17,542 New Confirmed Cases... Cumulative Total Exceeds 800,000

On the morning of the 4th, construction workers are conducting disinfection work at the Gwangju Urban Railway Yongsan Vehicle Depot in Dong-gu, Gwangju, to prevent and contain the spread of the novel coronavirus infection. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] As the COVID-19 Omicron variant rapidly spreads, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases surpassed 800,000 on the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday, the 29th.

According to the Central Disease Control Headquarters on the 29th, as of midnight, the number of new COVID-19 cases was recorded at 17,542, bringing the cumulative total to 811,122.

Omicron, which is more than twice as transmissible as the existing Delta variant, became the dominant strain in South Korea last week, and as the spread accelerated, the daily number of confirmed cases set a new record for five consecutive days.

The number of new cases first reached the 8,000 range on the 25th (8,570), exceeded 13,000 on the 26th, and has gradually increased, approaching 20,000.

The number of new cases on this day is 2.5 times the 7,500 cases reported a week earlier on the 22nd, and four times the 4,419 cases reported two weeks ago on the 15th.

However, this has not yet led to an increase in critically ill patients or deaths. Typically, an increase in confirmed cases leads to a rise in critically ill patients and deaths after a 2 to 3 week lag.

As of midnight on this day, the number of critically ill patients was 288, down 28 from the previous day (316), falling below 300.

This is the first time in 183 days since July 30 last year (299 patients) that the number of critically ill patients has been in the 200s.

The number of deaths increased by 34, bringing the cumulative total to 6,712. The cumulative fatality rate is 0.83%.

Regarding the infection routes of new confirmed cases, 17,349 were locally transmitted and 193 were imported cases.

Among locally transmitted cases, 5,588 were in Gyeonggi, 4,166 in Seoul, and 1,599 in Incheon, with 11,353 cases (65.4%) coming from the metropolitan area alone.

The number of locally transmitted cases in the metropolitan area exceeded 10,000 for the first time the previous day and surpassed 11,000 on this day.

In non-metropolitan areas, there were 875 cases in Daegu, 804 in Busan, 691 in Gyeongnam, 578 in Gyeongbuk, 558 in Jeonbuk, 508 in Chungnam, 425 in Daejeon, 417 in Gwangju, 310 in Jeonnam, 309 in Chungbuk, 205 in Gangwon, 200 in Ulsan, 74 in Jeju, and 42 in Sejong, totaling 5,996 cases (34.6%).

The total number of new confirmed cases, combining local and imported cases (excluding quarantine), was 5,629 in Gyeonggi, 4,199 in Seoul, and 1,615 in Incheon, totaling 11,443 in the metropolitan area.

The number of imported cases was 193, down 9 from the previous day (202).

The COVID-19 vaccination completion rate (percentage of people who have completed the basic vaccination) as of midnight on this day was 85.7% (a cumulative total of 44,631,275 people). The third dose vaccination rate was 52.3% of the total population (a cumulative total of 26,858,214 people).