South Korea said on Saturday it will extend its intensive social distancing campaign scheduled to end on Monday by two weeks in a bid to curb the rate of coronavirus infections to around 50 a day, according to Reuters. The country has largely managed to bring under control Asia's largest epidemic outside China with around 100 or fewer new daily cases. But smaller outbreaks in churches, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as infections among travelers, continue to emerge. This week, the government has been gauging whether it should extend a 15-day intensive social distancing policy it implemented on March 21, under which high-risk facilities were urged to close and religious, sports and entertainment gatherings were banned. But it is "too early to be at ease," Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said, citing a recent spike in imported cases and small cluster infections which also prompted the government to cancel the re-opening of schools next week. "Our goal is to be able to control infections in a way that our health and medical system, including personnel and sickbeds, can handle them at usual levels," Park told a briefing after an government meeting on the coronavirus. "If the number goes down to 50 or lower, stable treatment of the patients including the critically ill will be possible without much pressure on the system." — SPA
