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A health care worker collects a swab sample from a person at a local testing facility in Seoul, Thursday.(Yonhap) |
South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases have surpassed 300,000 for two days straight, government data showed Thursday.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the country added 327,549 new COVID-19 infections during the 24 hours of Wednesday, slightly down from the previous day.
The country’s daily infections first topped the 300,000 mark a day earlier with 342,446 cases, the country’s current record-high tally.
The daily tally currently appears to go beyond the number that the country’s health authorities had anticipated earlier, as the daily counts of COVID-19 reported on Wednesday was already near the anticipated peak and continued to remain high through the following day.
The country’s health authorities previously said daily infections would peak at around 354,000 on Friday this week.
In the meantime, the total caseload as of midnight Wednesday reached 5,539,650, which accounts for more than 10 percent of the country’s 52 million population.
The recent increases in daily infections continued to add more COVID-19 related deaths and critically ill patients as well.
On Wednesday, the country added 206 more COVID-19 deaths, which is the second highest on record. The death toll reached 9,646, and the fatality rate was 0.17 percent.
The country’s current record for the number of COVID-19 deaths is 216, reported on March 6.
The number of critically ill patients also reached 1,113, up 26 from the previous day, nearing the tally’s record high of 1,151, reported on Dec. 29.
The country’s severe COVID-19 cases have also topped the 1,000 mark for four consecutive days so far.
The number of critically ill patients is expected to rise in the following weeks to reach up to 2,750, according to the country’s health authorities.
The occupancy rate of hospital beds for critically ill COVID-19 patients is also on an upward trajectory, in line with the recent increases in severe cases.
The bed occupancy rate on Wednesday came to 61.1 percent –- or 1,670 out of 2,733 hospital beds -– up 2 percent point from the previous day’s 59.1 percent.
The occupancy rate of hospital beds for regions outside the greater Seoul area reached 70.6 percent, notably higher than that of the greater capital region, 57.1 percent.
On Wednesday, the number of patients who are under at-home treatment also went up to 1,294,673 from 1,218,536 a day earlier.
By Shim Woo-hyun (
ws@heraldcorp.com)
