SEOUL– South Korea reported 35,286 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight, compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 1,044,963, the health authorities said today.
The daily caseload was down from 38,689 the previous day, but it hovered above 30,000 for the third consecutive day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The recent resurgence was driven by cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area, amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which became a dominant strain.
Of the new cases, 6,873 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 9,780 and 2,366, respectively.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region.
The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 16,112, or 45.9 percent of the total local transmission.
Among the new cases, 155 were imported from overseas, lifting the total number to 26,494.
The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 270, down two from the previous day.
Thirteen more deaths were confirmed, bringing the death toll to 6,886. The total fatality rate was 0.66 percent.
The country has administered vaccines to 44,682,457 people, or 87.1 percent of the total population, and the number of the fully inoculated people was 44,112,713, or 86.0 percent of the population.
The number of those who received booster jabs was 28,177,228 people, or 54.9 percent of the population.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK