China’s Beijing closed its biggest wholesale food market and ordered lockdowns in 11 residential estates after 36 new cases were reported in the city.
China yesterday reported its highest daily total of new COVID-19 cases in two months and infections in South Korea rose, showing how the disease can come back as curbs on business and travel are lifted.
Tokyo confirmed 47 new infections, Asahi television reported, the highest since the government lifted the state of emergency nationwide late last month.
The daily figure was also the highest since May 5, the broadcaster said.
Of these 47 cases, 18 were working at a club that provides male drinking companions for women, Jiji news agency said.
Governments including Egypt, Ukraine and North Macedonia have reported their highest single-day totals of new infections since Friday.
In the US, case numbers are rising in some states as US President Donald Trump pushes to reopen businesses, despite warnings by public health experts.
The world is seeing more than 100,000 newly confirmed cases every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
China had 57 new confirmed cases in the 24 hours through midnight on Saturday, the Chinese National Health Commission reported.
That was the highest since the middle of April and included 36 in the capital, Beijing, a city of 20 million people.
Beijing’s cases were all linked to its biggest wholesale food market, which was shut down on Saturday, the China News Service reported, citing the city’s disease control agency.
It said 27 of the cases worked there and nine had direct or indirect exposure to it.
The new cluster has prompted fresh lockdowns, with people ordered to stay home in 11 residential estates near the market, which supplies most of the city’s fresh produce.
City official Xu Hejian (徐和建) yesterday told reporters that Beijing had entered an “extraordinary period.”
One the new cases was a 56-year-old man who works as an airport bus driver and had visited the market before falling ill, the state-run People’s Daily reported.
The South Korean government reported 34 more cases, adding to an upward trend in infections.
Thirty were in the greater Seoul area, where half of the country’s 51 million people live, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
New cases have been linked to nightlife establishments, church services, an e-commerce warehouse and door-to-door sellers.
The Philippines reported 539 more infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 25,930.
The Philippine Department of Health also recorded 14 additional fatalities related to the novel coronavirus, taking the death toll to 1,088.
Russia reported 8,835 new cases, bringing the number of infections nationwide to 528,964.
The authorities said 119 people had died from the virus in the past 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 6,948.
On Saturday, the Egyptian Ministry of Health announced 1,677 new confirmed cases. The Arab world’s most populous country has its highest coronavirus death toll at 1,484 among 42,980 confirmed cases.
Ukraine reported 753 new cases, more than double the daily count earlier this month. Authorities in North Macedonia reported 196 cases.
In the US, the number of new cases in Arizona has risen to more than 1,000 per day from fewer than 400 when the state’s shutdown was lifted in the middle of last month, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is not requiring Arizona residents to wear masks in public, despite warnings by public health experts outside the government.
The states of Utah and Oregon suspended further reopening of their economies due to a spike in cases.
@ Taipeitimes/ AFP and Reuters