Japan, China and S Korea see rising coronavirus-related infections
Japan, China and South Korea reported rising coronavirus-related infections and deaths on Tuesday as Japan’s J-League decided to delay seven football games this week over the novel coronavirus.
Japan reported more confirmed cases of the Covid-19 disease, bringing the total infections in the country to 851, including 691 on the vessel.
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A Japanese person in their 80s who was on the Diamond Princess cruise ship has died, local media reported Tuesday. The casualty, revealed by unnamed government officials, is the fourth death among those who were on the vessel.
The reports did not say whether the person tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
China on Tuesday reported 71 new deaths and 508 new coronavirus cases over the past day.
The total number of infections across mainland China has reached 77,658, with 2,663 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.
In South Korea infections jumped by 60 cases, with one more death, health authorities said.
The majority of new cases in South Korea, 49, were recorded in the city of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.
The new cases brought the total number of infections recorded so far in South Korea to 893, including eight deaths.
About half of all cases in South Korea are linked to a religious group called the Shincheonji church of Jesus near the south-eastern city of Daegu, authorities said.
More than 100 other cases are linked to a hospital, according to the authorities.
The city of Daegu and the nearby county of Cheongdo, where the hospital is located, were declared “special care zones” on Friday.
Officials are now investigating a possible transmission route between the hospital and the religious group.
The government is currently also considering “maximum quarantine measures” for the region, national news agency Yonhap quoted a spokesman for the ruling Democratic Party as saying.
Meanwhile, the US tech giant Apple said it re-opened 23 of its 42 stores in China.
Apple asked customers to wear masks when visiting a store. The tech company had closed all its stores in China in February in light of the coronavirus outbreak there.
The coronavirus appeared in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December and has since spread to about a dozen countries.
Italy, which reported 229 cases as of Monday, including seven deaths, is the country with the highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe, and the third in the world after China and South Korea. (dpa)
