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| Muslims in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, wait to get tested for COVID-19, Wednesday, after six Uzbeks who attended a religious ceremony with them later tested positive for COVID-19./ Yonhap |
By Kim Se-jeong
The latest COVID-19 cases involved six Uzbek nationals living in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, 137 kilometers south of Seoul, according to the quarantine authorities who added that they were tracing the patients' movements from the last couple weeks.
Five of the six live together in one flat, according to the authorities, and all except one attended an Islamic religious ceremony on July 31. The authorities conducted virus tests on 336 who also attended the event, Wednesday, and as of Wednesday afternoon found 128 negative.
Besides the religious service, the six separately visited a Mongolian restaurant, a public sauna, a cafe and a branch of Nonghyup Bank. The virus testing done on 40 people who had been to those outlets at the same time found four positive.
The authorities are looking closely into one among the six who returned to Korea recently from Uzbekistan.
He arrived at Incheon International Airport from Uzbekistan on July 7, tested negative for the virus and spent two weeks in a designated facility for self-quarantine.
He left for home without taking the final test, a point which the quarantine authorities view with suspicion. Now, all under self-quarantine must take the virus test before they are released, but it wasn't mandatory for him. "He could be an asymptomatic patient," an official from North Chungcheong Province said.
According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Korea reported 33 additional COVID-19 cases on Monday, pushing the total number of cases up to 14,456. The death toll was reported at 302, up one from the previous day.
Among the 33, 18 were imported cases, including six additional Uzbek nationals.
One among the 15 domestic cases was a man in his 40s linked to a Russian fishing vessel in Busan that reported 32 cases among its sailors. The sailors spent more than two weeks freely after they arrived in Busan and are believed to have spread the virus to locals with whom they came in contact.
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