Seoul, November 20, 2018 : .South Korea’s coronavirus case count remained above 3,000 on Saturday.
This raises concerns about a possible virus resurgence in the months ahead of winter and full-fledged school reopenings. According to Yonhap, the country had reported 3212 Covid-19 new cases.This includes 3,194 local infections.
Saturday’s casesload increased by 178 over the previous day.This is the third largest since the outbreak.
Due to increasing cluster infections, and spread of more transmissible variants cases, daily cases have been stable in quadruple figures since July 7.
Covid-19 caused 29 additional deaths in the country, taking it to 3244.At 0.79 percent, the fatality rate was recorded.
In two days, 508 critically ill patients were seen.This was a record breaking number.
At 9:59 p.m.on Saturday, local and state health officials reported 219 new cases.This is 677 less than the previous day.This decrease is likely due to the fact that fewer cases were tested.This excludes Busan, a southeastern port that no longer releases real-time data.
Since the government started easing the antivirus restrictions Nov.1, in an effort to return pre-pandemic lives to normal under its three-phase scheme “living with Covid-19”, daily infections haven’t slowed down.
South Korea had planned to go to the second stage mid-December, after an evaluation period of two weeks.
However, health officials have cautioned that the country might not be able do this if current trends continue.
Concerns have been raised about the virus’ resurgence in winter, particularly in light of the full opening of classes in person at schools next week.
This is adding to the woes of health officials amid growing scarcity of beds for severely ill patients.
According to the health ministry, the number of people waiting for admission to Seoul’s hospitals jumped to 659 from 520 one day earlier.
The waiting list was empty when November 1st, the country relaxed its months-long stringent antivirus restrictions.However, the number has grown rapidly.
As of Friday, the bed occupancy rate for Covid-19 patients in intensive care units was 80.3 percent in Seoul and 78.13% in greater Seoul.This figure was 64.8 percent for the entire country.
Health authorities stated that 75 percent of beds occupied is considered a crucial threshold.
Seoul had 1,372 cases of locally transmitted diseases, while Gyeonggi, the neighboring province, and Incheon, the west port city, reported 988, 204, and respectively.
The country had 80.3 percent of its total cases in the Seoul region.
The KDCA reported that 42.2 million people (or 82.2 percent) have had their first doses of Covid-19 vaccines.Meanwhile, 40.45million people (878.8%) have been fully vaccinated.
As a result of the declining effectiveness of vaccines, government officials have been trying to give booster shots to seniors and other vulnerable populations.
The agency reported Friday that more than 150,000 people were vaccinated.This brings the total to 1.76million.The 560,372 who received the Janssen Covid-19 single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson accounted for the majority of the population.
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