Asia Today: S. Korea steps up virus prevention for holiday

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean officials are taking steps to limit travel and gatherings during next week’s Lunar New Year’s holidays, allowing train operators to sell only window seats and passenger vessels to operate at half capacity, as they fight a steady rise in coronavirus transmissions.

Senior Health Ministry official Yoon Taeho announced the plans on Wednesday while repeating a plea for people to stay home. He said officials will strengthen sanitization and install more thermal cameras at train stations, bus terminals and airports. Travelers will be required to be masked at all times and will be prohibited from eating food at highway rest areas.

Officials have also extended a clampdown on private social gatherings of five or more people, which they enforce by fining restaurants and other businesses if they accept large groups. Indoor dining at restaurants in the greater capital area will continue to be prohibited after 9 p.m.

Lunar New Year is celebrated around Asia and a popular time for people to travel to visit their relatives. China also has tried to discourage travel during the holiday to avoid the risk of viral outbreaks.

The holiday will come just after South Korean health officials detected the first local transmissions of what are feared to be more contagious forms of the virus first identified in Britain and South Africa.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Wednesday that it found four cases of the British variant and one case of the South African variant where virus carriers were infected locally.

Since October, health workers have found 39 cases of new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, also including a form that was first identified in Brazil, but the previous cases were international arrivals.

In all five...