Daily virus cases below 4,000 for 3rd day; critical cases hit record high amid new variant woes

South Korea’s new coronavirus cases stayed below 4,000 for the third straight day Tuesday, but the number of critically ill patients hit a fresh high amid concerns over the global spread of the new virus variant.

The country reported 3,032 new COVID-19 cases, including 3,003 local infections, raising the total caseload to 447,230, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The country reported the highest daily cases of 4,115 to date on Nov. 24.

South Korea added 44 more deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 3,624. The fatality rate stood at 0.81 percent. The country also saw its first death among children under the age of 10.

Critically ill patients also reached an all-time high of 661, marking the seventh straight day such cases stayed above 600.

It also decided to speed up the administration of booster shots and secure more hospital beds over the next four weeks.

The KDCA said the pandemic risk level, a new five-tier assessment system introduced last week to evaluate the degree of COVID-19 risk, has reached the highest level in the country’s capital area.

Health officials said it has become impossible to move on to the second phase of the country’s ambitious scheme to gradually return to normal life.

South Korea had originally planned to further relax the virus curbs in mid-December after four weeks of the first-phase easing of distancing rules.

The emerging omicron variant across the globe has put South Korea on high alert, prompting the authorities to put a ban on foreign arrivals from eight African countries to block the inflow of the potentially more contagious variant.

The bed occupancy rate in intensive care units for COVID-19 patients stood at 91 percent in Seoul and 88.5 percent in the greater Seoul region as of Tuesday. The figure for the country as a whole came to 78.5 percent.

The health authorities earlier said 75 percent of bed occupancy is a critical threshold.

As of Tuesday, about 3.03 million people had received a booster shot, according to KDCA data.

Of the locally transmitted cases, Seoul reported 1,176 new cases, and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province posted 907 more cases.

The number of cases from overseas came to 29, raising the total to 15,725.

A total of 42.54 million people, or 82.9 percent of the country’s population, have received their first shots of COVID-19 vaccines, and 41.01 million people, or 79.9 percent, have been fully vaccinated.

julesyi@yna.co.kr