SEOUL– South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases sharply rose to over 110,000 on Tuesday as a highly infectious omicron variant has fueled a surge of new infections.
The country added 111,789 new COVID-19 infections, including 568 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 19,932,439, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
Daily cases tend to increase through the mid-week before falling again on weekends and Mondays on fewer tests.
Tuesday’s figure jumped from the previous day’s 44,689 and also increased from the 99,252 cases reported a week ago, driven by the fast spread of the omicron variant BA.5.
The highly transmissible variant also caused a fresh wave of hospitalizations, with serious cases reaching the highest levels in nearly three months.
The number of seriously ill COVID-19 patients was 282 on Tuesday, down five cases from a day earlier when the figure rose to the highest after May 18, when the tally stood at 313.
The KDCA reported 16 deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 25,084. The fatality rate was 0.13 percent.
Source: Yonhap News Agency