South Korea on Wednesday said masks will no longer be required outdoors from July for those vaccinated with at least one COVID-19 shot.
The move is a bid to encourage older residents to get vaccinated as South Korea aims to immunise at least 70 per cent of its 52 million people by September, from just 7.7 per cent now.
People given at least one dose also will be allowed to gather in larger numbers starting June, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told a coronavirus response meeting on Wednesday.
He said all quarantine measures would be adjusted in October once more than 70 per cent of residents had received their first dose.
Over 60 per cent of people aged between 60 and 74 had signed up for vaccination, Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol said.
South Korea will begin vaccinating the general public aged between 65 and 74 from Thursday in over 12,000 clinics.
South Korea reported 707 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus on Tuesday, bringing the total tally to 137,682 infections, with 1,940 deaths.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, a senior figure in the country's ruling party, met with Donald Trump on Tuesday, becoming the latest US ally seeking to establish ties with the Republican presidential candidate.
Five migrants died in an attempt to cross the English Channel from France to Britain in an overcrowded small boat on Tuesday, hours after Britain passed a bill to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in a move to deter the dangerous journeys.
Israel bombarded northern Gaza overnight in some of the heaviest shelling in weeks, causing panic amongst residents and flattening neighbourhoods in an area from which the Israeli army had previously down its troops, residents said on Tuesday.
Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine that injured seven people in the Black Sea port of Odesa, two of them children, and also targeted Kyiv, the capital, Ukraine's military officials said early on Tuesday.
A Delhi court on Tuesday extended the pre-trial detention of Indian opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal until May 7 in a corruption case, the legal news website Live Law reported.