The government's ongoing random testing, launched in the greater Seoul area at the beginning of this week, has identified 170 cases of COVID-19 so far, a government agency on the coronavirus pandemic said Friday.

In a bid to preemptively find "hidden infected people" through random testing, the government has been installing temporary coronavirus testing facilities at about 150 locations in the capital area, including Seoul City Hall and Seoul Station, since Monday. Those random testing centers will operate until Jan. 3.

According to the Central Disease Control Headquarters, an additional 102 people were diagnosed with COVID-19 by the capital area random testing centers Thursday, raising the four-day total to 170.

The 102 new cases -- 61 in Seoul, 33 in Gyeonggi Province and eight in Incheon -- were confirmed out of 32,940 people tested by the random screening centers, the agency said, noting 97.9 percent of them were screened by the so-called polymerase chain reaction test (PCR), designed to detect the virus's genetic material.

The agency said the random screening facilities have conducted a total of 70,709 coronavirus tests in the four-day period.

So far, 122 random testing centers have opened -- 51 in Seoul, 62 in Gyeonggi Province and nine in Incheon, it added.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun urged all capital area citizens to voluntarily visit the random testing centers to help stem the spread of the disease. (Yonhap)