Even before the country began its transition into "living with COVID-19" on Monday, South Korea was registering an upward trend in new cases, particularly among those in their 60s and 10s. 

In an online briefing Tuesday, Lee Sang-won, a senior official of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA), said authorities are bracing for a possible surge in patient numbers as a result of the phased return-to-normalcy policy. 

Lee said countries which sought similar moves ahead of South Korea saw a surge in cases one or two months after their implementation, forcing some to return to stringent quarantine regulations. 

According to the KDCA, the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the past week through Saturday already jumped by 28-point-two percent from a week earlier to 17-hundred-16. 

Among those contracting the virus in the past week, 15-point-four percent were those aged 10 to 19 and 24-point-three percent were those aged 60 to 69.  

The number of new COVID-19 patients in their 10s out of 100-thousand people in the respective age group rose from three-point-nine in the third week of last month to five-point-six in the fourth week. 

As for those in their 60s, the comparative figure rose from below three last week to above three this week.