South Korea has confirmed a total of 11,468 coronavirus cases and despite a steady decline in new infections, it plans to further enhance steps aimed at preventing the spread of the new coronavirus, especially at facilities considered high risk.
The country on Sunday reported 27 new cases from the previous 24 hours, marking the first time in five days that the daily tally was below 30.
Among them, 15 were local infections while the remaining 12 came from other countries, half of them from the Americas, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One additional fatality was also reported, bringing the total death toll to 270, while the recovery figure rose by seven to 10,405.
Amid a recent outbreak of cluster infections in and around the capital region, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo announced that starting from Tuesday, facilities considered high risk, including bars and singing rooms, will be required to keep a quick response or QR code-based customer register.
Park said the identity of visitors to high-risk facilities and their records of visit will be kept separately to prevent any possible leak of personal information and only be matched for identification when needed, adding the stored information will be automatically deleted after four weeks.
The move comes after local health authorities struggled to locate thousands of visitors to nightspots in Seoul's multicultural district of Itaewon, to which 270 infection cases have so far been linked.
Just west of Seoul, a cluster that emerged from a distribution center run by Coupang, a leading e-commerce company, counted at least 111 related virus cases since its first patient was confirmed on May 23.
Minister Park said the government will check some 4,300 distribution and logistics centers nationwide to prevent new cluster infections.
He said, "The next one or two weeks will be crucial to breaking the chain of infections in the capital region," but assured that the latest wave of infections was not serious enough to reintroduce an all-out social distancing campaign.
The government last week opted to impose tighter virus prevention measures in the greater Seoul, which includes shutdowns of public facilities, through June 14.
<Photo: Yonhap News>
