SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific rose in Thursday morning trade, as fears over the omicron Covid variant ease.

It Nikkei 225Japan was trading 0.52% higher than in the early days, but Topix gained 0.54%. South Korea KospiIt climbed by 0.54%

And elsewhere, S&P/ASX 200Morning trade in Australia was up 0.3%

MSCI’s Asia-Pacific share index outside Japan was 0.23 percent higher.

Investors will pay attention to mainland Chinese markets following the order of Xi’an for its 13,000,000 residents to return home while it handles rising Covid cases. according to Reuters.

Overnight stateside, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 261.19 points to 35,753.89 while the S&P 500 rose 1.02% to 4,696.56. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.18%, to 15,521.89.

These Wall Street gains came following Wednesday’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted authorization for Pfizer’s Covid treatment pillThis was the first antiviral oral drug that was approved during the pandemic.

It U.S. dollar indexThe indices that track the greenback in relation to a basket of peers were at 96.076 following a decline from above 96.3.

It Japanese yenAfter falling to 113.6 dollars earlier in the week, it traded at 114.11 USD. After weakening earlier this week from levels below 113.6 against the greenback, prices were at 114.11 per dollar. Australian dollarYesterday’s increase from $0.712 to $0.7212 resulted in a $0.7212 rise.