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A medical worker enters a novel coronavirus testing center run by the National Medical Center in Seoul on Feb. 6. (Yonhap News)

As of Feb. 6, there are a total of 23 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in South Korea. A Chinese woman in her 50s who’d entered the country from Wuhan, Hubei Province, was among the latest diagnosed, showing that Wuhan remains a serious threat of transmission. But the current figures show an increasing amount of transmission occurring within South Korea, including between family members and relatives, and cases contracted in countries other than China.

In the early phase of the outbreak of the coronavirus, most of the patients (the first through 5th) had been infected in Wuhan, the city where the disease originated and which is now facing a massive epidemic. Such cases are called primary infections, since they didn’t occur locally. But as time went by, there has been a greater number of secondary and even tertiary transmissions, in which the coronavirus transmission occurs locally, being passed on from people who’d been to Wuhan. The first example of secondary transmission occurred on Jan. 30, when an individual (the sixth patient) tested positive after coming into contact with the third patient in South Korea. The sixth patient’s wife (the 10th patient) and son (the 11th patient) were then diagnosed with the disease, leading to the third level of infection.

Pathway of secondary and tertiary coronavirus transmissions

As the coronavirus continues to spread, a growing share of the transmission is occurring locally, through contact with people who caught the disease in Wuhan. The diagnosis of the 22nd patient, who’d caught the virus from the 16th patient, on Feb. 6 brought the tally of individuals infected inside South Korea to nine, just one short of the 10 patients who’d been to Wuhan. Many of these secondary and tertiary transmissions occurred between direct family members or close relatives. The 12th and 14th patients, for example, are husband and wife; the sixth, 10th, and 11th patients are husband, wife, and son; the 16th, 18th, and 22nd patients are mother, daughter, and mother’s older brother; and the 15th and 20th patients are brother- and sister-in-law. This indicates that there’s a high risk of transmission among family members.

Another noticeable trend is the growing number of individuals who have tested positive for coronavirus after passing through another country rather than China. The 12th patient had been serving as a guide for Chinese tourists in Japan; the 16th patient had returned from a trip to Thailand; and the 17th and 19th patients were both diagnosed after attending a conference in Singapore. This is prompting calls for the government to extend its special entrance procedures, which are currently only in effect to people entering from China, to other countries as well.

At the moment, the average age of coronavirus patients is 42.7 years. By nationality, 19 are South Korea and 4 are Chinese.

By Park Su-ji, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]