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Medical workers take samples from people at a COVID-19 testing station in Seoul on Wednesday. (Yonhap) |
South Korea's daily new coronavirus cases hovered near 1,900 on Thursday, and daily COVID-19 deaths hit the highest number since the fourth wave of the pandemic began, as health authorities scrambled to add critical-care hospital beds.
The country added 1,882 more COVID-19 cases, including 1,829 local infections, raising the total caseload to 243,317, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Thursday's tally compares with 2,155 on Wednesday, 1,509 on Tuesday, 1,418 on Monday and 1,628 on Sunday. Daily cases have stayed above 1,000 for 51 days in a row.
The country added 20 more deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 2,257, the KDCA said. It marked the worst daily death toll since the fourth wave took hold in early July.
With the highly contagious delta variant sweeping the nation, beds for critical COVID-19 patients have dwindled.
As of Tuesday, 30.3 percent of 833 critical-care hospital beds were available, but some regions, including Daejeon and South Chungcheong Province, have only one intensive care unit bed each, according to the KDCA.
Despite six weeks of the toughest restrictions in the greater Seoul area, the fourth wave of the pandemic has shown no signs of abating as the delta-driven infections have complicated antivirus measures.
The wider Seoul area, where half of the nation's 52 million population lives, has been under Level 4 restrictions, the highest of the four-tier virus curbs, for the past six weeks, while most other areas have implemented Level 3 distancing for the last four weeks. The current social distancing measures were extended Monday until Sept. 5.
Under the tougher measures, restaurants and cafes will be required to close at 9 p.m., an hour earlier than the current nighttime curfew. The semi-lockdown measures prohibit gatherings of more than two people after 6 p.m. and ban the operation of nightclubs and other entertainment venues.
As of Thursday, 27.07 million people, or 52.7 percent of the population, have received their first shots of COVID-19 vaccines, and 13.35 million people have been fully vaccinated, the KDCA said.
The government aims to vaccinate at least 70 percent of the nation's population by September to create herd immunity in November.
Of the newly confirmed domestic cases, 566 were from Seoul, 504 from the surrounding Gyeonggi Province and 98 from the western port city of Incheon, the authorities said.
The southeastern port city of Busan identified 77 new patients, and South Gyeongsang Province had 64 more, they said.
The number of patients with serious symptoms across the country reached 425.
The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries was 212,871, up 1,694 from the previous day. (Yonhap)
