South Korea Placed On Highest Alert Due To Unprecedented Spike In Coronavirus Cases
SOUTH KOREA ON HIGHEST ALERT – The President of South Korea has put the country on its highest alerts for infectious diseases amidst the outbreak of the new coronavirus (COVID-19).
In lieu of this, the President had ordered the authorities to take “unprecedented and powerful” steps to battle the rapid spread of the virus in South Korea. Currently, the country had recorded 600 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
According to a report from Global News, most of the new cases were confirmed just in the last few days. Meanwhile, China had confirmed thousands of COVID-19 cases bringing the total to 77,000.
However, the spike in global cases from the virus has had experts worried due to the fact that most of the clusters have shown no link of recent travel abroad to China. This meant that the virus was spread locally.
Now, health authorities struggle to trace where the cluster of cases has started. However, in Korea, authorities suspected a church group had been infected by a superspreader.
As per the report, Moon Jae-in, the South Korean President had elevated the anti-virus alert level to “RED”, the highest level. The last time this was done was back in 2009 to guard against the influenza outbreak.
Under the highest alert level, authorities could implement temporary closures of high-density public places such as schools, and reduce transportation and flights to and from South Korea.
In addition to this, Moon’s education minister, Yoo Eun-hae, stated that the new school year for kindergarten, elementary, middle and high schools in the country has been moved to March 9.
The President of South Korea stated that the outbreak had reached a crucial watershed. He added that the next few days would be critical.
We shouldn’t be bound by regulations and hesitate to take unprecedented, powerful measures
South Korea had confirmed 169 more cases of the new virus, bringing the country’s total to 602. The country also reported three more fatalities, raising its death toll to six.
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