COVID cases in S.Korea at over 1M as omicron continues to spread

By Islamuddin Sajid

ANKARA (AA) - South Korea on Monday recorded over 1 million COVID-19 cases in total in a third day of more than 35,000 infections, according to the Health Ministry.

During the past 24 hours, South Korea recorded 35,286 new cases, bringing the total caseload to 1.04 million as omicron variant spreading across the country, the Health Ministry data showed.

On Saturday, the country had registered 36,346 before a record-breaking 38,690 on Sunday.

Since January, daily infections have been rising in South Korea after the omicron variant hit the country surpassing the 10,000 mark in daily cases for the first time on Jan. 26

With 13 more fatalities, the death toll also rose to 6,886.

On Friday, Health authorities extended social distancing measures until Feb. 20 as the country was witnessing record cases.

Noting that cases in other countries peaked in three to four weeks of the start of a wave, the ministry said in a statement that this was a "difficult" metric to apply to South Korea due to factors such as the cumulative cases and vaccination rate.

However, the lower ratio of critical patients compared to during the delta variant wave due to the high vaccination rate suggests that omicron will follow different trends in the country, it added.

So far, South Korea has fully vaccinated over 86% of its 52 million population.