South Korea issues red alert for coronavirus

Some clusters not linked to China, baffling experts in efforts to trace origin.

Some cases outside China cannot be traced to the outbreak’s country of origin, causing health experts concern.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korea’s president said Sunday that he was putting his country on its highest alert for infectious diseases, ordering officials to take “unprecedented, powerful” steps to fight a soaring viral outbreak. A continent away, in Italy, authorities battled to contain Europe’s first major outbreak of the virus.

What’s happening

China reported hundreds more infections, for a total of about 77,000, and Iran raised its death toll from the virus to eight — the highest toll outside of China. While the number of patients worldwide is increasing, some clusters have shown no link to China and experts are struggling to trace where those clusters started.

The Iranian health ministry confirmed 43 cases in Iran, which did not report its first case of the virus until Wednesday.

In Italy’s northern Lombardy region, the governor announced Sunday the number of confirmed cases was 110. Italy now has 152 cases, the largest number outside of Asia, including three deaths.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his government had increased its antivirus alert level to “Red” in response to the spread of the disease that has infected more than 600 people in the country. Under the highest alert level, authorities can order the temporary closure of schools and reduce the operation of public transportation and flights.

Moon’s education minister, Yoo Eun-hae, said the new school year for kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools in South Korea has been put off by one week and will start March 9.

Today’s new cases

South Korea announced 169 more cases of the new virus, bringing the country’s total to 602. It also reported three more fatalities, raising its death toll to six.

Mainland China reported 648 new infections for a total of 76,936. The daily death toll fell slightly to 97. So far, 2,442 people have died in the country from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

The number of new Chinese cases has seesawed daily but has remained at fewer than 1,000 for the past four days. Several changes to how infections are counted, however, have made it difficult to draw conclusions.

Meanwhile, a cruise ship passenger who had been hospitalized after testing positive for the new virus died Sunday, the third fatality from the Diamond Princess, Japan’s health ministry said, confirming 57 more cases of infections from the ship.

AP Workers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant as a precaution against COVID-19 at a local market in Daegu, South Korea.