S. Korea on high alert; Italy, Iran take drastic steps as fears grow
INTERNATIONAL concern about the spread of the novel coronavirus outside China grew yesterday with sharp rises in infections in three countries — South Korea, Italy and Iran.
South Korea went on high alert after the number of infections surged over 600 with six deaths. Italy saw a rise to 132 cases and imposed stringent curbs in parts of the country to try to stop the spread. Iran has reported 43 cases, with eight deaths.
South Korea’s president said the government had raised the disease alert to the highest level, allowing authorities to send extra resources to Daegu city and Cheongdo county, which were designated “special care zones” on Friday.
Health officials reported 169 new infections, bringing the total to 602, having doubled from Friday to Saturday.
More than half the new cases are linked to a church in the southeastern city of Daegu after a 61-year-old woman known as “Patient 31” who attended services there tested positive for the virus last week. The woman had no recent record of overseas travel.
The alert level also enables the government to forcibly prevent public activities and order the temporary closure of schools, the health ministry said.
The ministry also said Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun will take charge of policy decisions related to the virus outbreak, which is the first time the country’s prime minister has intervened to take over from a minister in this way.
“The coronavirus virus is more contagious and spreads quickly during the early stage of the outbreak, and therefore preemptive measures are needed considering a possibility that the virus could develop into a nationwide spread from a community spread,” health minister Park Neung-hoo said. “We believe a week to 10 days will be crucial to determine the spread of the coronavirus.”
Education minister Yoo Eun-hae told the news conference that kindergartens, elementary and secondary schools will start the new semester one week later on March 9, from March 2.
The last time South Korea raised the alert level to “red” was 11 years ago during the Influenza A or H1N1 outbreak, Yonhap News Agency said.
South Korea’s earlier cases were linked to China but the new infections center on Daegu, a city of about 2.5 million, and a hospital in Cheongdo, a county with about 43,000 people.
Seventeen South Korean Catholics from North Gyeongsang Province and their tour guide in Seoul who had gone on a pilgrimage to Israel earlier this month were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, the Korea Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention said.
Israeli and Palestinian authorities sought to allay fears of a potential local outbreak after learning that South Korean pilgrims who had toured some of the holy land’s most popular sites were later found to be carrying the virus.
South Koreans on board a Korean Air flight were refused entry at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International airport on Saturday evening due to concerns over the virus, the foreign ministry said yesterday.
“As the measure was taken without notice in advance by Israel, we have lodged a complaint for causing inconveniences to our travelers and asked to prevent a recurrence,” the ministry said, adding that Israeli counterparts had promised to cooperate with South Korea.
Concern about the reach and rapid spread of the coronavirus also grew in Europe and the Middle East.
In Italy, schools and universities were closed and some soccer matches postponed in the affected northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto, the country’s industrial heartland.
Almost a dozen towns in Lombardy and Veneto with a combined population of some 50,000 have effectively been put under quarantine, with locals urged to stay home and special consent needed to enter or leave the designated areas.
Italians’ cherished Sunday routines — from soccer to church-going — were being touched by the spread of the contagion, almost entirely based in the north. Sports events in the affected northern areas, including local kids’ sports team practices to four Serie A (top major league) soccer matches, were canceled.
Bishops in several dioceses in northern Italy issued directives that holy water fonts be kept empty, that communion wafers be placed in the hands of the faithful and not directly into their mouths by priests celebrating Mass and that congregants refrain from shaking hands or exchanging kisses during the symbolic Sign of the Peace ritual.
Italy’s first cases — that of a married Chinese couple who were on vacation in Rome — surfaced in early February.
To date, two deaths — of elderly persons in the north — have been reported.
Iran reported a total of 43 infections, with eight deaths — all since Tuesday.
Most of the infections have been in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom.
“A merchant from Qom who died of the virus used to regularly travel to China ... Flights were suspended between the two countries but he used indirect flights,” Health Minister Saeed Namaki said, urging people to avoid traveling to Qom, a major destination for Shiite pilgrims 120 kilometers south of the capital Tehran.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey imposed travel and immigration restrictions on Iran.
The WHO says the virus is severe or critical in only a fifth of infected patients, and mild in the rest, but the potential economic impact of the disease was prominent at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Riyadh.
In Japan, where the government is facing growing questions about whether it is doing enough to counter the virus, authorities had confirmed 773 cases by yesterday evening, most of them from a cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed government agencies to urgently prepare medical provisions and draft a comprehensive plan to curb the spread.
A third passenger from the virus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship, a Japanese man in his 80s, died yesterday.
(Reuters)