Quarter of recent local COVID-19 infections originate among family members: PM

A quarter of all the new local COVID-19 patients over the past month were infected with the virus through family members, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Monday, calling for extra antivirus precautions inside homes.

"Among the local (COVID-19) patients who tested positive over the past month, 25 percent were found to have been infected via their family members," the prime minister said during an interagency meeting on the COVID-19 response.

He said that recent epidemiological investigations showed a pattern of economically active people in their 40s and 50s contracting the coronavirus first and then transmitting it to their family members.

A total of 44 percent of the recently confirmed COVID-19 patients in their 20s or younger, in particular, were found to have contracted the virus at home, the prime minister added.

Chung stressed that curbing such transmission cases inside homes is critical to taming the current wave of COVID-19 infections nationwide, calling for extra antivirus efforts at home.

"I ask (you) to keep personal sanitation rules at home as well and refrain from any family-related gatherings or events," Chung said.

"This week will be a decisive turning point that could put (the country) on a path to (COVID-19) proliferation or containment," he noted.

On Monday, South Korea reported 808 new coronavirus cases, the second day in a row that the daily infection tally has stayed below 1,000, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). In the 10 days prior to Saturday, the nation's daily virus cases hovered around 1,000. (Yonhap)