Virus Spreads To South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea has reported a six-fold jump in viral infections in four days to 346, most of them linked to a church and a hospital in and around the fourth-largest city where health workers scrambled to screen more than 9,000 worshipers. There’s concern that the death toll, currently at two, could grow. The vice health minister says virus patients with signs of pneumonia or other serious condition from the Cheongdo hospital were transferred to other facilities, 17 of them critical. He says the outbreak entered a serious new phase, but still expressed hope it can be contained to the southeastern Daegu region. In some positive news, China’s daily count fell to 397 cases, though another 109 people died of the disease.