May 3

South Korea reported 51,131 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Monday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 17,346,753, the health authorities said Tuesday.

The daily caseload was up from 20,084 in the previous day, but it was lower than 80,349 recorded a week earlier, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

The health authorities believed that the daily caseload has been on the decline following the Omicron variant-driven resurgence, which may have peaked in the middle of March.

Among the new cases, 45 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 32,041.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 417, down 44 from the previous day.

A total of 49 more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 23,007. The total fatality rate was 0.13 percent.

The number of people who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines was 44,549,469, or 86.8 percent of the total population, and the figure for those getting booster jabs was 33,137,894 people, or 64.6 percent of the population.

xinhua