South Korea yesterday added its most new COVID-19 cases in months, driven by a surge around the capital that appears to be spreading nationwide.
The 324 new infections was its highest single-day total since early March and the eighth consecutive triple-digit daily increase.
Most of the people infected live in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan region, where health workers are scrambling to track transmissions from various sources, including churches, restaurants, schools and workers.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The new infections reported yesterday were from practically all of South Korea’s major cities, including Busan, Gwangju, Daejeon, Sejong and Daegu, the southeastern city that was at the center of a massive outbreak in late February and March.
The newest figures reported by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) brought the nation’s caseload to 16,670, including 309 deaths.
Health authorities had managed to contain the virus in the Daegu region by April, ramping up tests and extensively using cellphone location data, credit-card records and security camera footage to trace and isolate contacts, which allowed the country to weather the outbreak without placing meaningful restrictions on its economy.
Another factor was that the narrowness of the Daegu outbreak effectively aided its containment — most were tied to a single church congregation of thousands of members.
It is unclear whether South Korea’s previous formula of success would be as effective since the Seoul region has many more people and new clusters are occurring in varied places as people increasingly venture out in public.
Churches had been a major course of new cases in the Seoul area before authorities shut them this week while raising social distancing restrictions, something they had resisted for months out of economic concerns. Nightclubs, karaoke bars, buffet restaurants and computer gaming cafes are also closed while spectators have been prohibited again from baseball and soccer games.
KCDC Director Jeong Eun-kyeong said the government should consider stronger distancing measures — possibly including banning gatherings of more than 10 people, shutting schools, halting professional sports and advising companies to have employees work from home — if the virus’ spread does not slow after the weekend.
Jeong said the country is now conducting 50,000 tests per day, compared with about 20,000 per day during the Daegu outbreak, while fighting what she described as the country’s biggest crisis since the emergence of COVID-19.
She said that 732 infections confirmed as of yesterday were linked to members of a northern Seoul church led by a vocal critic of the country’s president.
Sarang Jeil Church pastor Jun Kwang-hun was on Monday hospitalized with COVID-19 after participating in an anti-government protest last week where he shared a microphone on stage with other activists.
Health workers have used location data from cellphone carriers to identify about 15,000 people who spent more than 30 minutes on the streets where the protests took place and are alerting them to get tested.
At least 71 infections have been linked to the protests.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region, India’s COVID-19 caseload crossed 2.9 million with a surge of 68,898 in the past 24 hours.
The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare yesterday also reported 983 more deaths, taking total fatalities to 54,849.
India has been recording at least 50,000 new infections per day since mid-July.
Australia’s hard-hit Victoria state yesterday reported its lowest tally of new COVID-19 cases in more than six weeks.
Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services reported 179 new infections and nine deaths in the latest 24-hour period, the lowest daily increase since July 8.
On the Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo, enthusiastic slackers share their tips: Fill up a thermos with whiskey, do planks or stretches in the work pantry at regular intervals, drink liters of water to prompt lots of trips to the toilet on work time, and, once there, spend time on social media or playing games on your phone. “Not working hard is everyone’s basic right,” one commenter wrote. “With or without legal protection, everyone has the right to not work hard.” Young Chinese people are pushing back against an engrained culture of overwork, and embracing a philosophy of laziness known as “touching
‘STUNNED’: With help from an official at the US Department of Justice, Donald Trump reportedly planned to oust the acting attorney general in a bid to overturn the election Former US president Donald Trump was at his Florida resort on Saturday, beginning post-presidency life while US President Joe Biden settled into the White House, but in Washington and beyond, the chaos of the 45th president’s final days in office continued to throw out damaging aftershocks. In yet another earth-shaking report, the New York Times said that Trump plotted with an official at the US Department of Justice to fire the acting attorney general, then force Georgia Republicans to overturn his defeat in that state. Meanwhile, former acting US secretary of defense Christopher Miller made an extraordinary admission, telling Vanity Fair that
Boeing set a target of designing and certifying its jetliners to fly on 100 percent sustainable fuels by 2030, amid rising pressure on planemakers to take climate change seriously. Regulators allow a 50-50 blend of sustainable and conventional fuels, and Boeing on Friday said it would work with authorities to raise the limit. Rival Airbus is considering another tack: a futuristic lineup of hydrogen-powered aircraft that would reach the skies by 2035. The aircraft manufacturers face growing public clamor to cut emissions in the aviation industry, which added more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2019, according to
Mongolian Prime Minister Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh on Thursday resigned following a protest over a hospital’s treatment of a new mother who tested positive for COVID-19. Khurelsukh, whose Mongolian People’s Party holds a strong majority in the parliament known as the State Great Khural, stepped down after accusing Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga of the Democratic Party of orchestrating a political crisis. A small protest broke out in the capital, Ulan Bator, on Wednesday after TV footage appeared of a woman who had just given birth being escorted in slippers and a thin robe from the maternity ward to a special wing for COVID-19 patients