Coronavirus: South Korea

South Korea has announced new restrictions after new daily record of Covid infections. We’ll bring together three Koreans to discuss how the pandemic has affected their lives and how they think the government has handled the crisis.

The Omicron coronavirus variant is spreading much faster than the previous variants but what more have we learnt about the virus? Our colleague from the BBC’s Reality Check team explains what doctors and scientists in South Africa – where the variant was first identified – have reported so far about Omicron, transmission, symptoms and the role of vaccinations.

We’ll also answer your questions about the virus with the help of Dr Emma Hodcroft, molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

We’ll talk about Turkey’s currency crisis and explain why the lira has hit a new low and how it's affecting people’s lives.

And we hear from people in the Philippines who witnessed a strong typhoon.

Picture: A couple stands next to people waiting in a long line to get a Covid-19 test in Seoul, South Korea (Reuters / Kim Hong-Ji)