South Korea's virus tally tops 10M as 'stealth omicron' takes grip

By Islamuddin Sajid

ANKARA (AA) – Nearly 500,000 new infections raised South Korea’s COVID-19 count above the grim mark of 10 million on Wednesday.

A total of 490,881 new cases and 291 deaths were recorded over the past day, pushing the overall caseload past 10.42 million, including 13,432 fatalities.

Wednesday’s cases marked the second-highest daily figure for South Korea since the start of the pandemic after 621,205 infections were reported on March 17, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Infections have surged exponentially since the first case of the omicron variant was detected in the country in December, spiraling further after mid-February, when campaigning for the March 9 presidential election kicked off.

Over the past month, more than 8.26 million infections and 5,924 fatalities have been reported in the country, according to official data.

South Korean authorities have also attributed the rising number of infections to the spread of “stealth omicron” in the country, referring to the highly transmissible BA.2 subvariant of the strain.

“Stealth omicron” accounted for 41.4% of cases in the country over the past one week, a sharp rise from 26.3% the week before, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday, warning that the current outbreak could continue for longer than previous predictions.

Despite the ongoing spike, the government has moved ahead with plans to ease virus curbs, including raising the cap on private gatherings from six to eight.

As of Wednesday, 32.45 million people, or 63.2% of South Korea’s population of around 52 million, have received booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines.

The total number of completely vaccinated people is 44.46 million, or 86.6% of the population, the latest data showed.​​​​​​​