S Korea leader: 'Unprecedented' steps needed to fight virus

South Korea's president said Sunday that he was putting his country on its highest alert for infectious diseases and ordered officials to take “unprecedented, powerful” steps to fight a soaring viral outbreak that has infected more than 600 people in the country, mostly in the last few days. China also reported hundreds of more infections for a total of about 77,000, and Iran raised its death toll from the virus to eight __ the highest toll outside of China. While the number of patients worldwide is increasing, some virus clusters have shown no link to China and experts are struggling to trace where those clusters started.

The Iranian health ministry said there were now 43 confirmed cases in Iran, which did not report its first case of the virus until Wednesday. In Italy's northern Lombardy region, which includes the nation's financial capital, Milan, the governor announced Sunday that the number of confirmed cases in the region stood at 89. Italy now has 132 cases, including two deaths.

Venice, which is full of tourists for Carnival events, reported its first two cases, said Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia, whose region includes the lagoon city. It wasn't immediately known if the two infected had participated in Carnival festivities. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his government had decided to increase its anti-virus alert level by one notch to “Red,” the highest level.

The step was last taken in 2009 to guard against a novel influenza outbreak that killed more than 260 people in South Korea. Under the highest alert level, authorities can order the temporary closure of schools and reduce the operation of public transportation and flights to and from South Korea. Moon's education minister, Yoo Eun-hae, said later Sunday that the new school year for kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools in South Korea has been put off by one week and will start on March 9.

Moon said that the outbreak “has reached a crucial watershed,” and that the next few days will be “critical.” “We shouldn't be bound by regulations and hesitate to take unprecedented, powerful measures,” he said. South Korea announced 169 more cases of the new virus, bringing the country's total to 602. The country also reported three more fatalities, raising its death toll to six.

Mainland China reported 648 new infections for a total of 76,936. The daily death toll fell slightly to 97. In all, 2,442 people have died in the country from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. The number of new Chinese cases has seesawed daily but has remained under 1,000 for the past four days. Several changes to how the infections are counted, however, have made it difficult to draw conclusions from the figures.

The central Chinese city of Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province, where the outbreak first emerged in December, remain under lockdown. More than 80% of the country's cases are in Hubei, where the death toll has also been higher than in the rest of the nation. Most of the South Korean cases have been reported in the country's fourth-largest city, Daegu, and the surrounding area. According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 320 cases have also been confirmed to have links to a branch of the local Shincheonji church in Daegu, which has become the biggest cluster of viral infections in South Korea.

Shincheonji, which has been viewed as a cult movement by mainstream Christian organizations, tried to defend itself from growing public anger directed at the church. In a video statement posted on its website, church spokesman Simon Kim said Shincheonji has shut down all its 1,100 local churches and other facilities since one of its church members tested positive for the virus on Feb. 18, the first patient in Daegu.

Earlier Sunday, Daegu Mayor Kwon Yong-jin said there were concerns that the number of those infected in the city could see yet another massive increase because authorities were launching intensive examinations of church members with virus-related symptoms. China's Politburo, made up of senior officials of the ruling Communist Party, cautioned Friday that while the epidemic has been "preliminarily contained," the country has yet to see a turning point.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)