The Central Disease Control Headquarters announced on the 7th that the number of new COVID-19 cases in the week of May 28 to June 3, when the crisis level was downgraded from 'Severe' to 'Alert,' decreased by 2.6% compared to the previous week. During this period, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases was 119,582.
The weekly daily average number of confirmed cases was 17,083, and the infection reproduction number (Rt) was recorded at 0.95. This indicator, which shows how many people one infected person transmits the virus to, has been below 1 for two consecutive weeks, indicating 'epidemic suppression,' following 0.96 the previous week.
The daily average number of severe cases under treatment decreased from 168 to 165, and the daily average number of deaths dropped from 12 to 10. The intensive care unit bed occupancy rate nationwide fell by 8 percentage points from 43% to 35%.
The Central Disease Control Headquarters evaluated the weekly COVID-19 risk level for the 5th week of May as 'Low' nationwide, in the metropolitan area, and in non-metropolitan areas, due to the declining trends in new confirmed cases, severe cases, and deaths.
Meanwhile, regarding COVID-19 variants, the recently declining XBB.1.5 variant decreased by 1.9 percentage points from the previous week to 19.6%. XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 showed increasing trends, rising to 15.0% and 11.0%, respectively. Other Omicron sublineages BN.1 and BA.2.75 accounted for 2.9% and 3.0%, respectively.
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