Two Middle School Students Confirmed COVID-19 Positive After Visiting Uljin Funeral Hall from Cheonan... School Closed for Two Days

Medical staff are preparing for COVID-19 testing at Catholic University Uijeongbu St. Mary's Hospital in Geumo-dong, Uijeongbu-si, Gyeonggi-do.
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Juhee] On the 22nd, two middle school students from Cheonan, Chungnam, who visited a funeral hall in Uljin, Gyeongbuk, were confirmed positive for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

According to the city, two teenagers from a middle school in Cheonan (Cheonan cases 225 and 226), who visited a relative's funeral hall in Uljin over two days from the 19th to the 20th, tested positive.

They are siblings attending the same school, in the 1st and 3rd grades, and were found to be asymptomatic at the time of testing on the 21st.

The students were confirmed to have come into contact with a person in their 50s from Siheung, Gyeonggi Province (Siheung case 132) at the funeral hall. Siheung case 132 is known to have had contact with a confirmed case from Paju, who was diagnosed on the 20th.

Health authorities and the education office announced that the middle school attended by the confirmed cases will be closed for two days starting that day and will switch to remote classes.

They also stated that a screening clinic has been set up within the school and COVID-19 tests are being conducted on all 287 first-grade students who attended school on the 21st, as well as 61 staff members.

The movements of the confirmed students are being traced, and contact students will be quarantined. It was reported that the third-grade students did not attend school that day.

On the same day, in the neighboring area of Sinchang-myeon, Asan, a person in their 30s (Asan case 52), who entered the country from overseas on the 8th, tested positive on the 13th day of self-quarantine and was admitted to the Cheonan living treatment center.

Health authorities stated that the initial test immediately after entering the country was negative, and they are conducting an epidemiological investigation, suspecting that the person met another confirmed case from a different region on the plane upon arrival.