One of the two members of Tan Thien Dia who had been to Wuhan was being investigated by South Korean health officials to be positive for nCoV.

South Korean health officials today announced that they were investigating two members of the Xin-Heavenen sect that once traveled from Wuhan, China, where Covid-19 started, to South Korea in January. Mr. Kwon Joon-wook, deputy director of the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), said today that one person is negative for nCoV, while the other is positive.

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Korean soldiers sprayed disinfectant in a village in Seoul, South Korea today Photo: AFP

However, he added that the positive case was confirmed at the end of February, so it would be difficult to determine whether the person was involved in a widespread infection among members of the New Heavenly Earth.

South Korea has recorded 3 more deaths from nCoV, bringing the total number of deaths to 31, with nearly 5,200 cases. According to KCDC, 56.1% of cases nationwide were linked to the branch of Tan Thien Dia in Daegu, the fourth largest city in the country.

The Ministry of Justice of South Korea last week reported that 42 New Tianjin members from Wuhan returned to Korea since July 2019. Meanwhile, Kim Shin-chang, a leader of the New Heavenly Land, said that they had no travel records of all members and had not recorded any cases of traveling from Wuhan to South Korea since May. 11/2019.

Mr. Kim also said that the disease started in December 2019, so there was no need to check the travel history of Tan Thien Dia's members from July. "That makes me wonder if the government is trying to exaggerate. the connection or want to blame New Heaven on Earth or not? "he said.

Tan Thien Dia today assigns a list of 310,000 members to the government for medical monitoring, a much larger number than the previous estimate of 210,000. Lee Man-hee, the founder of the sect, is being asked to investigate murder and other criminal charges on charges of failing to provide an accurate member list and interfering with the government's anti-epidemic efforts.

South Korea recorded the first case of nCoV on January 20. The situation was not so serious until February 18, when a 61-year-old woman from Tan Thien Dia in Daegu was confirmed positive for nCoV. The number of infections in the following days soared, making Korea the second largest outbreak in the world after mainland China.