Asia Today: Morrison scraps Parliament meet as virus spreads

CANBERRA, Australia — Prime Minister Scott Morrison requested that the next two-week sitting of Australia’s Parliament be canceled because of increasing concerns over the spread of the coronavirus in parts of the country.

Parliament was due to sit from Aug. 4 to 13 and would not meet again until the next planned two-week sitting starting on Aug. 24.

Morrison said he had written to the parliamentary speaker to ask for a cancellation. The request is considered a formality.

In a statement, Morrison said he had received advice from Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly that there are “significant risks” associated with a meeting of Parliament due to increased community transmission of COVID-19 in the state of Victoria and the trends in New South Wales.

Kelly says, “The entry of a high-risk group of individuals could jeopardize the health situation … and place residents at unnecessary risk of infection.

On Friday, Victoria state reported a new high of 428 cases and three deaths, most in and around the nation’s second-largest city of Melbourne, which has been locked down since last week.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

— South Korea has reported 39 newly confirmed infections of COVID-19, most of them cases imported from abroad. The figures announced by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought the national caseload to 13,711, including 294 deaths. The KCDC says at least 28 cases were tied to overseas arrivals. Eighteen others came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which had been at the center of a virus resurgence that began in late May as restrictions eased. Health authorities have expressed optimism that the outbreak is being brought under control. They say imported case of COVID-19 are less threatening than local transmissions because the country is mandating testing and enforcing two-week quarantines on people arriving from abroad.