cnn's paula hancocks is in the capital of seoul for us. quite a disappointing reversal. what is behind the surge and how is the government planning on handling it? >> we heard from president moon jae-in saying he believes this is an emergency situation, there will be more done with testing and treatment. what we've heard from his prime minister is there will be 150 new testing stations set up in and around the greater seoul area. and hundreds of military personnel, police are being brought in and trandz to help with the contact tracing process. it's not an outbreak or a cluster based on one or two epicenters. there are much smaller outbreaks, but they are more widespread. 66 in a nursing hospital, 14 in a restaurant. so the fact that we are seeing so much smaller outbreaks is making it far harder for officials to try and contain the outbreak. the prime minister himself did say if these numbers continue in an upward trend, then there will be no choice but to increase restrictions once again, increase the associate distancing measures and that would be to the highest level

i'm going straight to paula hancocks, live in seoul with more on all of this. what can you tell us? seems like paula can't hear us. >> there have been some concerns. we're having some technical issues there. certainly in japan, they have been having some concerns about the high number of coronavirus cases being reported and they did, in fact, mention that there was a record number of patients now in intensive care, 588. that is obviously of great concern to officials certainly worried about running out of intensive care beds, a situation they are concerned about in south korea and elsewhere around the world. now, this week we also heard from prime minister suga temporarily cancelling a fairly controversial scheme, a travel scheme to try and convince japanese people to travel around the country. he wanted to try and boost internal domestic tourism and of course boost the economy. he has come under pressure to put that on hold and he's temporarily cancelling that because of these higher numbers, robyn. >> glad we got ahold of you. paula hancocks in seoul. >>> many republicans are still

. >> i'm paula hancocks in seoul.ng containers to set up makeshift hospital rooms as the number of beds for coronavirus patients are starting to fill up. health officials say they have 83% of the beds taken so far. they're hoping these containers will give them around are 150 more beds. in addition, more than 300 military personnel are being brought in to help at health centers, and more than 300 police are being trained up for contact tracing. >> reporter: i'm paula newton in ottawa where canadian regulators have approved the pfizer biontech vaccine for emergency use, and it can't some soon enough as canada finds itself min the midst of a deadly second wave. it has to be distributed in the second largest lands mass in the world in winter. canada is doing a dry run this week. vaccinations should begin next week. officials all say that, look, while this vaccine is amazing, it can only be effective if people agree to take it, and trust it. >> reporter: hi, i'm becky anderson in abu dhabi where we are getting rare insigh

. >> i'm paula hancocks in seoul. korea is announcing a special quarantine period from december 24th to january 3rd. within these new restrictions. officials say that all ski slopes will be shut. all parks and tourist attractions could be closed and also all rneligious services hae to be held online 100%, on top of that, from tomorrow, any gatherings of five or more people in the greater seoul area are banned. the prime minister has said that the message is clear, cancel your plans and stay home. >>> i'm steven jiang in beijing. tie juan report taiwan report add locally transmitted case on tuesday, the first case in eight months. the case was a woman in her 30s who has close contact with a recent imported case, a pilot from new zealand who flew to the u.s. in november. that pilot is facing a potential fine of over 10,000 u.s. dollars because authorities say he failed to reveal his activities during the contact tracing investigation. >>> i'm paula newton in ottawa where this city and toronto, in fact, the entire provin

. >> reporter: i'm paula hancocks in seoul.he rush is on to make more makeshift hospital beds like these dedicated to coronavirus patients as numbers stay high here in south korea. seoul city has just announced from wednesday, gatherings of five people or more will be banned until january 3rd in the greater seoul area. meanwhile, in japan, they have just reported almost 2.5 thousand new daily cases. and in hong kong, stringent social distancing measures stay in place. >>> i'm angus watson in sydnecy australia. just 15 new cases announced monday from 38,000 tests conducted on sunday. but authorities still aren't sure who patient zero is. they believe that this variant of the virus may have come from the united states, but there's still contact trace work to do. >> i'm jim bittermann in france, where a 48-hour travel ban with the united kingdom has been in place since midnight last night. announcing the ban, the french prime minister indicated that it would give the europeans time to come up with a coordinated policy on how to de

joining us now from seoul is paula happ aa hancocks. the latest restrictions and what has caused the surge. >> reporter: yeah, so this is the most stringent measures that seoul city has put in since the beginning of the pandemic. from wednesday, there will be a ban on gatherings of five or more people in the greater seoul area until january 3rd. now, this area is really where most of the outbreaks are taking place at this point, to where officials admit that they haven't got a handle of many of these cases, many of them untraceable. so what they're trying to do is prevent social gatherings, the year-end gatherings, christmas, new year and try to keep people at home to start decreasing those numbers. because we have been seeing over 1,000 daily cases for some time now. testing is always a little slower on the weekend. and it was also the deadliest day on sunday when it came to the number of people losing their lives to the coronavirus. now, in addition, there was an issue with beds, hospital beds here in south korea. in particular, in se