JavaScript is off. Please enable to view full site.

21 Vietnamese students catch COVID-19 in South Korea dorm cluster

21 Vietnamese students catch COVID-19 in South Korea dorm cluster

Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 16:56 GMT+7
21 Vietnamese students catch COVID-19 in South Korea dorm cluster
Ajou Motor College students take a coronavirus test on the school's campus in Boryeong, central South Korea, on December 16, 2020, after a coronavirus cluster infection there. Photo: Yonhap News Agency

Twenty Vietnamese students living in a college dormitory in a central South Korean city have been diagnosed with COVID-19, local officials said on Wednesday, two days after the first Vietnamese infection case was confirmed there, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

The mass infection occurred at Ajou Motor College in Boryeong, a South Chungcheong Province city about 200 kilometers south of Seoul.

The college reported its first confirmed case on Monday, when a Vietnamese student living in its dormitory tested positive for the coronavirus.

Following the first case’s detection, municipal health authorities conducted coronavirus tests on everyone suspected of having come into contact with the first patient – 67 foreign dormitory residents, including 50 from Vietnam, 16 from Uzbekistan and one from Thailand, 64 South Korean dormitory residents, and 31 school personnel.

Through the tests, 20 Vietnamese students have been confirmed to be infected, the officials said, noting authorities are to administer coronavirus tests to all 400 other dormitory residents and school officials on Wednesday.

The municipal authorities are investigating the patients’ travel and infection routes, suspecting that the group infection may have occurred due to close contact in enclosed dormitory rooms.

According to some municipal officials, the infected Vietnamese students cooked and ate food together in a separate kitchen area within the dorm.

Notably, 13 of the infected Vietnamese students reportedly worked part-time at a restaurant on Daecheon Beach in the same city on a recent weekend, prompting authorities to disinfect the establishment and conduct coronavirus tests on its employees.

The Yonhap News Agency reported the mass infection as a rare coronavirus cluster of foreign nationals in Boryeong.

Boryeong, a city of slightly over 100,000 people that had reported only 34 confirmed cases prior to the college dorm cluster, raising its social distancing level to 2.5, the second highest in South Korea’s five-tier system, from the current 2, at noon Wednesday.

“The present situation is very grave. All citizens are required to cancel all year-end meetings and events, and thoroughly comply with quarantine and social distancing rules,” Yonhap quoted Boryeong Mayor Kim Dong-il as saying.

In recent weeks, a string of clusters of coronavirus infections have erupted at elderly nursing homes, churches, educational institutions, and other multiuse facilities throughout South Korea, as the East Asian country now reports over 1,000 new cases every day.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!

Tuoi Tre News - Yonhap News Agency

More

Read more

;

Photos

VIDEOS

‘Taste of Australia’ gala dinner held in Ho Chi Minh City after 2-year hiatus

Taste of Australia Gala Reception has returned to the Park Hyatt Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City's District 1 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Vietnamese woman gives unconditional love to hundreds of adopted children

Despite her own immense hardship, she has taken in and cared for hundreds of orphans over the past three decades.

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta celebrates spring with ‘hat boi’ performances

The art form is so popular that it attracts people from all ages in the Mekong Delta

Latest news