New cases of coronavirus soar
South Korea reported an eightfold jump in coronavirus infections yesterday, while the death toll in Iran climbed to six and a dozen towns in Italy effectively went into lockdowns, as health officials around the world battle the new virus that has spread from China.
Some virus clusters have shown no direct link to travel to China. The spread in Italy prompted local authorities in the Lombardy and Veneto regions to order schools, businesses, and restaurants closed and to cancel sporting events and Catholic masses.
Hundreds of residents and workers who came into contact with an estimated 54 people confirmed infected in Italy are in isolation, pending test results. Two people infected with the virus have died.
South Korea reported more than 120 new cases and its fourth fatality, raising the total number of those infected to 556.
The number of viral infections soared mostly in and around the southeastern city of Daegu, where they were linked to a local church and a hospital. Thousands of worshippers have been screened for the virus.
The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said 113 of the 120 new cases were reported in Daegu and its surrounding province.
In and around Daegu, South Korea’s fourth-largest city, health workers are scrambling to screen thousands of people. Virus patients with signs of pneumonia or other serious conditions at the Cheongdo hospital had been transferred to other facilities, 17 of them in a critical condition, Vice-health Minister Kim Ganglip said.
He said the outbreak had entered a serious new phase, but still expressed cautious optimism that it could be contained to the region surrounding Daegu, where the first case was reported on Wednesday.
Globally, nearly 78,000 people have been infected in 29 countries, and more than 2300 have died.
A team of global experts with the World Health Organisation is on the way to Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, after visiting other parts of China this week.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a meeting of African health ministers that the WHO was concerned about cases with ‘‘no clear epidemiological link, such as travel history to China or contact with a confirmed case’’.
He said he was especially concerned about the growing number of cases in Iran.
However, Tedros said the top concern was the potential spread to countries with weaker health systems, including in Africa. Just one case of the virus has been confirmed in Africa, in Egypt.
In some positive news, China said the daily count of new virus cases there had fallen significantly yesterday to 397, though another 109 people died of COVID19, the disease caused by the virus.
Most of the new cases and all but three of the deaths have been in Hubei province, where the outbreak started.
The new figures, along with an upward revision of Hubei’s earlier count, brought the total number of cases in mainland China to 76,288, with 2345 deaths. China has severely restricted travel and imposed strict quarantine measures to stop the virus from spreading.
A few Chinese provinces, eager to restart factories and their economies, began easing those restrictions after reporting no new cases in recent days.
Liaoning and Gansu provinces lowered their emergency response level, and two cities in Shaanxi province resumed bus services and removed checkpoints at railway stations, bus stations and on some highways.
Around 230 of those infected in South Korea have been directly linked to a single house of worship, a Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where a woman in her 60s attended two services before testing positive for the virus.
Health officials were screening some 9300 church followers, and said 1261 of them had exhibited coughs and other symptoms. Four had travelled abroad in recent months, including one to China.
Iranian health authorities yesterday reported the country’s sixth death from the virus. So far, 28 cases have been confirmed in Iran.
Saudi Arabia yesterday barred travel to Iran, and said anyone coming from there could enter only after a 14-day quarantine. The decision directly affects thousands of Iranians who travel to Mecca and Medina for Islamic pilgrimages.
In the United States, 35 people have tested positive for the virus, including 18 who returned home from a quarantined cruise ship in Japan, and one new case reported in California.
A court yesterday temporarily blocked the US government from sending up to 50 people infected with the virus to the southern California city of Costa Mesa for quarantine, after local officials argued that the plan lacked details about how the community would be protected from the outbreak.
Meanwhile, the first group of Australians evacuated from Wuhan province to a Darwin camp were due to be released yesterday following 14 days in quarantine. About 266 people were to leave the Howard Springs camp.
The number of coronavirus cases among passengers evacuated from a cruise ship in Japan has risen, with a 57-year old Queensland woman testing positive on Saturday. Seven cases have now been confirmed among the group of 164, who are also being kept at the facility near Darwin after leaving the virus-hit Diamond Princess in Yokohama on Thursday.