South Korea's COVID-19 death toll passes 1000, gyms protest distancing rules

The number of deaths linked to the coronavirus in South Korea passed 1,000 on Tuesday (Jan 5), while an increasing number of gym owners said they would reopen in protest against strict social distancing rules. After using aggressive testing and tracing to blunt several earlier waves of the coronavirus without widespread lockdowns, South Korea has imposed increasingly strident social distancing rules as it struggles to stop its largest wave yet. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 28 new deaths and 715 new cases, for a total of 1,007 deaths and 64,979 cases overall.