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Caption: The Daegu branch of the Shincheonji religious sect, which has remained closed since the city’s novel coronavirus outbreak . (Kim Il-woo, Daegu, correspondent)

A significant number of the transmission clusters of the novel coronavirus that have occurred outside of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province are connected with followers of the Shincheonji religious sect, government figures show. So far, Shincheonji followers and those who’ve come into contact with them account for 59.9% of all confirmed cases in the country. If more epidemiological studies were carried out throughout the country, the public health authorities believe, that percentage would be even higher. Among the country’s 17 metropolitan cities and provinces, Daejeon and Jeju are the only ones that haven’t reported any cases linked to Shincheonji.

According to figures released by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) on Mar. 5, 69.4% of the total cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, belong to transmission clusters, with the other 30.6% cases having occurred in isolation or still being studied and categorized. More than half of total cases (59.9%, representing 3,452 cases as of Mar. 5, 12:00 am) are connected with Shincheonji, being either members of the sect or those who came into contact with them. Among the 842 cases outside of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, 91, or 10.8%, are linked to Shincheonji.

When the ongoing epidemiological surveys are completed, the number of cases connected to Shincheonji is expected to increase. There are a large number of cases in which the link to Shincheonji is still being studied or the route of transmission still being categorized.

“Second- and third-generation transmission from Shincheonji followers accounts for a substantial portion of [transmission] clusters in other areas as well,” said KCDC Director Jung Eun-kyeong in the daily press briefing on Wednesday. “A considerable number of the cases that are still officially being investigated will probably end up being categorized as second- or third-generation transmission linked to Shincheonji.”

Six cases that occurred at Life Spring Church in the Yeongtong District of Suwon originated from a Shincheonji member, investigators have found. An infected individual who attended a religious event at Shincheonji’s Gwacheon church on Feb. 16 led a training session at a company in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, transmitting the disease to four employees at the session. The public health authorities believe that the outbreak at the church occurred when one of those employees then attended a service there on Feb. 23, and it’s surveying the people who attended that service. Most of the transmission clusters at hospitals have also been confirmed to be connected with Shincheonji believers. There have been 22 clusters at hospitals in Daegu, with 18 of them triggered by Shincheonji followers.

According to some analysts, nine out of 10 COVID-19 cases are linked to Shincheonji. “We’ve determined that about 93% of total cases around the country are connected with Shincheonji,” one government official said. Jung, the KCDC director, responded to this estimate as follows: “Adding the cases of second- and third-generation transmission from [Shincheonji] believers would obviously cause [the percentage] to greatly increase, but we’re not able to provide those figures yet.”

The public health authorities believe that telling all followers at Shincheonji’s Daegu church to quarantine themselves at home after the 31st patient turned out to be a member of that church was effective at preventing further transmission. “The 31st patient helped us recognize [the link to] Shincheonji’s Daegu church, and we believe that having about 9,000 people go under self-quarantine enabled us to contain second- and third-generation infection to the greatest extent possible,” Jung said.

As of Mar. 5, 77.5% of the 10,914 Shincheonji members being monitored in Daegu have been tested. 3,394 of the 6,540 people (51.9%) who’ve been notified of the test results have tested positive for COVID-19. Given the progress made so far on testing people connected to Shincheonji, the rate of increase in patients might fall within a few days.

“I think we’ll be seeing a small change [in the increase in COVID-19 patients] within the next two or three days,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Wednesday.

“Since we’ve been carrying out a lot of tests on [Shincheonji] followers, the overall [rate of increase in] the number of confirmed cases seems to be decreasing. We’ll be refocusing our investigation on cases that have occurred in isolation and analyzing the route of transmission,” Jung said.

As Mar. 5, the number of COVID-19 cases in the country stands at 5,766, with the number of fatalities at 39.

By Park Da-hae, staff reporter

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