THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 21, 2020 at 11:25 JST
Visitors wearing face masks to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus walk at a park in Seoul on June 20. (AP Photo)
SEOUL--South Korea has reported 48 new cases of COVID-19 as health authorities struggle to contain a resurgence that’s erasing some of the country’s hard-won gains against the virus.
Figures released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday brought the national caseload to 12,421 confirmed infections including 280 deaths.
It said 24 of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which have been the center of the country’s outbreak since late May.
Ten others were reported from the central city of Daejeon, indicating that the virus was beginning to spread more broadly, apparently as a result of increased public activity and complacency in social distancing.
The KCDC said nearly 200 infections so far have been linked to employees at a door-to-door sales company in Seoul, which mostly hired people over 60. Seventy other cases were linked to a table tennis club in another part of Seoul, where members also passed the virus at a church.
Health authorities earlier found hundreds of cases linked to nightspots, e-commerce workers and church gatherings.
While some experts say the country should reimpose stronger social distancing guidelines after easing them in mid-April, officials have been reluctant to do so over concerns of hurting an already fragile economy.
S. Korea’s wealthy, passed over by pandemic pain, splurge on Porsches and BMWs
June 19, 2020
Asia Today: South Korean cases rise, Singapore reopening
June 19, 2020S. Korea to tighten property curbs as home prices surge
June 17, 2020
S. Korea to extend virus guidelines on prevention, sanitation
June 12, 2020S. Korean doctors find risk factors for severe COVID-19 cases
June 11, 2020
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
