South Korea's disease control and prevention chief forecasts the daily new Covid-19 infections in the country may surpass the current 500 level this week.
"The basic reproduction number of the virus exceeded 1 last week, and stood at 1.0-7. So we're expecting to see daily infections higher than the current 500."
A reproduction number of over one means the disease is expanding in new population groups at an increasing rate while a R-naught of less than one means the spread is declining.
Health authorities also announced on Monday that they have discovered the first domestically transmitted case of the more transmissible South Africa Covid-19 variant in South Korea.