South Korea reports record high of 342,446 new COVID-19 cases

SEOUL – South Korea reported a record daily high of 342,446 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Tuesday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 5,212,118, the health authorities said Wednesday.

The daily caseload was sharply up from 202,720 in the prior day, surpassing 300,000 for the first time here, 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, 74,222 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 96,681 and 18,823 respectively.

The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 152,612, or 44.6 percent of the total local transmission.

Among the new cases, 58 were imported, lifting the total to 29,964.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 1,087, up 80 from the previous day.

Read more: South Korea reports 202,721 new COVID-19 cases

The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,887,172 people, or 87.5 percent of the total population, and the number of the fully inoculated people was 44,406,146, or 86.5 percent of the population.

The number of those who received booster jabs was 31,910,503 people, or 62.2 percent, of the population.