South Korea on Tuesday ordered most schools in Seoul and surrounding areas to close and move classes back online, the latest in a series of precautionary measures aimed at heading off a resurgence in coronavirus cases.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 280 new coronavirus cases as of midnight Monday, bringing the country’s total to 17,945 with 310 deaths.
That represents a drop in daily new infections from 397 reported as of midnight Saturday, the highest daily tally since early March.
With most of the new cases centred in the densely populated capital area, however, health authorities say the country is on the brink of a nation-wide outbreak and have called on people to stay home and limit travel.
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The past week has seen three times as many serious cases compared to past spikes, he said, raising concerns that the death toll could rise.
All students, except for high school seniors, in the cities of Seoul and Incheon and the province of Geonggi will take classes online until September 11th, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday.
The beginning of the spring semester had been postponed several times since March, but as daily coronavirus cases dropped sharply since a February peak, most of South Korea’s schools reopened in stages between May 20th and June 1st.
Over the past two weeks, at least 150 students and 43 school staff have tested positive in the greater Seoul area, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae told a briefing.
Seoul on Monday ordered masks to be worn in both indoor and outdoor public places for the first time, and has ordered places like churches, nightclubs, karaoke bars and other high-risk venues closed.
Belgium/Netherlands
Two European patients are confirmed to have been reinfected with Covid-19, raising concerns about people’s immunity to the coronavirus as the world struggles to tame the pandemic.
The cases, in Belgium and the Netherlands, follow a report this week by researchers in Hong Kong about a man there who had contracted a different strain of the virus four and a half months after being declared recovered – the first such second infection to be documented.
That has raised fears about the efficacy of potential vaccines against the virus, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, though experts say there would need to be many more cases of re-infection for these to be justified.
Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst said the Belgian case was a woman who had contracted Covid-19 for the first time in March and then again with a different coronavirus strain in June. Further cases of re-infection were likely to surface, he said.
Van Ranst told Reuters TV the woman, in her 50s, had very few antibodies after the first infection, although they might have limited the sickness. Reinfection cases were probably limited exceptions, he said, although it was too soon to tell and many were likely to surface in coming weeks.
He added that the new coronavirus appeared more stable than the influenza virus, but it was changing.
“Viruses mutate and that means that a potential vaccine is not going to be a vaccine that will last forever, for 10 years, probably not even five years. Just as for flu, this will have to be redesigned quite regularly,” he said.
Van Ranst, who sits on some Belgian Covid-19 committees, said vaccine designers would not be surprised.
“We would have loved the virus to be more stable than it is, but you can’t force nature.”
The National Institute for Public Health in the Netherlands said it had also observed a Dutch case of reinfection with a different strain of the virus.
"It is clear there has been a first and a second infection with a substantial quantity of virus. Enough to be able to determine the genetic code of the virus, that is what showed they were indeed different," said Marion Koopmans, a leading virologist in the Netherlands and a member of the World Health Organization's scientific advisory group.
She added the elderly Dutch patient had a weakened immune system, which explained the patient’s situation. “People are worried and ask if re-infection is ‘standard’. I don?t think it is,” she added.
Brazil
The eldest son of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has announced that he has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in isolation, despite having no symptoms.
Flavio Bolsonaro is the fourth member of the president Jair Bolsonaro's direct family to be infected by coronavirus, including the president himself, first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and Jair Renan Bolsonaro, another son.
The Brazilian president has downplayed the virus’s severity, arguing against restrictions on economic activity he claims will prove far more damaging than the disease.
His approach to the pandemic runs counter to most health experts’ recommendations.
Flavio Bolsonaro said he was being treated with azithromycin and chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that was touted both by Brazil's president and by US president Donald Trump, despite clinical trials that found it ineffective or even dangerous.
Brazil so far has registered more than 3.6 million cases and more than 115,000 deaths, second in the world only to the United States.
Several members of Mr Bolsonaro’s staff also have tested positive for Covid-19, among them eight Cabinet members.
France
A wedding in France has left 76 guests infected with Covid-19 despite organisers saying that the event was in accordance with safety measures, according to The Brussels Times.
The wedding hosted 250 guests and took place on August 8th on the edge of the city Le Mans, 220 km south-west of Paris.
The French health ministry said it had recorded 3,304 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, well below daily highs seen last week and taking the cumulative total to 248,158.
The number of new infections was above the 1,995 reported on Monday – which traditionally shows a dip – but remained well below Sunday’s new post-lockdown record of 4,897 and below levels above 3,600 reported in the second half of last week.
The ministry also said the death toll rose by 16 to 30,544, while the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 fell to a new post-lockdown low of 4,600. The number of people in intensive care rose by 11 to 410. – Agencies