SEOUL, Mar 21 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea reported 209,169 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight, compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 9,582,815, the health authorities said today.
The daily caseload was sharply down from 334,708 in the previous day, due to fewer virus tests over the weekend, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The recent resurgence was driven by infections in the Seoul metropolitan area, amid the Omicron variant spread.
Of the new cases, 41,078 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 56,909 and 12,086, respectively.
The virus spread also raged in non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 99,058, or 47.4 percent of the total local transmission.
Among the new cases, 38 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 30,662.
The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 1,130, up 97 from the previous day.
A total of 329 more deaths were confirmed, bringing the death toll to 12,757. The total fatality rate was 0.13 percent.
The country administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,928,084 people, or 87.5 percent of the total population, and the number of fully inoculated people was 44,458,242, or 86.6 percent of the population. The number of those who received booster jabs was 32,370,843 people, or 63.1 percent of the population.– NNN-YONHAP
