Korea’s new Covid-19 cases rose to the highest level in three weeks on Thursday, as cluster infections got out of the Seoul metro region to move to the middle and southern provinces.
The nation reported 59 new infections as of midnight Wednesday, the highest since May 28when the daily tally soared to 79, raising the total to 12,257.
According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 51 of them were local infections, including 42 in the greater Seoul area and seven in Daejeon, some 160 km south of the capital city, where 16 cases were found in the past three days. Sporadic infections also occurred in Daegu, Sejong, South Chungcheong Province and North Jeolla Province, raising concerns about the virus’s nationwide spread.
One more patient died, pushing up the death toll to 280. The number of people released from quarantine after full recovery stood at 10,800, up 26 from the previous day. The nation has tested about 1.14 million suspected patients since Jan. 3.
It was the fifth time this month alone that the nation marked the new virus cases exceeding 50, the self-imposed criterion for maintaining the everyday life quarantine regime instead of the far stricter social distancing system.
Pointing out that the Covid-19 virus is “digging into the everyday life of people in the Seoul metro region,” Minister of Health and Welfare Minister Park Neung-hoo reiterated his warning against relaxing tension.
“The number of additional infections has risen three times higher than that who visited the sales events of multilevel marketing firms,” Park said. “Cluster infections have also spread to the non-capital area, including Daejeon.”
With the summer holiday season approaching, the Health and Welfare Ministry and the Oceans and Fisheries Ministry will revise the existing rule for using beaches, including the introduction of a reservation system.
They will divide the beaches into several zones and prevent them from being densely populated.
In Daegu, Korea’s fourth-largest city with a population of 2.4 million, more than 1,000 students could not attend schools because of suspected Covid-19 symptoms.
According to the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education, 1,250 students -- 362 elementary school students, 346 middle school students, and 542 high school students -- took online classes at home although the city reopened schools full-scale on June 8.
The Korea Institutes for Curriculum and Evaluation conducted a mock CSAT at 2,061 high schools and 428 designated institutions nationwide on Thursday despite Covid-19-caused educational setbacks. The institute allowed students in the Seoul metro region to take the exam online if they had applied for doing so until Monday.