SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea on Sunday reported 34 additional cases of the coronavirus amid a spate of infections linked to clubgoers, as President Moon Jae-in urged calm saying “there’s no reason to stand still out of fear.”
Figures released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took national totals to 10,874 with 256 deaths. The agency said 9,610 have recovered and 10,128 others were being tested for the virus.
The agency said 26 of the 34 new patients were locally transmitted cases while the others came from overseas. South Korean media reported it was the first time that the daily jump has marked above 30 in about a month.
Most of the cases in the past few days were linked to nightclubs in Seoul’s Itaewon entertainment neighborhood. A 29-year-old man had visited three clubs before testing positive last week.
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon on Saturday ordered more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars and discos closed and urged others to enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring employees to wear masks.
“The infection cluster, which recently occurred in entertainment facilities, has raised awareness that even during the stabilization phase, similar situations can arise again, anytime, anywhere in an enclosed, crowded space,” Moon said.
“We must never lower our guard regarding epidemic prevention,” he said, adding his country had “the right quarantine and medical systems combined with experience to respond quickly to any unexpected infection clusters that might occur.”
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
— NEW CASES IN CHINA: China reported its first double-digit rise in new cases in 10 days on Sunday, saying 14 had been detected, 12 of them domestic infections and two from abroad. Eleven of those domestic case were in the northeastern province of Jilin and one in Hubei, whose capital Wuhan was the epicenter of the global pandemic. Jilin shares the border with North Korea, where the virus situation is unclear. No new virus deaths have been reported in China for almost a month and the number of people in treatment for COVID-19 nationwide fell to 148, with another 798 under isolation. China has reported a total of 4,633 total death 82,901 cases. The jump in new cases could fuel concerns over how quickly to lift strict social distancing measures and reopen schools and other public institutions. Widely disseminated photos of people socializing in Shanghai’s bar district over the weekend drew some criticism online.
— AUSTRALIA BACKS EU CALL FOR VIRUS PROBE: Health Minister Greg Hunt says Australia’s government supports a European Union motion for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China. Australia has called for such an inquiry for some weeks to better understand how the coronavirus started in Wuhan, China, to be able counter such pandemics in the future. The move has drawn sharp response from China, Australia’s No. 1 trading partner. “We support the EU motion which includes an independent investigation, regulatory work on wet markets and also the potential for independent inspection powers,” Hunt told Sky News on Sunday. Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive arm, said last week she would like to see China work together with her organization, and others, to determine how the virus emerged.
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