The coronavirus continues its rapid spread outside of China. South Korea has reported on Monday 161 new cases in its territory, bringing the total to 763. The Asian country has also confirmed the death of a seventh patient of Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen. Around 60% of the sick have links with the Christian Shincheonji sect of Jesus.
Of the 161 new contagions, 115 are related to a church of this group in the southeast city of Daegu, epicenter of the contagions in South Korea. The country decreed on Sunday the maximum alert for the accelerated spread of the coronavirus in less than a week: from 30 cases on February 17 it has gone to 763 this Monday, with seven deaths.
About 60% of the patients, 458, are members of a Shincheonji (New Heaven and Earth) temple in Daegu. It is believed that the origin of the infections comes from a 61-year-old woman, described as "patient 31," which would be what the health authorities define as a "supercontainer." The affected woman attended a religious service in Daegu on Sunday, February 16.
Since last Friday, Daegu, the fourth largest city in the country with 2.5 million inhabitants, and the adjacent Cheongdo County have been declared "special care areas." South Korean authorities are going to test a coronavirus for 28,000 people with flu symptoms in Daegu, reports Yonhap. Meanwhile, concerns about the situation of the Daenam hospital in adjacent Cheongdo County are increasing. Five of the seven dead, the last one a 62-year-old man, were admitted to that center, becoming another important source of infection with at least 111 affected.
The origin of the transmissions could come from visits by Shincheonji members as part of their volunteer activities, according to Efe. The majority of those infected belong to the psychiatric ward, a closed unit with controlled visits.
Several countries have banned or restricted the entry of travelers from South Korea; Israel was the first to impose a total ban, followed by Jordan and Bahrain. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Singapore, have increased controls on passengers from South Korea, where they recommend restricting travel.
Third death of the Diamond Princess
Japan, meanwhile, announced Monday the third death of a passenger of the Diamond Princess , the cruise ship quarantined in the Japanese port of Yokohama. This is an 80-year-old Japanese man who has died from pneumonia, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, without confirming whether the patient suffered from Covid-19.
The three deceased are Japanese octogenarians who were part of the more than 3,700 occupants of the ship that were quarantined for two weeks, from the beginning of February until last Wednesday, after discovering that a passenger who had been on the ship five days had given positive in the coronavirus test. During that time, more than 600 people were infected.
Thousands of initially healthy passengers disembarked between Wednesday and Friday last week. However, the Japanese Ministry of Health is now trying to locate 23 people who were negative at the beginning of the quarantine (started on February 3), and who could have gotten sick later, as was the case with a woman who once returned to his home tested positive.
The province of Canton lowers the alert
While cases outside of China increase, with six deaths in Iran and more than 150 in Italy, infections outside Hubei, the epicenter of the epidemic in China, continue to decline. The Canton authorities, the second most affected province after Hubei, lowered the alert level to the second most serious Monday, after weeks in the first.
In total, 2,522 people have died and 79,354 have been infected since the outbreak began. The entourage of the World Health Organization (WHO) that visited the city of Wuhan, zone zero of the virus, finished on Monday its two-day visit to China and is expected to disseminate its conclusions this Monday in a press conference.
On the other hand, a study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences defends that the new coronavirus does not come from the Wuhan market related to its propagation, suggesting that it was a focus of propagation but that it would have arisen in another unspecified place.
