South Korea records the number of COVID-19 cases surpassing 10 million

According to the Vietnam News Agency correspondent in Seoul, on March 23, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KDCA) announced that the country recorded an additional 490,881 cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases to 10,427,247 cases. . This is also the day with the second highest number of new cases compared to the record high of 621,221 cases recorded on March 17. Currently, one out of every five people in South Korea has COVID-19.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 in South Korea also increased by 291 cases compared to the previous day, bringing the total number of deaths to 13,432. Thus, the mortality rate in Korea is currently 0.13%. The daily number of severe COVID-19 patients has remained above the 1,000 threshold for two consecutive weeks.

As of March 22, 32.42 million people, or 63.2% of South Korea’s population, had received booster shots of the vaccine. The number of people who injected the basic dose was 44.46 million people, accounting for 86.6%.

The Korean Health Agency predicts that the number of infections in the country may peak when about 20% of the population tests positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, it is currently difficult to predict the peak of the infection wave based on the percentage of confirmed cases in the total population because of a number of other factors, including the rate of immunity. natural epidemics and the extent of infection is prevented through vaccination.

Although there have been many predictions that the current wave of infections could peak on March 23, and key indicators (such as mortality or the proportion of COVID-19 patients in critical condition) will peak within the next 2 to 3 weeks, but the Korea Health Agency predicts the possibility of the current outbreak of infection will continue due to the rapid spread of the BA sub-line. 2 of the Omicron variant, which is said to have a 30% higher spread rate than the original Omicron variant.

KDCA Director Jung Eun-kyung noted, “As the rate of BA.2 infections increases and rapid antigen testing is recognized, it is likely that the peak time of this outbreak will be prolonged and the scale of the outbreak will be longer. The epidemic will also increase compared to previous predictions.