South Korea is leading Asian countries in battling a resurgence of daily new COVID-19 cases as health officials detected new cluster infections in the greater Seoul area.
South Korea on 5-Month High
On Friday, South Korea reported an additional 166 new coronavirus cases, marking the highest daily increase of new infections in the country over the past five months.
As part of the efforts to curb further infections, the local government of greater Seoul implemented stricter movement control and social distancing measures. Of the new cases, 155 were registered as locally-transmitted infections.
There have also been increased calls to raise the country's social distancing level higher as cases continue to increase amid business and school reopenings.
Seoul's Social Distancing Up to Level II
While the rest of the country has yet to see its social distancing raised, the Seoul area and Gyeonggi region have been placed on Level II, as health officials raise concerns about the alarming resurgence of cases in the said locations.
The country is now on its third consecutive day of triple-digit infections as multiple clusters have been traced back to religious groups as well as high schools.
As of Friday evening, South Korea has logged a total of 15,039 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Tokyo Cases Back Up
Tokyo on Saturday logged an additional 385 new coronavirus cases, marking the resurgence of daily infections in the Japanese capital following an apparent decline in transmissions over the past few days.
The capital remains the hardest-hit in the country and it ever since the first day of August, it has seen triple-digit increases in its daily log.
As part of the efforts to curb the spike in new cases, Gov. Koike Yuriko asked citizens to avoid travels during the holidays. Health officials have raised concerns about the potential increase of infections during the Japanese holidays.
As of Saturday, Japan has logged a total of 52,217 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,073 deaths.
Australia's Victoria Continues to See Spike in Cases
On Saturday, Victoria logged another 303 confirmed coronavirus cases and four fatalities from the disease, marking a continuous uptrend in daily infections in the hard-hit state.
Aside from the continuous spike in infections across the state, there have also been concerns about the increase of cases that could not be traced back to a specific source.
Health officials have yet to determine how the transmissions took place, making it hard to implement proper contact tracing in such scenarios.
As of Saturday, Australia has reported a total of 23,035 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 379 deaths.
India Passes 2.5 Million Mark
Following an additional 57,381 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday, India passed the 2.5 million mark in infections since the pandemic started.
There were also almost 1,000 new deaths on the same day, bringing the national fatality toll to 49,036, as confirmed by data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Affairs.
Maharshtra is still the hardest-hit in all of India. There have been over 2.8 million COVID-19 tests conducted. On Friday alone, 868,670 tests were run as part of more widespread testing.
Modi Reveals India Prepared to Mass Produce Vaccine
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that the country is prepared to mass produce coronavirus vaccines and that India is only waiting for the green light from researchers.
The news came as India remains the third-hardest hit country in the world in terms of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Modi's comments also came amid increasing calls for the government to do more for India's poor communities.
As of Saturday, India has reported 2,526,192 confirmed coronavirus cases.
