<p class="">Nearly 66 per cent of South Korea’s novel coronavirus cases are linked to mass infections, with most of them traced back to a religious sect in the country’s southeastern city of Daegu.</p>
<h1>So far, the country has reported a total of 5,328 COVID-19 infections as of Wednesday morning since its first confirmed case on Jan. 20, with 65.6 per cent of them being classified as cluster infection cases.</h1>
<p class="">According to the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).</p>
<p class="">Another 34.4 per cent of the cases are either grouped as sporadic infections or under investigation.</p>
<p class="">Out of the 4,006 confirmed cases in Daegu, the country’s fourth-largest city with a population of 2.5 million, 2,583 are linked to the Shincheonji religious sect.</p>
<p class="">A bus stand at a train station is almost deserted in the southeastern city of Daegu on March 4, 2020, as people avoid going out amid the spread of the new coronavirus.</p>
<p class="">The KCDC earlier said it is also closely monitoring the possibility of more confirmed cases of sporadic infection nationwide outside of Daegu.</p>
<p class="">Seoul has witnessed the smallest clusters of infections resulting from so-called community spread.</p>
<p class="">A 50-year-old man with no record of recent overseas trips and no previous contact with COVID-19 patients was the first confirmed case at an apartment building in the Seongdong district in western Seoul.</p>
<p class="">The patient, working as a superintendent, infected 11 others, including members of his family and tenants at his building.</p>
<p class="">The southern port city of Busan came in second place in terms of the number of sporadic cases, with 71 out of its 93 confirmed cases.</p>
<p class="">Of the 71 cases, 33 patients are linked to the Oncheon church in the country’s second-largest city, through which they had attended a three-day retreat that ended on Feb. 17.</p>
<p class="">It is still unclear how they were infected with the virus.</p>
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<p class="">In the central cities of Cheonan and Asan, 54 of the 80 COVID-19 patients were linked to a Zumba dance class after an instructor became the region’s first confirmed case.</p>
<p class="">The provincial government of South Chungcheong conducted tests on everyone who attended the class in Cheonan, with most of the confirmed cases being women in their 30s and 40s.</p>
<p class="">The city of Suwon, south of Seoul, has also witnessed a small cluster of community infections after a COVID-19 patient attended a church service there, leading to infections of five others. </p>