S.Korea reports 4,416 more COVID-19 cases

SEOUL, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) — South Korea reported 4,416 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Friday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 635,253.

The daily caseload was down from 4,875 in the previous day, staying below 5,000 for two straight days.

The recent resurgence was attributable to small cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Of the new cases, 1,429 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 1,359 and 239 respectively.

The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 1,283, or 29.8 percent of the total local transmission.

Among the new cases, 106 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 17,446.

The number of the Omicron variant infections was 1,114 so far, including 573 imported cases and 541 domestic transmissions, up 220 from the prior day.

Read more: South Korea to tighten anti-virus measures amid surging COVID-19 cases

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 1,049, down seven from the previous day.

Sixty-two more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 5,625. The total fatality rate was 0.89 percent.

The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,276,704 people, or 86.2 percent of the total population, and the number of fully inoculated people was 42,594,940, or 83.0 percent of the population.

The number of those who received booster shots was 18,411,821, or 35.9 percent of the population.  Enditem