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South Korea reports highest daily rise, with 387 new infections
South Korea reported its highest daily rise in novel coronavirus cases since early March on Sunday, as outbreaks continued to spread from a Seoul church and from political demonstrations its members had attended, Reuters reported.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) confirmed 397 new infections as of midnight Saturday, up from the previous day’s 332 and marking more than a week of daily three-digit rises.
That brings South Korea’s total to 17,399 infections of the new coronavirus with 309 COVID-19 deaths, it said.
From Sunday, the government imposed second-tier social-distancing rules in areas outside Seoul, banning in-person church meetings and closing nightclubs, buffets and cyber cafes.
Health authorities say they may eventually deploy the toughest stage 3 social-distancing rules, where schools and business are urged to close, if the rate of increase in new infections does not slow soon.
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Police in the Australian state of Victoria have fined 199 people for breaching coronavirus restrictions, according to Australian Associated Press.
Of the people fined in the 24 hours to Sunday, 73 were in breach of the 8pm to 5am curfew in metropolitan Melbourne, 20 were pinged for failing to wear a mask when leaving home and 14 were picked up at vehicle checkpoints.
Five men found inside a vehicle in Airport West told police they were “just out chilling”.
A man was also seen leaving a petrol station in Glen Eira after curfew. He told police he had been buying chocolate for a friend with diabetes who had low blood sugar. “When asked to produce chocolate he admitted to lying and produced cigarettes he had just purchased,” police said in a statement on Sunday.
Police conducted 3,869 spot checks on people at homes, businesses and public places across the state. Some 316,136 spot checks have been conducted since 21 March.
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South Africa’s retail industry is feeling the pain from the coronavirus pandemic on two fronts – store closures during lockdown and the sharply reduced purchasing power of households, reports Agence France-Presse.
South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy, went into strict lockdown at the end of March, with people only allowed to shop for essential items such as food, medicine and winter clothing. It is also the African country that has been hardest hit by Covid-19, with more than 600,000 cases and at least 2,500 deaths.
Restrictions have been gradually rolled back since June. Alcohol and tobacco sales were allowed to resume this week and, generally, business is now almost back to normal.
Nevertheless, retailers are reeling from the economic effects of months of suffocating restrictions.
South Africa’s Massmart – majority-owned by US giant Walmart – said on Thursday that it expected half-year losses to widen by as much as 42% as a result of the nationwide lockdown.
Massmart was already in dire straits before the pandemic and closed a 23-store electronic retail chain and 11 wholesale outlets shortly before the lockdown came into effect.
“Retailers that were already taking the strain” in an economy that was contracting even before the outbreak have found themselves vulnerable to the virus fallout, said Casperus Treurnicht, portfolio manager at Gryphon Asset Management.
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Victoria’s death toll reaches 415, bringing Australia’s total fatalities from coronavirus to 502.
The 17 deaths from Covid-19 in Australia’s state of Victoria announced on Sunday included 11 people who had been in aged care facilities and took the state’s death toll beyond 400, to 415.
The state declared 208 new cases, and chief health officer Dr Brett Sutton said the trajectory of the outbreak was decreasing. He said: “We are not going to see three-hundreds or four-hundreds again – not under my watch.”
The latest deaths were one man and one woman in their 60s, three men in their 70s, four women and six men in their 80s and two men in their 90s.
Some 585 Victorians were in hospital with 32 in intensive care, including 21 on ventilators.
Victoria is now halfway through a six-week period of hard lockdowns.
The premier Daniel Andrews said if the state was to open up early, the freedom enjoyed by people would be short-lived and a third wave would be inevitable.
He said: “There’s going to be a massive job of repair but we are up to that.”
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New South Wales reports four new Covid cases
Health authorities in New South Wales, Australia, reported Sunday morning four new cases of Covid-19, including a second security guard from a Sydney hotel.
Of the four new cases, two people had caught the disease while overseas and were in hotel quarantine and another was a household contact of a previous case linked to a cluster at the Apollo Restaurant.
An adviser to the country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, has previously self-quarantined after visiting the same Greek restaurant at Potts Point.
A second security guard who had worked at the Sydney Marriott Hotel while it was being used for quarantine had also tested a positive result.
The NSW deputy chief health officer, Dr Jeremy McAnulty, said there was no indication of any additional risk to the community from the hotel. He said the state was currently treating 90 people, including seven in intensive care, where five people were on a ventilator.
NSW Health
(@NSWHealth)Dr Jeremy McAnulty provides a COVID-19 update for Sunday 23 Augusthttps://t.co/NVLNQd5tO2
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Queensland ‘not out of the woods yet’, says premier
Queensland’s premier Annastacia Palaszczuk warned on Sunday morning the state was “not out of the woods yet” despite reporting only two new cases of Covid-19 linked to an outbreak at a youth detention centre.
Both cases – a woman in her 30s and an infant boy – were from the same family as a known case and had been already quarantining at their home west of Brisbane.
On Saturday morning, the state introduced new rules restricting the numbers of people who could gather in homes and outside to 10 people, but businesses and organisations with Covid plans in place could continue to operate as they had been.
Palaszczuk said there were now nine cases in the cluster linked to the detention centre outbreak. The state had 16 active cases. Among 6,875 tests carried out in the previous 24 hours, 202 detention centre staff and 11 inmates had returned negative tests, with a further 20 results from inmates still to be returned.
The state’s chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young said the results of testing so far were good, because they showed the current cluster had not expanded. “But it’s too early for us to relax,” she said.
She said police had been out across the state tracking young people who had been discharged from the detention centre since 22 July.
Because staff and inmates had been previously unaware they were at risk of carrying the disease, people had been moving around different suburbs and locations.
She added: “This is why this cluster is a risk to us. We need to do a lot more testing.”
Queensland Health released a long list of locations with timeframes and asked anyone who visited those places at those times to get tested “if they develop even the mildest of Covid-19 symptoms”.
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Mexico’s death toll passes 60,000
Mexico’s confirmed coronavirus deaths have now passed 60,000, Reuters has reported.
Mexico’s health ministry on Saturday reported 6,482 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 644 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 556,216 cases and 60,254 deaths. The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases
There are some signs of hope: new cases have eased since reaching a record daily number at the start of August. Earlier this week, the government said the outbreak is now in “sustained decline”.
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Melbourne set of The Masked Singer shut down after virus cases
The Melbourne set of The Masked Singer has been shut down after several crew members tested positive for the coronavirus.
“The entire production team, including the masked singers, the host and panellists are now in self-isolation,” the Network 10 program posted on Twitter late on Saturday night.
“They are all being monitored closely and are in constant contact with medical authorities.”
The reality show hosted by Osher Günsberg involves masked celebrities competing against each other in a singing competition. The panellists include Dannii Minogue and comedian Dave Hughes.
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Victoria confirms 208 cases and 17 deaths in last 24 hours
The Australian state of Victoria has recorded 208 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, and 17 deaths, health authorities have confirmed. More detail on the cases and deaths will be provided in a press conference later today.
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Health authorities in the Australian state of Queensland have confirmed two new cases of coronavirus on Sunday morning.
A woman in her 30s and an infant, both from the same family in the West Moreton area near Ipswich, had returned positive tests for the disease. The state now has 16 active cases.
The state is managing an outbreak of the virus that emerged from the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre at Wacol, west of Brisbane.
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