January 19

South Korea reported 5,805 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Tuesday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 705,902.

The daily caseload was up from 4,071 in the previous day amid the spread of the Omicron variant, which the health authorities expected to become a dominant strain here in the near future.

The recent resurgence was attributable to small cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Of the new cases, 1,125 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 2,116 and 401, respectively.

The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 1,789, or 32.9 percent of the total local transmission.

Among the new cases, 374 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 22,304.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 532, down 11 from the previous day.

Seventy-four more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 6,452. The total fatality rate was 0.91 percent.

The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,519,041 people, or 86.8 percent of the total population, and the number of fully inoculated people was 43,630,450, or 85.0 percent of the population.

The number of those who received booster jabs was 24,004,666 people or 46.8 percent of the population.

xinhua