The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in South Korea crossed the 1,000-mark with another 283 new cases reported on Feb. 26.

286 new confirmed cases

South Korea first reported 168 new cases in the morning and another 115 in a separate update at around 5pm local time (about 4pm Singapore Time) on Feb. 26, according to Yonhap.

Of these newly reported cases, a majority came from the city of Daegu and North Gyeongsang province.

A soldier from the U.S. military base in South Korea was identified to be infected as well.

Along with the spike in infections, the death toll has hit 12.

The latest death cases include a 73-year-old Korean man who was a follower of Shincheonji Church, a fringe religious sect in the city of Daegu.

About 80 per cent of all confirmed cases in South Korea are linked to the church in Daegu and Daenam Hospital.

2 main Covid-19 clusters

South Korea started to see an exponential upward trend in confirmed cases after an elderly member of this church was discovered to be infected last week.

The church has submitted the full list of its members to the health authorities and all 212,000 church congregants with respiratory symptoms will be tested for Covid-19.

About 1,300 of them have completed the test, the vice health minister Kim Kang-lip updated the press on Wednesday.

Apart from the church in Daegu, another cluster of infection is the Daenim Hospital at Cheongdo, a county in the North Gyeongsang province.

Over 110 confirmed cases, including 10 staff members, as well as seven deaths out of 12 cases were reported from the said hospital.

Fearing that more mass infections might break out from medical facilities, more hospitals in South Korea have been put into cohort isolation in which the infected patients are separated from the other patients at hospitals.

Top photo from Maeil Shinmun