SEOUL, Nov 18 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea’s daily number of COVID-19 cases hit a record high, as the country launched the so-called “living with COVID-19” guideline earlier this month, the health authorities said today.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the country reported 3,292 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight, compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 406,065.
It marked the highest daily caseload since the country’s first case was found on Jan 20, last year. The daily number stayed above 3,000 for two straight days.
The record-high number came, as the government adopted the “living with COVID-19” rules, under which restrictions on the multi-use facilities, such as restaurants and cafes, and the private gatherings were eased.
The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Of the new cases, 1,423 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people residing in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 965 and 195.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 689, or 21.1 percent of the total local transmission.
Twenty cases were imported, lifting the combined figure to 15,449.
The number of infected people who were in a serious condition was 506, down 16 from the previous day.
Twenty-nine more deaths were confirmed, bringing the death toll to 3,187. The total fatality rate stood at 0.78 percent.
Since mass vaccination was launched on Feb 26, the country administered COVID-19 vaccines to a total of 42,110,652 people, or 82.0 percent of the total population.
The number of fully vaccinated people was 40,312,386, or 78.5 percent of the population.– NNN-YONHAP
