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SEOUL: South Korean authorities were struggling on Wednesday (Jan 27) to contain coronavirus outbreaks focused on Christian schools, as the country reported an increase in infections, lowering hopes for a quick exit from a third wave of the pandemic.
A total of 297 COVID-19 cases have been traced to six churches and mission schools run by a Christian organization, senior health official Yoon Tae-ho said in a briefing.
More than 100 cases were confirmed overnight among people linked to a church and its mission school in Gwangju, about 270 kilometers south of Seoul, authorities said. Another 171 cases had been linked to an affiliated school in Daejeon city since January 17.
The Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency (KDCA) said the outbreak at the Daejeon mission school appeared to have spread for some time before being detected.
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The Christian organization responsible for the facilities, International Mission, was ordered to test all those linked to 32 of its 40 schools and churches throughout the country.
The group apologized for not taking early action to prevent the outbreak. He said that while some infected students may have been asymptomatic, he also hadn’t required students with cold-like symptoms to be tested.
“We deeply apologize for not responding earlier and for thinking that students may have had a cold when a student first developed a fever,” he said in a statement.
The organization said it would send a full list of students and staff from its schools across the country.
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Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun asked people affiliated with the affected facilities to get tested.
“The key is speed. I call on local authorities and governments to make every effort to identify related facilities and prevent further transmission,” Chung said at a government briefing.
The KDCA reported 559 new cases as of midnight Tuesday, up from 354 the day before, bringing the national count to 76,429 infections with 1,378 deaths.
South Korea had managed to keep the virus under control thanks to aggressive testing and contact tracing, but a third wave that broke out late last year has proven more difficult to contain.
The KDCA has said that 45.4 percent of infections in the country in the past year were caused by cluster infections that arose from specific, tight-knit groups. Religious facilities were the main source of such groupings.
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