SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean officials are urging people to remain at home if possible and cancel gatherings large and small as around half a million students prepared for a crucial national college exam.
Vice Education Minister Park Baeg-beom says the 490,000 applicants so far include 35 virus carriers who will take exams Thursday at hospitals or treatment shelters. Education authorities have also prepared separate venues for some 400 applicants currently under self-quarantine.
Applicants will be required to wear masks and maintain distance from each other. They will be screened for fever and take exams separately if they have symptoms.
Park Yu-mi, an anti-virus official in Seoul, pleaded with people to cancel all gatherings of more than 10, and for companies to half at least one-third of their employees work from home to ensure a safe environment for Thursday’s examination.
A recent spike in coronavirus infections has made this year’s exams more complicated and there are concerns that the nationwide exercise could accelerate the viral spread.
The country on Wednesday reported 511 new infections, continuing a weekslong resurgence centered around the greater capital area that brought the national caseload to 35,163, including 526 deaths.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— US panel: 1st vaccines to health care workers, nursing homes
— ‘ Very dark couple of weeks ’: Morgues and hospitals overflow
— EU eyes Dec 29 approval for 1st virus vaccine, later than US
— British lawmakers have voted to approve new coronavirus restrictions in England that will take effect within hours. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced substantial opposition from within his Conservative Party over the measures.
— Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the ban on nonessential travel with the United States will not be lifted until COVID-19 is significantly more under control around the world.
— French President Emmanuel Macron says that France will apply restrictions to prevent vacationers from going to Swiss ski resorts, and French slopes will remain closed during the Christmas season amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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Follow AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
NEW DELHI — India has maintained a declining trend in coronavirus infections with 36,604 new cases reported in the past 24 hours.
The cases declined by 32% in November as compared to October, according to the Health Ministry. For more than three weeks, India’s single-day cases have remained below 50,000.
Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said new cases were declining consistently after peaking in mid-September at nearly 100,000 per day.
The capital of New Delhi has also seen a dip in daily infections. It reported 4,006 new cases in the past 24 hours.
India reported 501 additional deaths, raising total fatalities to 138,122.
In an effort to stop the virus from spreading, the Home Ministry has allowed states to impose local restrictions.
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DENVER -- The ACLU of Colorado and the Weld County Sheriff’s office have reached an agreement to implement measures at the county’s jail to better protect inmates from the coronavirus pandemic.
Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams and the ACLU asked a federal judge Tuesday to enter a consent decree between the two sides to carry out the changes and provide federal oversight.
The ACLU had filed a lawsuit in April alleging that the sheriff’s office had failed to meet public health orders related to the pandemic and did not sufficiently protect inmates, jail staff and the public.
Joe Moylan, a spokesperson for the Weld County Sheriff’s Office, declined further comment.
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced measures on Tuesday to boost the number of available health care workers and plan for more hospital beds.
In a partnership with the Maryland Hospital Association, the governor announced the launch of an initiative called MarylandMedNow to recruit people with clinical backgrounds to work at state hospitals, nursing homes, testing sites and vaccination clinics.
The state has asked colleges and universities to develop emergency policies and procedures to award academic credit to students who are willing to get hands-on work experience during the pandemic.
The governor also announced steps to increase hospital beds. Hospitals across the state will be required to submit a patient surge plan, including strategies to expand bed and staffing capacity adjustments. They will be due at the health department Dec. 8.
Also, if hospitalizations reach a total of 8,000 hospitalizations or more, hospitals will be required to expand their staffed bed capacity by 10% of each hospital’s physical bed capacity within seven calendar days. Of the 6,816 people in hospitals, 1,583 had confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of Tuesday.
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SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Mayor London Breed dined at a posh Napa Valley restaurant the day after California’s governor was there. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo went to his parents’ house for Thanksgiving. And a Los Angeles County supervisor dined outdoors just hours after voting to ban outdoor dining there.
All three local officials were on the hot seat Tuesday after various reports that they violated rules aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus — or at a minimum, violating the spirit of the rules as they repeatedly urged others to stay home.
Breed joined seven others at the three Michelin-starred French Laundry on Nov. 7 to celebrate the 60th birthday of socialite Gorretti Lo Lui, the mayor’s spokesman confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle. She dined in the same kind of partially enclosed indoor/outdoor room Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated in a day earlier.
Newsom, who has appealed to Californians to “do your part” and stay home, apologized when the 12-person dinner was reported, then again when photos emerged showing him, his wife and others sitting close together at the same table without masks.
Breed’s spokesman, Jeff Cretan, called the mayor’s French Laundry dinner a “small family birthday dinner.” He did not immediately respond to a telephone message Tuesday inquiring whether the dinner involved more than three different households, which are prohibited under the state’s rules.
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DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis joined the nation’s top infectious disease expert Tuesday and urged people to wear masks and socially distance to help prevent stay-at-home orders and overwhelmed hospitals as cases of the coronavirus surge during the holidays.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, warned during a virtual news conference that Colorado is not alone in seeing a spike in cases and pleaded with people not to travel or gather in large groups.
“If you look across the United States, we are really in a public health crisis right now because we are having a surge the likes of which is worse than the surges that we all saw in the late winter, early spring,” Fauci said.
He added that “we are likely going to see a surge upon a surge” of cases, based on the number of people who traveled and gathered for Thanksgiving and on those who are expected to shop and attend holiday parties before celebrating Christmas and New Year’s in large groups.
Colorado has been hit with a substantial spike in COVID-19 cases, with one in 41 residents believed to be contagious.
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UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. General Assembly is trying to address the problem of 400,000 seafarers stranded at sea as a result of COVID-19 by adopting a resolution urging all nations to designate those working on ships as “key workers.”
The resolution adopted by consensus Tuesday by the 193-member world body stresses the very difficult conditions seafarers face at sea which have been exacerbated by the response to the pandemic that has impeded crew changes and repatriation of sailors to their home countries.
Indonesia’s U.N. Ambassador DianTriansyah Djani, who sponsored the resolution, said the work of two million seafarers “who have shown their dedication and professionalism during this crisis, ensuring that world trade and logistics continue to move properly” largely goes unnoticed.
The resolution acknowledged that “shipping has continued to transport more than 80 percent of world trade essential to the normal functioning of society, including vital medical supplies, food and other basic goods that are critical for the COVID-19 response and recovery.”
Djani said travel restrictions imposed by countries as a result of the pandemic “have generated difficulties for crew changes, and prevent the seafarers from embarkation and disembarkation,” resulting in hundreds of thousands stranded at sea. Designating seafarers and other marine personnel as “key workers” would ease their plight, he said.
The International Chamber of Shipping, which represents 80 percent of the world’s merchant fleet, estimated that nearly 400,000 sailors are stranded at sea because of the pandemic, many for more than a year and some for up to 17 months which is far beyond their contracts.
