Over the past weeks, the Seoul government has been hard at work in containing multiple COVID-19 clusters in the capital but a recovery has been hampered by the birth of a new cluster traced to a major religious group.
New Cluster in Gwanak Sparks New Fears
Seoul's clusters have been declining over the past days but health authorities have yet again been slapped with the resurgence of a new cluster with links to a large Protestant church in a southwestern area in Gwanak.
The church is said to have around 1,700 followers and so far, at least 12 attendees have tested COVID-19 positive. Three of them are living in the capital city while one patient is a resident of Gyeonggi Province, a neighboring town of Seoul.
As part of the efforts to hopefully make contact tracing faster, local authorities have set up a temporary screening center at the front of the church in question.
It is expected that more details about the new church cluster will be released in the coming days. The new coronavirus cluster has brought bitterly-nostalgic feelings to the country as it experienced a massive outbreak linked to a Daegu church earlier this year.
Fears of a New Outbreak in Summer
Due to the steady rise of new COVID-19 cases in the country, health authorities are wary of the possibility that a new outbreak will occur sometime during the summer season - when people get out of their houses during the break.
Fears of a new outbreak are partnered with the fluctuating and spiking number of new daily cases, as was the case on Friday, when the country logged a total of 39 new infections. 27 of the new cases were locally-transmitted.
A day earlier, the tally was at 28. Furthermore, Friday's new cases saw 19 local transmissions from Seoul, where multiple cluster infections emerged since early May.
Russian Ship Issue Still at Large
Meanwhile, there is still the cluster found in a Russian cargo ship, the Ice Stream, wherein at least 17 sailors were found to have contracted the disease, including the ship's captain.
Local media reported that the cargo ship said all of its 21 crew members did not show any symptoms and were in good health before they started unloading fish from Russia.
It was also reported that some of the sailors without masks were seen working alongside South Korean dock workers while unloading the cargo at the port town of Busan.
Due to the cluster infection among Russian sailors, head of South Korea's Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters Kim Ganglip said port authorities will be ordered to implement stricter quarantine inspections for all Russian vessels docking at the port.
There have been earlier concerns about potential negligence on the side of Busan port authorities and whether proper health checks and quarantine measures were carried out upon the ship's arrival.
As of Friday, South Korea has registered a total of 12,602 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 282 deaths.
