December 22 coronavirus news

At least 427 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed on Monday from a Covid-19 cluster stemming from a seafood market outside of Bangkok, Dr. Taweesilp Visanuyothin, the spokesperson of the center for Thailand’s Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), said Tuesday.

The cluster from the Samut Sakhon province has grown to more than 1,000 in a few days, mostly among migrant workers.

Train travel between Samut Sakhon province and Bangkok has been suspended until January 3. Foreigners are currently prevented from entering or leaving Samut Sakhon.

Thailand has reported more than 5,200 Covid-19 cases and 60 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

What officials are doing: Authorities have extended screening of foreign workers in all fresh food markets in Bangkok and construction sites in the city.  

A pilot from New Zealand who was a close contact of Taiwan's first locally transmitted case in more than 250 days is facing a fine after failing to disclose a complete history of his activities during a contact tracing investigation.

Taiwan on Tuesday reported its first local Covid-19 case since April -- a woman in her 30s.

According to Taiwan's Health Ministry, the woman tested positive for coronavirus after coming in contact with the New Zealand pilot -- a man in his 60s -- between December 8 and 12.

The pilot flew to the United States on November 29 and returned to Taiwan on December 4, Taiwan's Center for Disease Control said in a news release. He was tested on December 18 and tested positive for antibodies on December 20.

He's now facing a fine of between 60,000 to 300,000 New Taiwanese dollars ($2,100 to $10,600) for "failing to inform" authorities of a complete history of his activities and who he had contact with during the contact tracing investigation.

Contact tracing investigators found the pilot had visited “multiple public places” during that time.

Read more about the situation in Taiwan:

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Taiwan reports first local Covid-19 case in more than 250 days

Imagine spending two weeks in a strict quarantine, not allowed to go anywhere beyond a small hotel room even to eat or exercise.

Now, imagine doing all of that -- with children.

That was the situation Julie Earle-Levine, an Australian who lives in New York City, found herself in earlier this year when her father died unexpectedly. In a normal year, she would have made a last-minute flight booking and gotten to Oz as quickly as possible. 

But Australia's strict entry rules meant that Earle-Levine's family had to agree to postpone the funeral for several weeks so that she and her 13-year-old son Jack could make it to Australia, go through a mandatory quarantine in a hotel, and then join the rest of the family in Queensland.

She isn't alone. The coronavirus pandemic has halted global travel and caused many countries to close their borders to non-citizens. 

The people who need to travel have to go through an obstacle course of Covid tests, entry caps, canceled and rescheduled flights and mandatory quarantines. When you add more people to the equation, the challenges become harder.

What quarantine was like: Earle-Levine and her son had different approaches to staying busy during quarantine. Jack adapted his usual activities -- kicking a tennis ball around the suite instead of playing soccer, and watching chess games on Twitch instead of playing against friends. 

Earle-Levine, in return, threw herself into work. Staying occupied helped to pass the time, but it also meant she didn't have the ability to wallow in her grief. 

Quarantine also provided an unusual bonding experience. 

Read the full story:

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Surviving a hotel quarantine ... with kids

By Lilit Marcus, CNN

The British government will continue working with France today to try to unblock the flow of trade across the Channel, the UK Home Secretary said Tuesday.

On Sunday, France introduced a border closure after the UK announced it had identified a new, potentially more contagious coronavirus variant linked to a recent surge in cases in England. 

Asked if there would be a resolution today, Patel said: "We're working to get a resolution."

"It's in both our interests to ensure that we have flow," she said. "We'll see what materializes today."

South Korea's Health Ministry is curtailing Christmas gatherings during the holiday season by declaring a "special quarantine period."

Health Ministry official Yoon Tae-ho said in a briefing Tuesday that the country will tighten social distancing measures for the country between December 24 to January 3.

All religious facilities in the country are banned from holding in-person services or gatherings. Diners are limited to groups of five at restaurants and all cinemas must close after 9 p.m.

Resorts and hotels may remain open, but guest occupancy is limited to 50%. Parks and tourist destinations that are usually popular during the new year holiday will be closed.

Gatherings of five or more people are banned in greater Seoul. Although that rule does not apply outside of greater Seoul, the ministry issued a strong recommendation to people around the country not to gather in groups of five or more.

Four cases with the United Kingdom Covid-19 variant have been detected in Australia, the country's Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said Monday. 

Kelly stressed that after assessing the risk of travel from the UK with a panel of medical experts, there was "no need for this to be a cause of us changing any of our arrangements here in Australia, or to be concerned about people coming from the UK." 

The chief medical officer said that Australia had decided not to shut off transport links with the UK because it already had robust quarantine arrangements for international arrivals.

He described the quarantine rules as "our rings of containment, to protect the Australian public." 

Strict immigration controls mean that only Australian citizens, permanent residents and people who reside in New Zealand have been permitted to travel to the country. International arrivals from places other than New Zealand need to spend 14 days in a state-run quarantine at their own cost.

Kelly said that medical experts in Australia had been monitoring mutations of the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.

Life expectancy in the United States was on the rise before the coronavirus pandemic struck, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics reported Tuesday.

For the second consecutive year, Americans’ life expectancy rose in 2019, according to the report “Mortality in the United States: 2019.”

That’s despite an increase in drug overdose deaths and a record high of 2.85 million deaths, 15,633 more than the total in 2018.

Life expectancy increased for both men and women. Men gained 0.1 year from 76.2 in 2018 to 76.3 in 2019, while women gained 0.2 years from 81.2 years in 2018 to 81.4 years in 2019, the report found.

Final life expectancy and death rate data for 2020 is not yet available, but will reflect the mortality toll from the pandemic, the CDC said. More than 319,000 people have died from coronavirus in the US.

The United States has reported at least 18,035,209 cases of coronavirus, including at least 319,364 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally.

On Monday, Johns Hopkins reported 190,519 new cases and 1,696 additional deaths.

At least 4,624,325 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 614,117 doses of the vaccine have been administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

CNN is tracking US cases:

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Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

Taiwan reported its first locally-transmitted Covid-19 case since April on Tuesday, breaking a run of more than 250 days without one, according to figures released by the island's Health Ministry.

The ministry said the case was a woman in her 30s who had contact with another positive case, a foreign pilot, between Dec. 8 and 12.

The island of 23 million people last reported a locally transmitted case on April 12.

Taiwan also reported three imported cases Tuesday, bringing its total Covid-19 infections since the pandemic began to 770. Just seven people have died from coronavirus in Taiwan.

On Monday, a top Taiwanese health official said the island would not consider banning flights from the UK after a new strain was detected because of sufficient preventative measures already in place, according to Taiwanese state media.

Taiwan's outbreak: Taipei's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been one of the world's most effective.

Taiwan has never had to enact strict lockdowns. Nor did it resort to drastic restrictions on civil freedoms, like in mainland China.

Instead, Taiwan's response focused on speed. Taiwanese authorities began screening passengers on direct flights from Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, on December 31, 2019 -- back when the virus was mostly the subject of rumors and limited reporting.

Taiwan confirmed its first reported case of the novel coronavirus on Jan. 21 and then banned Wuhan residents from traveling to the island. All passengers arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao were required to undergo screening.

All this happened before Wuhan itself went into lockdown on Jan. 23. By March, Taiwan banned most foreign nationals from entering the island, apart from diplomats, residents and those with special entry visas.