The COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney’s northern beach suburbs has grown to 70 cases, with an additional 30 within 24 hours yesterday, and authorities say that they might never be able to trace the source.
While the numbers are rising, New South Wales (NSW) Premier Gladys Berejiklian said that there has not been evidence of massive seeding outside the northern beaches community.
However, a new list of cases shows that the novel coronavirus had spread to greater Sydney and other parts of the state.
Photo: Reuters
The NSW government has imposed a lockdown in the area until Wednesday.
Residents will only be permitted to leave their homes for five basic reasons: medical care, exercise, grocery shopping, work or compassionate care.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said that contact tracers are yet to locate patient zero, but an extensive investigation is underway.
South Korea has recorded more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for the fifth consecutive day, putting pressure on authorities to enforce the toughest distancing rules that would further hurt the economy.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said that it has found 1,097 additional cases over a 24-hour period yesterday, the highest daily caseload since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That puts the national caseload at 49,665, including 674 deaths.
About 70 percent of the new cases come from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which has been at the center of a viral resurgence.
The pace of the spread has already met South Korean government conditions for raising social distancing rules to their highest level, but officials have been reluctant to move forward with the measure out of worries for the economy.
The new step would ban a gathering of more than 10 people and shut hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses.
Thailand, which had largely brought the pandemic under control, yesterday reported two new local infections, a day after identifying more than 500 cases south of Bangkok.
The 548 cases on Saturday, most of them linked to Thailand’s biggest wholesale seafood market, come after Thailand saw only a small number of infections over the past several months due to strict border and quarantine controls.
Yesterday, a 78-year-old seafood vendor in Bangkok who had visited the seafood market in Samut Sakhon Province tested positive for COVID-19. The other case was a woman in central Thailand who worked at a beauty parlor in the north.
Thai health officials said that most of the cases at the seafood market are migrant workers from Myanmar.
Provincial authorities imposed a night curfew and travel restrictions in Samut Sakhon until Jan. 3.
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