S Korea expands ban on small gatherings to tackle coronavirus surge

The country reported 824 new cases as of midnight on Friday, down from 1,029 a day before

Yes, Korea already curbed the infection rise and is on a downward trend, without activating a lockdown.

A country that's doing the right thing.

Every country should be banning all social gatherings no matter the size. It is simple math. Two people, one infected and one not can lead to two infections. One infected person among multiple gatherings can increase numbers exponentially.

Don't make 2021 another repeat of 2020. Haven't we learned ANYTHING in the past year.

The country reported 824 new cases as of midnight on Friday, down from 1,029 a day before

Yes, Korea already curbed the infection rise and is on a downward trend, without activating a lockdown.

Don't rush to a conclusion by cutting the sentence in the middle which is followed by:

a drop that officials said was likely due to less testing over the New Year holiday.

The lack of testing is always noted and criticized here by JT commentators. Korea can't be exempted.

No, in fact it cannot be the right thing, also not in SK, if there still new daily infection cases occur. In other words, they are still making significant amounts of unrecognized or unhandled errors.

Contrary to other countries including Japan, the daily positive rate of tests in South Korea has been decreased during the past 2 weeks, a sign of being controlled:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoothed?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest&country=DEU~JPN~KOR~GBR~USA

Unfortunately it is far too late to do anything despite what some may say or paint a rosy picture of.

The coronavirus is surging throughout the world, with a vengeance not seen even in the early stages of the pandemic. The U.S. state of California is setting daily records in infections and deaths each and every day. Other countries like Australia are losing control as well.