In Brief : South Africa records over 10,000 daily cases

JOHANNESBURG • South Africa, the country worst hit by the coronavirus in the African continent, has recorded more than 10,000 daily cases as infections surge at an exponential rate.

The Covid-19 positivity rate - the proportion of tests that come back positive - is over 21 per cent, far exceeding the "ideal" rate of 10 per cent, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize tweeted late on Wednesday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced new restrictions to curb the spread of the disease. These include an 11pm curfew and the closure of some beaches.

The worst-hit region is the Western Cape in the south, including the tourist destinations of Cape Town and South Africa's wine country, which had almost a third of the 10,008 new cases.

KwaZulu-Natal in the south-east and economic capital Johannesburg are the second and third worst hit.

South Africa accounts for more than a third of the Covid-19 cases reported across the African continent.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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China to welcome WHO investigators

GENEVA • The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday said China has welcomed an international team of Covid-19 investigators, who are expected to travel to the country early next month.

Dr Babatunde Olowokure, the WHO's regional emergencies director in the Western Pacific, told a news conference that the organisation was in talks with Beijing over where the investigators would go within the country.

REUTERS

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Cluster in Sydney ends 2-week virus-free run

SYDNEY • Australia scrambled yesterday to trace the source of new Covid-19 cases after a cluster was detected in the country's largest city of Sydney, where the authorities urged hundreds of thousands of people to stay home and prepared to set up emergency testing centres.

After reporting two new cases in Sydney's northern suburbs the previous day, the authorities said hours later that the number had jumped to 17, prompting a request for all 250,000 residents in the city's Northern Beaches district to stay home for three days. People from outside the local government area were urged not to go there.

The outbreak brought an end to a two-week run without any locally acquired cases of the virus.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters "we really want to get on top of this, we don't want this to concern us leading into the last few days before Christmas, and I'm just urging the public to remain as vigilant as ever".

Australia has been cautiously opening its internal borders and easing social distancing curbs in recent weeks, due to low or no local cases in most of the eight states and territories.

REUTERS