South Korea tightens virus curbs amid spike

SOUTH Korea will ban large public gatherings and shut down churches and nightspots in the Seoul metropolitan area amid an alarming surge in infections that health officials describe as the country’s biggest crisis since the emergence of Covid-19.

In a nationally televised announcement yesterday, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said strengthening social distancing restrictions for the area, which is home to half of the country’s 51 million people, was inevitable because a failure to slow transmissions there could result in a major outbreak nationwide.

South Korea reported 246 new cases yesterday, mostly from the capital area, pushing its total for the past five days to 959.

Churches have emerged major clusters of infections.

Kwon Jun-wook, director of South Korea’s National Health Institute, said health workers have so far found 457 cases linked to a huge Seoul church led by a critic of South Korean president Moon Jaein, as

which has become the main focus of disease control efforts.

There is concern that the outbreak could worsen after thousands of protesters, including members of the Sarang Jeil Church and its pastor Jun Kwang-hun, marched in Seoul on Saturday despite official pleas to stay home.

Mr Jun, who was unmasked and shared a microphone with several other protest leaders on a stage during Saturday’s protest, tested positive on Monday and is now receiving treatment at a Seoul hospital.