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| A child wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 looks at soap bubbles in a park in Seoul, Saturday. AP |
The government reported over 50 additional daily COVID-19 infections Saturday with the number jumping amid another infection cluster traced to a major church in Seoul.
A total of 51 people tested positive for the coronavirus, according to data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
Among them, 31 people contracted the virus via community spread, while 20 case were imported.
They included 15 in Seoul, 12 in the surrounding Gyeonggi Province and two in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of the capital
The total caseload was tallied at 12,653, five months after the confirmation of the first infection.
The rebound in the number of cases comes as the country is apparently facing a second wave of outbreaks, especially in the capital area with a population of 24 million, in the wake of a weeks-long decline in confirmed cases.
The health and quarantine authorities are fighting twin battles against community transmissions and cross-border inflows of infections.
Most recently, Wangsung Church in the southwestern Gwanak District has emerged as an epicenter of infections. More than a dozen people who attended choir practices and an overnight church camp were found to have contracted the virus.
The church is known to have more than 1,700 followers. (Yonhap)
