicron has since become the dominant variant and is responsible in the EU and many other nations for a unprecedent increase in infections. That made the travel ban from southern Africa a moot point.

The French EU presidency announced Monday that the 27 member states agreed "to lift the emergency break to allow air travel to resume with southern African countries."

It insisted that travelers from South Africa and neighboring countries will still be subject to the other health measures on vaccinations and recovery from the disease that other third-nation visitors also face.

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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile is implementing a fourth vaccination dose for some citizens as the number of daily coronavirus infections rises.

President Sebastián Piñera was present on Monday when two adults with immunosuppression problems received a fourth vaccination for COVID-19 at a Santiago hospital.

Chile is applying a fourth dose early because the current daily infection rate of 4,000 coronavirus cases could rise to 10,000 or more, Piñera said.

Vaccination with a fourth dose for the immunosuppressed will end on Feb. 7. Then the program will turn to people over 55 years old who had a third dose at least six months ago.

Chile, which has 19 million people, had planned to start with the fourth dose in February. The sharp increase in infections in neighboring Argentina, Bolivia and Peru contributed to its decision to advance the process.

Israel approved a fourth vaccine dose for people most vulnerable to COVID-19, an official said on Dec. 30, becoming one of the first countries to do so as it braced for a wave of infections fueled by the omicron variant.