New COVID-19 cases in triple digits again

The daily number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases nearly tripled to 113 on Wednesday, going into triple digits again as South Koreans began traveling for Chuseok holidays.

The daily figure, released by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, had remained below 100 for four consecutive days, going down to 38 on Tuesday, the lowest since Aug. 11 (34 cases).

Newly confirmed cases began to rise sharply after mid-August, shot up to over 400 per day, and gradually declined.

The daily number was in the 100s for 17 days from Sep. 3 through 19, and then marked 82, 70, 61, 110, 125, 114, 61, 95, 50, 38 and 113.

Of the 113 newly confirmed cases reported on Wednesday, 93 were local infection cases, up by 70 from a day ago, and 20 came from overseas.

By region, 76 were reported in the Seoul metropolitan area, 4.5 times the figure on the previous day. A total of 28 new cases were detected at a psychiatric hospital in northeastern Seoul, 13 at a music enrichment center, 12 at a venue for gatherings of senior citizens, and 16 at Dong-A University.

Of the 20 new imported cases, five were confirmed at the airport or seaports, while the remaining 15 were confirmed during self-quarantine upon entering the country.

By country, 10 came from Uzbekistan, followed by three from Nepal, two from Malaysia, one each from the Philippines, Indonesia, Iraq, Poland and the US.

By nationality, five of them were South Korean.

Six more people died due to COVID-19, bringing the country’s death toll to 413. The fatality rate stands at 1.73 percent.

The number of patients in severe or chronic conditions declined by six to a total of 109.

The country’s aggregate number of confirmed cases stood at 23,812.

A total of 21,590 confirmed cases have been discharged from quarantine so far, and 1,809 patients, down 13 from the previous day, are currently being treated in isolation.

Over 2.32 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted in the country so far, with 9,955 tests administered on Tuesday.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)​