- Large and cramped gatherings without face-coverings
- A cult-like reputation that may have prompted the members of the church to hide their affiliation to the church, making it harder to reach the members through contact tracing

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Korea was introduced to it's first case of cornovirus on January 20, 2020. The government had contained the spread relatively well until the outbreak of Daengu, where patient 31 had attended two gatherings of the Shincheonji Church prior to her official diagnosis of Covid-19. By March 18th, 5,016 cases were confirmed to be related to the Shincheonji Church, around 60% of the total cases in Korea. It was suspected that the smaller outbreak in Cheongdo might also have been related with patient 31 as there were some church members who had attended a funeral service over there at around the same time, but the KCDC found that although she had visited Cheongdo, she did not attend the funeral hall or go to the Daenam Hospital, which was the center of the outbreak.

The Korean clusters: How coronavirus cases exploded in South Korean churches and hospitals

Sang-Hun, C., 2020. Shadowy Church Is At Center Of Coronavirus Outbreak In South Korea. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/world/asia/south-korea-coronavirus-shincheonji.html      Accessed 15 July 2020.

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