09 July, SEOUL : South Korea reported its highest-ever daily COVID-19 cases Thursday, leading the health authorities to officially announce that the country entered the fourth wave of the pandemic.
In the latest tally, 1,275 more cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the country for the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 164,028, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
It was the highest daily caseload since the country’s first case was detected on Jan. 20 last year, topping the previous high of 1,240 tallied on Dec. 25 last year.
The KDCA said in a statement that the country was in an entering stage of the fourth wave of pandemic given that the daily average caseload for the latest week from July 1 to July 7 was up 53 percent nationwide compared to the reading recorded for the previous three weeks between June 10 and June 30.
The daily caseload hovered above 1,200 for the past two days, but the recent fatality rate fell to about one-third of the rate tallied during the third wave of pandemic between November last year and January this year, according to the KDCA.
The low fatality rate came as the country launched the vaccination campaign on Feb. 26. Over 15.47 million people, or 30 percent of the country’s population, have received the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with over 5.55 million people fully inoculated.
South Korea confirmed one more death from the infection, lifting the death toll to 2,034. The total fatality rate was 1.24 percent.
The recent spike in COVID 19 cases was caused by cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area, especially among those in their 20s.
Of the new cases, 545 were Seoul residents. The number of people residing in the surrounding Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 388 and 61 respectively.
The combined 994 cases, reported in the greater Seoul area, accounted for 81.0 percent of the total. The percentage topped 80 percent for the ninth consecutive day.
