South Korea reported another daily spike in the number of new infections of the new coronavirus on Thursday, with the number of new cases expected to accelerate in the coming days as authorities started testing more than 210,000 members of a religious sect at the center of the rapid spread.
The whopping 334 new cases took the nation’s total infections to 1,595, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
So far, 12 people have died in South Korea from the new fast-spreading virus that emerged in China.
More than half of newly confirmed cases came from a branch of a religious sect in the southeastern city of Daegu.
Of the 334 new cases, 307 are in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and four are in neighboring North Gyeongsang Province. The number of total infections in Daegu and North Gyeongsang stood at 1,017 and 321, respectively.
Other major provinces and cities have also reported some infections, with Seoul reporting another six cases, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said in a statement.
Since raising the virus alert level to “red,” the highest level, on Sunday, health authorities have focused on halting the spread of the virus in Daegu, the epicenter of the virus outbreak here, and North Gyeongsang Province.
Experts said the number of confirmed cases is expected to jump in the coming days as health authorities began testing more than 210,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus at the center of the rapid spread in other provinces.
South Korea confirmed its first new coronavirus case from a Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, on Jan. 20, but the pace of infections had not been alarming until Feb. 18, when a 61-year-old woman who is tied to the Daegu branch of Shincheonji tested positive for the virus.
Separately, the religious sect said 833 out of its 1,848 members who got tests in Daegu were confirmed to have been infected with the virus as of Wednesday. The remaining 7,446 members in Daegu were waiting for tests, it said. (Yonhap)
