Households have been emerging as hot beds for new COVID-19 infections, with one in four people found to have been infected through family members over the past month.
This is expected to make it even more difficult for the government to curb the spread of the coronavirus as the rise in household transmission indicates that more people are being infected through everyday life
In its analysis of 15,111 cases of infection from Nov. 20 to Dec. 16, the Central Anti-Disaster Headquarters found that 3,654 people, or 24.2 percent, were infected through a family member.
In particular, 766 or 43.5 percent of 1,761 children and adolescents aged under 19 were infected through secondary transmission from family members in their households.
The findings came as the number of new virus cases shows few signs of abating as the figure still hovered around 1,000 over the weekend.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), Sunday, 970 new COVID-19 infections were reported for Saturday, including 946 local cases, raising the total caseload to 56,872. The tally marked a decline from 1,132 the previous day, but mainly due to less virus tests being conducted during weekends.
Among the locally transmitted cases, 359 were reported in Seoul, 237 in Gyeonggi Province and 60 in Incheon, west of Seoul. Fifteen additional deaths were reported, raising the toll to 808.
The health authorities had been considering whether to raise the country’s social distancing guidelines to Level 3, the highest in its five-tier system, as the current Level 2.5 was scheduled to end today.
However, the government later announced that Level 2.5 will be maintained until Jan. 3, after which it will decide whether to raise the social distancing measures to the highest level.
The administration is reluctant to raise the level over concerns about the economic damage that may occur under the stricter rules.
Epidemiologists have also shown different opinions on raising the distancing measures to Level 3.
“The government should raise the distancing level immediately, but we have to admit that we have already missed the timing,” said Um Jung-sik, an infectious diseases professor at Gachon University Gil Hospital.
“Even if the government raised the measure to Level 3, it will take a considerable amount of time to take effect,” Um said.
Chun Byung-chul, a professor of preventive medicine at Korea University, said “The number of newly confirmed patients will inevitably increase for the time being as cases with unknown infection routes are on the rise.”
“Measures targeting a specific area, or people won’t be effective. The number of daily new cases should be reduced as much as possible by reducing contact between people while staying at home,” Chun said.
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| Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, left, and Lee Nak-yon, chairman of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), speak during a meeting at the National Assembly, Sunday. |
On Sunday, officials from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the government and Cheong Wa Dae held a meeting at the National Assembly to discuss economic aid for small businesses. A payment of 1 million won to 3 million won for small business owners and the self-employed will be made by January 2021, according to a DPK statement.
Meanwhile, a man in his 80s who recently returned from the United Kingdom has posthumously tested positive for COVID-19, and the government has been looking into whether he had contracted the mutated strain of the coronavirus discovered there.
The man, who had been under self-quarantine at home in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, after arriving from the U.K. Dec. 13, passed away at a hospital Saturday.
The KDCA said it has not detected the mutated virus here yet, but is examining whether the virus strain from the body is the mutated one. The test results on whether the virus is the new strain are expected to come out during the first week of January.
