S.Korea reports 115 more coronavirus cases, brings total to 1,261

SEOUL - South Korea reported another 115 coronavirus cases on Wednesday afternoon, bringing its total tally to 1,261, according to Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

KCDC reported another 169 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday morning, including a US soldier.

The health authorities readied an ambitious plan to test more than 200,000 members of a church hit hardest by the country's outbreak.

The numbers are expected to rise as the government widens its testing.

The US military reported its first case of the coronavirus on Wednesday, a 23-year-old soldier based in Camp Carroll, about 20 km (12.4 miles) from Daegu. The camp is also near a disability centre that has had its own outbreak of the virus.

A twelfth death from the virus was reported on Wednesday, according to the Joongang Ilbo newspaper.

Around 80 percent of the country's cases are linked to the Daegu church, and to a hospital in nearby Cheongdo County, which some members are believed to have visited.

The church said it had agreed to provide the government with contact details for all of its members and people in trainee programmes.

"We have obtained a list of 212,000 number of the Shincheonji believers from the church last night," vice health minister Kim Gang-lip said at a briefing on Wednesday.

"We will pass the list to local governments," he said. "Local governments will check whether the believers have respiratory or fever related symptoms and visit their homes to test them."

Reuters