Warehouse and clubbers blamed for rise in cases

SOUTH Korea has reported 27 new cases of coronavirus, including 21 in the Seoul area where officials are scrambling to stem transmissions linked to clubgoers and warehouse workers.

The figures announced by South Korea’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday brought national totals to 11,468 cases and 270 deaths. Twelve of the new cases were international arrivals.

South Korea was reporting about 500 new cases each day in early March but seemed to stabilise the outbreak with aggressive tracking and tracing, which allowed authorities to ease socialdistancing guidelines.

But cases in the greater capital area have been rising steadily again as public activity increases, causing alarm as children have begun returning to school. At least 108 recent infections are linked to workers or visitors at a warehouse of local e-commerce giant Coupang, which has seen orders spike during the crisis.

Coronavirus has infected more than six million people across the world and killed more than 369,000, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Pope Francis yesterday advised against pessimism as many people emerge from lockdowns to a new way of living. During Mass in St Peter’s Basilica to mark Pentecost Sunday, he noted a tendency to say “nothing will return as before”. That kind of thinking, he said, guarantees “the one thing that does not return is hope”.

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