Seoul, December 6, 2020, SPA -- South Korea on Sunday decided to raise distancing regulations for the greater Seoul area to the second-highest level as part of its utmost efforts to stem a resurgence of the novel coronavirus, Yonhap reported. The government announced that the Level 2.5 distancing, the second highest in the country's five-tier COVID-19 alert system, will be applied to the nation's capital area, which covers Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, for the next three weeks starting Tuesday. The enhancement came as South Korea has been struggling with more than 500 daily new COVID-19 cases in recent days amid the third wave of the pandemic. South Korea can apply the Level 3 social distancing scheme should the number of daily patients hover around 800 to 1,000. Over the past week, the average number of daily patients came to 514, with that of the greater Seoul area reaching a whopping 375. The country adopted the Level 2 social distancing scheme in the greater Seoul area on Nov. 24. --SPA 14:09 LOCAL TIME 11:09 GMT 0004 www.spa.gov.sa/w1462950