South Korean pupils in Seoul and its surrounding areas will return to full remote learning, as the country has lately experienced a resurgence of the novel coronavirus and concerns are growing over school safety.

All school children, including those in kindergartens, in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi province will stay at home and take online classes, starting Wednesday until September 11, as a preemptive measure to slow the spread of the highly infectious virus, Yoo Eun-hae, the country's education minister announced on Tuesday morning.

The only exception is for senior students in their final year of high school, who are due to take crucial university entrance exams in early December.

South Korea reported 280 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Monday, raising the total number of infections to 17,945.

The daily caseload stayed below 300 for the second consecutive day, but marked the 12th consecutive day with triple-digit growth. One more death was confirmed, raising the death toll to 310. Most of the new cases have been centered in the greater Seoul region, which accounts for half the country's population.

"The alarming emergence of mass infections since August is turning up as infections of our students and staff members," Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae told reporters.

Nearly 200 students and school staff had been infected with the virus in the past two weeks, she said.

With most of the new cases centered in the densely populated capital area, however, health authorities say the country is on the brink of a nationwide outbreak and have called on people to stay home and limit travel.

Seoul on Monday ordered masks to be worn in both indoor and outdoor public places for the first time, and has ordered places like churches, nightclubs, karaoke bars and other high-risk venues closed.

Health Minister Park Neung-hoo on Tuesday pleaded with thousands of doctors who have been staging walkouts to return to work.

"We sincerely ask the medical staff to promptly return to the medical ground, where the patients are awaiting," he said at a meeting.

The doctors are protesting several government proposals, including a plan to increase the number of medical students by 4,000 over the next 10 years.

The government says the plan is necessary to be better prepared for public health crises like the coronavirus pandemic, but doctors' associations have said it would unnecessarily flood the market and do little to fix more systemic problems.

(With input from agencies)