The South Korean government has decided to temporarily halt flights to and from the UK until the end of the year to stem the spread of a new coronavirus variant, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.

The country will also order a 14-day quarantine for all international arrivals from Britain, and conduct an additional virus testing after the quarantine is lifted, the report said.

South Korea joined a growing list of countries and regions around the world banning travels from the UK after a new variant of the coronavirus was identified in the country that could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.

The country's number of new daily cases climbed above 1,000 for the first time in three days on Wednesday, adding 1,092 more cases, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). So far, it has reported a total of 52,550 cases.

Seventeen more people died due to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the country's death toll to 739.