**(Clockwise from top left) Everglow’s Yiren and Sihyeon, and UP10TION’s Kogyeol and Bitto (Twitter, Instagram)**

K-pop girl group Everglow members Yiren, 19, and Sihyeon, 21, have tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19), their agency announced.

In a post on Everglow’s official fan cafe and Twitter account, Yuehua Entertainment said Sihyeon and Yiren are now confirmed cases for COVID-19.

It said Yiren learned that her acquaintance tested positive for the virus and reported to health authorities for testing and the results on Dec. 1 showed that she has COVID-19.

As all Everglow members live together, the remaining five members were also tested and it was confirmed that Sihyeon also has COVID-19 while the four other members were negative.

Everglow performed on the Korean TV music show “You Hee-yeol's Sketchbook” and participated in the recording on Nov. 24. The guests on the episode, which aired on Nov. 27, were Everglow, Gummy, Teen Top, Kim Hyeon-cheol and Joo Hyun-mi.

Yuehua said the agency’s artists and employees who had encountered or had close contact with Yiren and Sihyeon have undergone testing or will be tested.

Yiren and Sihyeon will follow guidelines by health authorities. While the remaining members and employees tested negative, they will undergo self-quarantine for two weeks as they had close contact with the two singers.

On the other hand, there are now two COVID-19 positive members of K-pop boy band UP10TION.

On Nov. 30, TOP Media, the band’s agency, announced that member Bitto, 24, tested positive for COVID-19 after he became a close contact with a confirmed case. The other members of UP10TION, staff and employees of the agency underwent testing.

On Dec. 1, it was confirmed that Kogyeol, 24, has COVID-19 while Kuhn, Gyujin, Hwanhee, Sunyoul and Xiao were negative of the virus, according to the announcement.

South Korea has experienced a surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases since November. From a daily average confirmed cases of 110.4 in the first week of November, it increased to 150.6 the following week then 295 and from Nov. 22 to 28, it became 424.6 confirmed cases per day.

As of Dec. 1, South Korea has 34,652 confirmed COVID-19 cases including 27,885 who were discharged and 526 who died, leaving 6,241 active cases.

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