S. Korea’s new COVID-19 cases nearly 40,000

Feb 07, 2022, 09:06 am

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People line up at a COVID-19 testing station at Seoul Station on February 7, 2022, when South Korea reported an additional 38,691 infections, bringing up the overall number of those in the country who have been infected with the virus to over 1 million./ Photographed by Jung Jae-hoon

AsiaToday reporter Park Ah-ram

The COVID-19 omicron variant is sweeping the nation. South Korea’s daily virus cases hit another high Sunday reaching nearly 40,000 and raising the total to 1 million two years after the country reported its first COVID-19 case.

The country reported 38,691 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the accumulated number of COVID-19 infections to 1,009,688 as of Saturday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The accumulated virus caseload surpassed 1 million nearly two months after exceeding 500,000 on Dec. 10, 2021.

New daily cases have soared 2.2 times over the past week, and by more than five-fold over the past two weeks.

The surge is driven by the highly contagious omicron variant, which has become the dominant strain in the country. The daily tally topped the 10,000 level for the first time on Jan. 26. Then the tally surged to over 30,000 for the first time on Saturday, just three days after breaking the 20,000 mark on Feb. 2.

Of the locally transmitted cases, Seoul reported 7,778 new cases and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province surpassed 10,000 for the first time with its 11,924 new cases.

At-home care patients rose to a total of 128,716 on Sunday, which is 79% of the country’s maximum care capacity for those treated at home.

Daily cases are feared to increase further in the coming weeks following the three-day Lunar New Year holiday.

Through its short-term prediction calculation, the health authorities had predicted that daily cases could reach between 27,000 and 36,800 in mid-February and reach between 79,500 and 122,200 in the end of this month given that the omicron is three times more contagious than the delta.

The National Institute for Mathematical Sciences (NIMS) released a forecast on February 26 that the country would experience a peak of around 100,000 new cases a day at the end of this month. The calculation said the peak can be formed at around 175,000 at maximum and 500,000 at least.

“As the number of new confirmed cases increases significantly, medical staff can be infected as well therefore there should be rules to control the medical system, such as social distancing rules,” said Jung Ki-seok, professor of pulmonary vascular disease at Hallym University Medical Center.

Meanwhile, the government decided to expand eligibility for Paxlovid – tablets for COVID-19 patients to take orally – to those in their 50s who are already suffering from certain illnesses – diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney diseases, cancer and obesity – starting Monday.

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