Virus cases balloon in S. Korea as outbreak shifts, spreads

Schools were shuttered, churches told worshipers to stay away and some mass garings were banned as cases of a new virus swelled Friday in South Korea, newest front in a widening global outbreak.

country said a total of 204 people were infected with virus, quruple number it h two days earlier, as a crisis centered in China has begun strongly reverberating elsewhere.

multiplying caselo in South Korea showed ease with which illness can spre. Though initial infections were linked to China, new ones have t involved international travel.

“We have entered an emergency phase,” Prime Minister Chung Se-kyun said in televised comments at start of a government meeting on health emergency. “Our efforts until w h been focused on blocking illness from entering country. But we will w shift focus on preventing illness from spreing furr in local communities.”

Daegu, a souastern city of 2.5 million that is country’s fourth largest, emerged as focus of government efforts to contain disease kwn as COVID-19, and Chung promised support to ease a short in hospital beds, medical personnel and equipment. Mayor Kwon Young-jin of Daegu has urged residents to stay inside, even wearing masks at home, to stem furr infection.

first case in Daegu was reported on Tuesday. By Friday, area h 153. Nationwide, numbers told of a ballooning problem. re were 20 new cases reported Wednesday, 53 on Thursday and 100 on Friday.

central government declared a “special manment zone” around Daegu on Friday, which didn’t restrict movement of residents or supersede local officials’ power but served as official recognition of problem. A total of 110 infections have been confirmed in Daegu and surrounding areas, including South Korea’s first fatality from COVID-19.

Most of those cases have been linked to a single house of worship, a branch of Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where a woman in her 60s attended two services before testing positive for virus.

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About 1,000 ors who attended services with woman have been isolated in ir homes for screening, and health authorities say y’re trying to monitor thousands of or church members.

All 74 sites operated by Shincheonji Church have been closed and worshipers have been told to inste watch services online for a sect whose leer claims to be an angel of Christ, but who is dismissed by many outsiders as a cult leer. Its teachings revolve largely around Book of Revelation, a chapter of New Testament kwn mostly for its apocalyptic foreshowing.

Health and city officials say woman eyed as a potential transmitter at church h contact with some 1,160 people, both at church and at a restaurant and a hospital where she was treated for injuries from a car accident. That raised fears that South Korea — which before Wednesday h recorded just 31 cases of virus — should brace for a furr surge.

“I hope South Korea will do everything to contain this outbreak at this early st,” said Tedros ham Ghebreyesus, director general of World Health Organization.

Usually bustling downtown streets of Daegu were nearly deserted Friday as people wearing face masks lined up at clinics seeking testing. Eight hundred area schools, due to start a new acemic year on March 2, delayed ir openings by a week.

Elsewhere in country, angst grew too. In capital of Seoul, major downtown rallies were banned, and fears of virus led many to avoid shops and restaurants and inste eat at home and order necessities online. Buses and subways were full of mask-cl commuters.

first two cases in country’s 600,000-member military also sprung up on separate bases Friday, bringing ded concern. A sailor on Jeju Island and an army officer in rth Chungcheong province both tested positive. Both h me recent visits to Daegu, officials said.

Globally, more than 76,000 people have been infected in 27 countries, and more than 2,200 have died. Even as new alarms were sounded elsewhere in Asia, in China, where vast majority of cases have occurred, officials have expressed optimism over number of new infections, which has been trending downward. China said Friday 889 new cases were recorded in preceding 24 hours and 118 ditional deaths.

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