South Korea yesterday announced stronger social distancing restrictions for its greater capital area, where a surge in COVID-19 cases has threatened to erase the hard-won gains against the novel coronavirus.
The two-week measures starting today are to allow authorities in Seoul and towns in neighboring Gyeonggi Province to shut down high-risk facilities, such as nightclubs, karaoke rooms, movie theaters and buffet restaurants, if they fail to properly enforce preventive measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring masks.
Fans would once again be banned from professional baseball and soccer, just a few weeks after health authorities allowed teams to let in spectators for a portion of their seats in each game.
Photo: Reuters
Gatherings of more than 50 people would be discouraged. Churches would be advised to shift their services online.
Separately yesterday, India’s confirmed cases crossed 2.5 million with another biggest single-day spike of 65,002 in the past 24 hours.
India is behind the US and Brazil in the number of cases.
On Friday, 6,207 new deaths and 287,155 new cases were recorded worldwide.
The countries with the most new deaths were the US with 1,289, followed by Brazil with 1,060 and India with 996.
The US remains the worst-hit country with 168,446 deaths from 5,314,021 cases.
The Indian Ministry of Health yesterday reported another 996 deaths for a total of 49,036. The average daily reported cases jumped from about 15,000 in the first week of last month to more than 50,000 at the beginning of this month.
The ministry said the rise shows the extent of testing with 800,000 carried out in a single day.
However, experts said India needs to pursue testing more vigorously.
The Australian state of Victoria continues to flatten the curve in its wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the hard-hit area.
It reported four more deaths and 303 new cases in the past 24 hours.
The Chinese government reported 22 new confirmed cases yesterday. Eight were acquired locally, including seven in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, the Chinese National Health Commission reported.
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