South Korea, Japan to deploy military to combat COVID-19

South Korea and Japan are deploying their militaries to assist healthcare workers in combatting COVID-19, with South Korean soldiers called in to expand coronavirus testing and tracing and Japanese military nurses tapped to fill a shortage of staff at hospitals in the hard-hit regions of Hokkaido and Osaka.

Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, on Monday ordered the government to mobilise “every available” resource to track infections and to expand testing by deploying the military and more people from the public service, presidential Blue House spokesman Chung Man-ho told a briefing.

The order came as the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 615 new coronavirus cases as of midnight on Sunday, capping a month of triple-digit daily increases that have led to 8,311 confirmed patients in quarantine, the most ever.

Moon said testing sites should operate longer hours to allow workers to get tested at their convenience and more drive-through testing facilities should be set up, Chung said.

The positive rate for the latest batch of tests was about 4.2 percent, compared with the year’s average of 1.2 percent, according to the KDCA.

Monday’s total was down slightly from Sunday when the agency reported 631 new cases, the largest daily tally since a peak in February and early March. Health authorities have said that if the current trend of cases continues, the hospital system could become overloaded. (Al Jazeera)