Australia isolates virus-prone state, Serbs oppose lockdown

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia isolated the state of Victoria on Wednesday in a bid to contain the worsening spread of the coronavirus as the city of Melbourne prepared for its second lockdown, an example of a resurgent disease in places that initially succeeded in taming it.

Melbourne’s failure to curb the virus in the past three weeks is a starkly different pandemic experience to other parts of the country that have been reporting single-digit daily counts of infections if any.

In Serbia, chaos erupted as thousands of protesters fought running battles with police and tried to storm the parliament building in Belgrade on Tuesday after the president announced that a coronavirus lockdown will be reintroduced in the Balkan country.

President Aleksandar Vucic called the virus situation in Belgrade “alarming” and “critical” as the city’s hospitals neared their capacity limits after health officials reported the highest single-day death toll of 13 amid 299 new COVID-19 cases.

Many blame the autocratic Serbian leader for lifting the previous lockdown measures just so he would cement his grip on power after parliamentary elections. He has denied those claims.

In China, where the pandemic appeared late last year, only seven new cases were confirmed on Wednesday, all of them brought from outside the country. But South Korea reported 63 additional cases among a population twice the size of Australia’s. South Korean authorities are scrambling to stem transmissions tied to places such as churches, temples, restaurants and workplaces.

Pakistan’s daily infection rate dropped below 3,000 for the second straight day. Medical professionals are urging caution, noting testing has been cut by almost one third. Still some experts, particularly in the eastern city of Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab...