South Korea grapples with rapid spread of virus with daily new cases nearing 100,000 milestone as the count doubled per week since the omicron variant became the dominant virus infection from mid-January.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on Wednesday counted daily new positive case at 90,443, a whopping jump after passing 10,000 milestone on Jan. 26.

Positive count added 864,895 in just a month, or 56 percent of 1,552,851 infected with Covid-19 over the last two years.

At such spread rate, the daily count could hit 200,000 next month, health experts warn.

Of the local cases, the capital area that includes Seoul’s adjacent city of Incheon and Gyeonggi Province accounted for 58.3 percent, or 52,605 cases.

The number of critically ill Covid-19 patients was 313 on Wednesday, down one from the previous day, but the daily tally was up from the 200 range at the end of last month, the KDCA said. Intensive care unit (ICU) beds available for coronavirus patients across the country operate at 27.0 percent of capacity, up by 0.2 percentage point from Tuesday. The death toll from the infection was 7,202, up 39 from a day earlier with the cumulative fatality rate at 0.46 percent, the KDCA said.

The government said it will announce whether to adjust current social distancing rules on Friday in consideration of the overall infections and the situation of pandemic-hit small businesses.

By Pulse

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