Korea's daily COVID-19 cases nearly double to new high

A medical worker takes a nasal swab sample from a man at a makeshift COVID-19 testing site in Seoul, Feb. 21. AP-Yonhap

South Korea's new COVID-19 infections soared sharply to hit another high of over 170,000, Tuesday, nearly doubling from a day earlier, as the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus continued to spread across the country.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 171,452 new cases, including 171,271 local ones, raising the total caseload to 2,329,182.

This marked a drastic surge from the previous day's 99,573 and is far higher than the previous record of 104,814 tallied Saturday.

Behind the surge lies the fast spread of the more transmissible Omicron variant ― the daily total has quadrupled compared with two weeks ago.

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The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients came to 512, up 32 from a day earlier. This figure has been rising recently, climbing from around 200 cases early last week to over 400, Saturday, and over 500, Wednesday.

The death toll came to 7,607, up 99 from Monday for a fatality rate of 0.33 percent. This was the fourth-highest number of daily deaths from the coronavirus.

The upsurge in total infections also pushed up the number of patients receiving at-home treatment to an all-time high of 521,294, Tuesday.

The health authorities have said that the Omicron wave could reach a peak by early next month with the daily caseload rocketing up to 270,000. Experts also forecast that serious cases would jump to more than 1,000 by that time.

As of Wednesday, 30.74 million people, or 59.9 percent of the country's 52 million population, had received booster shots. The number of fully vaccinated people came to 44.32 million, accounting for 86.4 percent, according to the KDCA.

The country is expecting 615,000 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines to be delivered late Wednesday.

The planned shipment will raise the total amount of coronavirus vaccines delivered here to 7.58 million this year, with the country planning to bring in a total of 142.86 million for 2022, the KDCA said. (Yonhap)

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