Anchor: The daily COVID-19 surge in South Korea returned to the 300s after climbing above 400 amid clusters involving a missionary society that has a network of educational facilities throughout the country. Authorities are now preparing special measures to contain the situation.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) said as of 12:00 a.m. Tuesday, 354 additional people tested positive for COVID-19, raising the country's cumulative total to 75-thousand-875.

Out of 354 new cases, 338 were local infections, 196 of which were in the Seoul metropolitan area.

The daily increase has fluctuated between the 300s and 400s over the past week, with the average number of local infections standing at 369.

Clusters linked to the IEM School in the central city of Daejeon owned by missionary society IM are raising the alarm, as they continue to expand through the society’s network of educational facilities nationwide.

One-hundred-33 people were found to have contracted the virus at the boarding school, while 39 people from the school tested positive while visiting a religious facility in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province.

Another 43 confirmed cases have been linked to IM's schools in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province and the southwestern city of Gwangju.

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun on Tuesday vowed to mobilize all administrative means to prevent further spread, based on lessons learned from clusters linked to religious groups, including the Shincheonji sect in the southeastern city of Daegu.

The Central Disaster Management Headquarters said it has begun drawing up separate quarantine measures for the missionary group’s facilities.

Consultations with the ministries of education and culture have also started on enhancing management and inspection of such educational facilities run by religious groups.

Meanwhile, according to statistics website Worldometer, global infections of COVID-19 have surpassed 100 million as of Tuesday, Korea time, with the death toll standing at over two-point-14 million.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.