China suspended visas Tuesday for South Koreans to come to the country for tourism or business in apparent retaliation for COVID-19 testing requirements on Chinese travelers, the Associated Press reported. No other details were given, although China has threated to retaliate against countries that require travelers from China to show a negative test result for COVID-19 taken within the previous 48 hours.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new cases stood at 67,012 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s up 2% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 18% at 47,503. The average for deaths was 467, up 10% from two weeks ago. The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 664.6 million on Tuesday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world with 101.3 million cases and 1,096,751 fatalities.
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