Global report: South Korea postpones school reopening due to new outbreak

South Korea has postponed the planned reopening of more than 800 schools as it battles a renewed outbreak of the coronavirus, with cases now at their highest level for almost two months.

The country’s easing of lockdown measures has gone into reverse, with museums, parks and art galleries closed again on Friday for two weeks. Kindergarten pupils, and some primary and secondary school students were due back from Wednesday, in the last phase of school reopenings.

According to the education ministry, however, 838 schools out of 20,902 nationwide remain shut. They are located in areas hard hit by the latest wave of infections, including the capital, Seoul, and the cities of Bucheon and Gumi.

South Korea has been praised for its deft handling of the Covid crisis. It seemed to have brought the virus under control only to record 79 new cases this week, the highest daily figure for two months. The government has responded by bringing back lockdown measures in the Seoul metropolitan area, home to half of the country’s 51 million population.

Most of these cases have been linked to a distribution centre in Bucheon. The warehouse is run by the country’s biggest e-commerce firm Coupang. Health officials traced at least 82 infections to the facility, with the virus found on workers’ shoes and clothes. They are now testing all employees and visitors.

In the Philippines, meanwhile, plans were unveiled on Friday to ease strict lockdown measures despite a record spike in new cases. The country reported 539 infections on Thursday, bringing its total to 15,588, with 921 deaths.

From Monday the capital, Manila, will allow gatherings of up to 10 people and free movement in and out of the city as long as travellers wear masks and keep their distance. Workplaces, shops and some public transport will reopen. Manila is home to 12 million people and is the centre of the nation’s outbreak and efforts to battle the contagion.

“For me, this does not look bad,” President Rodrigo Duterte said in a televised address. He described the country’s mortality rate as low and called for a move to the “new normal”. Health minister, Francisco Duque, said 90% of the country’s Covid-19 cases were “mild”.

Manila’s lockdown will this weekend surpass the 76-day quarantine of Wuhan, the city in China where the first outbreak of the coronavirus was detected. Manila’s restrictions have hit the livelihoods of millions of workers and there is pressure to ease damage to an economy that is facing its deepest contraction in 34 years.

Globally, deaths stand at nearly 360,000, with 5.8 million cases. Asia is struggling to cement early success in controlling outbreaks of coronavirus.

In India, Mumbai’s hospitals are on the verge of collapse, with footage emerging of patients sharing beds and oxygen tanks. “The volume and density of our population in Mumbai makes it very difficult to see how we will get out of the other side of this peak,” said Manish Shetty, a doctor on the Covid-19 ward in Guru Nanak hospital in Mumbai. “The magnitude of the cases is overwhelming us all.”

Weeks earlier, footage emerged of patients being treated next to dead bodies, lying unclaimed by families fearful of infection.

Meanwhile in Sri Lanka, some lockdown rules will be rolled out again from Sunday after more than 250 returnees from Kuwait were found to be infected with coronavirus.

In Japan, a cluster response team has been sent to the south-western city of Kitakyushu, which has seen a sudden rise in cases after three weeks with no new infections. The city has clocked up 43 cases this week, bringing its total to 119. How more than a dozen of the latest infections came about remains unclear.

The mayor, Kenji Kitahashi, warned of a second virus wave and asked residents to refrain from non-essential outings. “If we leave this as it is, we will definitely be hit by a large second wave,” he said.

Several Middle Eastern countries eased restrictions on Friday. In Saudi Arabia a three-day transition to relative normality got under way, with malls and waterfronts open and the Kingdom readying to allow up to 90,000 mosques to receive worshippers on Sunday for the first time in nearly two months.

In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai’s beaches and parks reopened. The city’s museums are expected to reopen their doors on Monday, as officials try to position the country as ‘open for business’ after the most crippling economic slowdown in the country’s history.

Both the Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been among the regional states most affected by Covid-19, with the virus taking an unprecedented toll on state revenues and forcing seismic shake-ups in labour markets and other key sectors.

Balancing dwindling revenues and consumer confidence against a public health emergency has been particularly challenging for the UAE, one of the globe’s main aviation hubs and an emerging tourist destination, the viability of which depends heavily on a pre-Covid interconnected world resuming on a similar scale.

Both countries have enforced social distancing and have imposed curfews throughout the crisis. Numbers have increased steadily throughout the pandemic, with more than 32,500 cases registered in the UAE and more than 80,000 in Saudi Arabia. Migrant workforces account for large numbers of cases in each state. The ratio of deaths to contractions in each state is lower than the global average, at less than one per cent.

In other global developments:

• Health officials in Moscow updated their figures on coronavirus deaths. On top of 636 deaths in April reported earlier, the health department added the deaths of 756 people who tested positive for the virus but died of other causes.

• In France, the prime minister said a ban on journeys of more than 100km (62 miles) would end on Tuesday, adding that cafes, bars and restaurants in so-called green areas – where the virus is not circulating widely – would be able to reopen on the same date. In orange areas, such as Paris, establishments would be able to reopen only their outside terraces.

• Spain approved a minimum basic income scheme to help those on low incomes. The €3bn scheme will provide monthly payments of between €462 and €1,015 to around 850,000 households, It will begin on 15 June.

• Health authorities in South Africa say the country has a backlog of nearly 100,000 unprocessed coronavirus tests, because of a difficulty in obtaining essential supplies.“This challenge is caused by the limited availability of test kits globally,” the health ministry said.

• The president of Namibia, Hage Geingob, and several top officials have been fined after breaching regulations last month by hosting a celebration to mark his party’s 60th anniversary. The South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) birthday party took place in parliament on 19 April, when Namibia was under lockdown and group gatherings banned. All were fined N$2,000 (£92.34).