COVID-19 Imported Cases to Local Transmission: 8 Cases... 15 Infected

[Asia Economy Reporter Bu Aeri] As the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 imported from overseas has rapidly increased, it was investigated on the 25th that there have been a total of 8 cases and 15 people of local transmission through these cases.

Kwon Jun-wook, Deputy Director of the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH), explained at the regular briefing on the day, "By nationality, Russia had the most cases, followed by Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and Guatemala."

Looking at the types of secondary infection cases from overseas imported cases, 3 were family members and acquaintances of the imported confirmed cases respectively, and 1 was a workplace colleague.

The remaining 8 people were classified as 'others,' which the CDCH explained referred to 8 Korean workers who boarded the Russian deep-sea fishing vessel 'Petrwon' that arrived at Busan Port on the 8th of this month, performed repair work, and were then confirmed positive.

Deputy Director Kwon said, "By exposure type, there were 8 cases of work-related contact, 4 cases of cohabitation, 2 cases during vehicle support, and 1 case classified as other," adding, "The one case classified as other was confirmed to have been infected after violating self-quarantine and traveling together."

So far, health authorities have explained that overseas imported confirmed cases are filtered out during quarantine or the two-week self-quarantine process, so there is almost no risk of additional transmission in the local community. However, concerns are growing as related cases have recently emerged.

In particular, regarding the ship repair company in Busan, an investigation of contacts is currently underway, so there is a possibility that additional confirmed cases may emerge in the future.

Deputy Director Kwon stated, "As a result of investigating and testing 155 people who boarded the Russian vessel for repair purposes, 8 confirmed cases were found for now," and added, "As of midnight last night, investigations and tests are being conducted on about 150 people including family and acquaintances."

Deputy Director Kwon emphasized, "We will do our utmost to block overseas importation by considering various risk factors of occurrence situations for ships coming from countries where COVID-19 confirmed cases are increasing."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.