Sydney (AFP) The outbreak in Sydney’s northern coastal suburbs has grown to 70 with 30 additional cases in the past 24 hours, and authorities say they may never be able to trace the source.
As the numbers mount, New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Prejiklian said Sunday that there is no evidence of massive seeding outside the northern shore community. However, a new list of cases shows that the virus has spread to Greater Sydney and other parts of the state.
The government imposed a lockdown on the area until Wednesday. Residents will only be allowed to leave their homes for five basic reasons, including medical care, exercise, grocery store, work, or compassionate care reasons.
State Health Chief Kerry Chant said contact tracers have yet to identify patient number zero, but an intense investigation is underway.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region:
Thousands of people queued for coronavirus tests in a province near Bangkok on Sunday, as Thai authorities sought to contain an outbreak of the virus that has infected nearly 700 people. The triple lines of migrant workers essentially extended about 100 meters in just one location, in Mahathay in Samut Sakhon County, where health officials in mobile units systematically took nasal swabs. There were three sites in total in the area. Nearby, barbed wire and police guards blocked access to Klang Kung, or Shrimp Central, the seafood market – one of Thailand’s largest markets – and associated housing, the new gathering center. Thailand’s Department of Disease Control said Sunday it had found 141 more cases linked to the market outbreak. On Saturday, the department reported 548 cases, the largest daily increase in Thailand, sending shock waves through a country that has seen few infections in the past several months due to strict border controls and quarantine.
– South Korea recorded more than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus for the fifth consecutive day, which put pressure on the authorities to impose the most difficult rules of divergence that would harm the economy. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency says it has found 1,097 additional cases during the past 24 hours, the highest daily toll since the start of the epidemic. This brings the number of cases nationwide to 49,665, including 674 deaths. About 70% of the new cases come from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which has been the epicenter of viral recovery. The pace of spread has already met government requirements to raise social distancing rules to an all-time high. But officials were reluctant to go ahead with the measure out of concern for the economy. The new move would ban gatherings of more than 10 people and shut down hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses.
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