ANOTHER CLUSTER OUTBREAK IN SEOUL

Anchor Lead]

Another cluster outbreak has occurred in Seoul at a facility for the handicapped. The number of new infections at nursing facilities also keeps increasing. More deaths have also been reported at a nursing hospital in Bucheon.

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The first case of COVID-19 at a facility for the handicapped in Songpa-gu District, Seoul, was reported on Christmas Day. Six people at the facility tested positive. During an epidemiological investigation on 181 residents and workers, 34 more cases were confirmed. The facility is currently under cohort isolation.

[Soundbite] (SONGPA-GU DIST. OFFICIAL) : "We have conducted two rounds of investigations on everyone at the facility after one of the staff members tested positive."

Eight more cases have been confirmed at the Dongbu Detention Center in Seoul, bringing the total to 528. The virus also continues to spread at nursing facilities. A nursing home in Seoul's Yangcheong-gu District, where the first case occurred last Thursday, has 27 new cases. A nursing hospital in Goyang has added two more cases, bringing the total to 86. A nursing hospital in Bucheon, where six people died on Saturday alone, has reported two more deaths. The total death toll there now stands at 34. As cluster outbreaks remain rampant at nursing facilities, health authorities have stepped up inspections of their workers. Administrative measures will be enforced at facilities that violate safety rules. On Saturday, 111 people tested positive at makeshift testing stations in the greater Seoul area. That’s more than one in every ten locally transmitted cases. Since the opening of these test stations two weeks ago, more than 1,200 cases have been detected.