Precautions rise as hotspot cases surge
GOVERNMENTS and businesses are ramping up precautions after the number of coronavirus cases surged in various parts of the world.
Indonesia was expected to pass the 50,000 mark for confirmed infections yesterday.
In Melbourne, health workers planned to go door to door to test more than 100,000 residents in a coronavirus hotspot that threatens to undo the nation’s success in battling the virus.
In the Indian capital of New Delhi, which has reported more than 70,000 cases, authorities said they would conduct house-tohouse screening over the coming two weeks.
With the city’s hospitals overwhelmed, military personnel were providing care at makeshift medical wards fashioned from train carriages.
India reported a record high 16,922 cases yesterday, taking the national total to 473,105, with nearly 15,000 deaths.
The actual numbers, like elsewhere in the world, are thought to be far higher due to a number of reasons including limited testing.
In China, where the virus first appeared late last year, an outbreak in Beijing appeared to have been brought under control. The nation reported 19 newly confirmed cases nationwide amid mass testing in the capital.
Case numbers both nationally and in Beijing were up by only single digits from Wednesday.
South Korea was still struggling to quell an outbreak there, reporting 28 new cases yesterday, mostly associated with nightlife, churches, a huge e-commerce warehouse and door-to-door sales. But the numbers have not reached the hundreds of new cases every day in late February and early March.
While some governments are considering more aggressive action to stem fresh outbreaks, in other places such precautions are being unwound.
Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, ended a months-long nightly curfew, with the city-state’s media office saying in a tweet that there would be “free move all day and night” as long as people wore masks and maintained social distancing.
European nations appeared on track to reopen their shared borders by July 1, and their EU representatives debated criteria for lifting restrictions on visitors from outside Europe.