South Korea breaks grim record of daily COVID-19 infections again

By Islamuddin Sajid

ANKARA (AA) – South Korea’s daily COVID-19 tally continues to climb, with the country reporting over 260,000 new cases on Friday for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Infections have surged since the first case of the highly contagious omicron variant was reported in South Korea last December.

The latest daily count of 266,853 cases surpassed the previous grim record of 219,241 reported on Wednesday, and raised the country’s total caseload above 3.95 million, according to Health Ministry data.

Single-day fatalities also rose to 186, up from 128 a day earlier, and the overall death toll now stands at 8,580.

Over the past seven days, South Korea has reported 1.29 million infections and 797 fatalities.

A spike in infections has been witnessed after the government suspended the mandatory vaccine pass system for public places, including restaurants, cafes, departmental stores, movie theaters and museums on Tuesday.

As of Friday, 31.64 million people have received booster shots, accounting for 61.7% of South Korea’s population of around 52 million.

The total number of completely vaccinated people is 44.38 million, or 86.5% of the population, latest data showed.​​​​​​​