Seoul: South Korea reported 34 additional cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours as a spate of transmissions linked to clubgoers threatens the country’s hard-won gains in its fight against the virus.
Figures released Sunday by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention increased national totals to 10,874 with 256 deaths. The agency said 9,610 have recovered and 10,128 others were undergoing tests to determine whether they’ve contracted the virus.
The agency said a tentative assessment showed 26 of the 34 new patients were locally transmitted cases, while the rest were imported. South Korean media reported it was the first time that South Korea’s daily jump has marked above 30 in about a month.
The agency didn’t immediately provide further details. But most of the new cases in the past few days were linked to nightclubs in Seoul’s Itaewon entertainment neighborhood.
Officials on Friday said they detected at least 15 infections linked to a 29-year-old man who had visited three Itaewon clubs before testing positive Wednesday.
The infections raised worries about a new surge in South Korea, which had for weeks recorded a continuously declining number of new cases after having once had hundreds of new cases each day until early March.