The number of daily new COVID-19 cases in South Korea has further increased and reached nearly 50 amid a series of clusters in the Seoul metropolitan area. 

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(KCDC) said on Wednesday that 49 more people tested positive for the coronavirus in the past 24 hours through 12 a.m., lifting the cumulative tally to eleven-thousand-590. 

Forty-eight were from the greater Seoul area, including 19 in the capital city, 17 in Incheon and 12 in Gyeonggi Province, while one was from Daegu. 

By infection route, 46 were local transmissions while the remaining three were imported from overseas. 

The daily hike rose for the third consecutive day after new clusters linked to church meetings, private education institutes and a logistics center in the metro area continued to infect people.The third round of nationwide classroom reopenings on Wednesday is feared to aggravate the situation. 

Meanwhile, the virus-related death toll rose by one to 273.