Samsung sees more employees get COVID-19 returning from abroad

Samsung Electronics employees who returned to South Korea from a business trip to Brazil were confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on Tuesday.Two employees, who are part of Samsung's mobile business working at the company's Gumi factory, have been in self-isolation since returning on Sunday. They had left for Brazil together in February.Last week, another mobile business employee who also worked at Gumi was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 after returning from Brazil separately.During the same week, another employee who worked at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon alsotested positive after returning from Europe.The affected employees have all been in self-isolation since returning to South Korea and have not affected operations, Samsung said.South Korea is currently imposing a 2-week mandatory self-isolation for all arrivals to the country.None of the new cases are linked to the other COVID-19 cases that werepreviously confirmedby Samsung during the initial surge of cases in the country.

The conglomeratetightened its screening procedureslast month for those working it at its chip plant in response.Since theglobal COVID-19 pandemicbegan, Samsung has been forced to suspend some of its global operations. The tech giant has temporarilyhalted its smartphone factory in Indiawhile some of its factories in Europe and South America have also been temporarily suspended.As of Tuesday, South Korea has 9,887 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 165 dead.