S. Korea reports 210,716 new COVID-19 cases

South Korea recorded 210,716 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Sunday, bringing the total number of infections to 4,666,977, the health authorities said Monday.

The daily caseload was down from the 243,626 cases reported in the previous day due to fewer tests over the weekend, but it was 1.5 times higher than a week earlier, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The recent resurgence was driven by infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.

Of the new cases, 39,557 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 51,097 and 15,323, respectively.

The virus also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 104,651, or 49.7 percent of the total local transmissions.

Among the new cases, 88 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 29,832.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stands currently at 955, up 70 from the previous day.

A total of 139 more deaths were confirmed, taking the death toll to 9,096. The total fatality rate was 0.19 percent.

The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,872,590 people, or 87.4 percent of the total population, and the number of the fully vaccinated people was 44,394,243, or 86.5 percent of the population.

The number of those who received booster jabs was 31,802,879, or 62.0 percent of the population.