People wait in line to be tested for COVID-19 at a testing center in central Seoul on April 26, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s daily new virus cases fell below 600 on Monday for the first time in six days due to fewer tests over the weekend as health authorities accelerated the country’s inoculation drive.
The country reported 500 more COVID-19 cases, including 469 local infections, raising the total caseload to 119,387, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The country added four more deaths, raising the total to 1,817.
Monday’s figure was sharply down from 644 the previous day and 785 on Saturday.
Last week, daily infections neared 800 as cluster infections and untraceable cases grew amid increased social activities due to the warmer weather.
Later in the day, health authorities and local governments reported 443 new virus cases as of 9 p.m., down 20 cases from the same time on Sunday.
The KDCA has designated this week as a special period to stop the current pace of the outbreak.
Dining-in by civil servants will be banned, and working from home as well as working half time or part of business hours will be expanded in the public sector, the authorities said.
They added that tougher rules on multiuse facilities and business operations, as well as an additional ban on gatherings, will be considered if the current infection trend continues.
The greater Seoul area, where more than half of the country’s 52 million people reside, is under Level 2 social distancing, the third highest in the five-tier scheme, with the rest of the country under Level 1.5.
The current social distancing level will be effective until May 2, while private gatherings of five or more people are banned nationwide.
South Korea has also pushed to ramp up its inoculation campaign, which started in late February, amid concerns of global vaccine shortages.
As of midnight, 2,266,888 people, or 4.4 percent of the population, had received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, up 6,140 from a day earlier, with 104,905 people, or 0.2 percent of the population, having been vaccinated with two doses, up 367 from a day ago.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine took up 1,313,123 of the shots, while Pfizer’s accounted for 953,765, according to the KDCA.
A firefighter receives a COVID-19 vaccine shot at a hospital in the southwestern city of Gwangju, 329 kilometers south of Seoul, on April 26, 2021. (Yonhap)
A total of 13,609 cases of side effects after vaccinations have been reported, though 98.1 percent of them were mild symptoms, such as muscle pain and fever.
A total of 60 deaths after vaccinations have been reported, up two from the previous day. Health authorities have yet to link the deaths with the vaccinations.
The country aims to inoculate 1.5 million people a day by the end of May by increasing the number of private vaccination centers from around 2,000 to 14,000 over the same period and expanding the age groups able to receive the shots, according to Acting Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki.
South Korea has gradually expanded its vaccination program, prioritizing patients and workers at long-term care hospitals and those aged 75 and older.
Starting Monday, the country has begun inoculating pharmacists, therapists and dialysis patients, as well as 177,000 social service workers, including police officers and firefighters.
Health authorities said 126,000 soldiers aged over 30 will also receive vaccine shots from Wednesday, and vaccinations will be focused on the elderly in the first half of the year.
Authorities target inoculating 3 million people by the end of this month and 12 million by the end of June.
The country aims to inoculate around 70 percent of the country’s population, or 36 million, with the first dose of the vaccine by September and to achieve herd immunity by November.
Over the weekend, South Korea clinched a deal with Pfizer to secure additional vaccines for 20 million people.
The latest deal raised the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses from the World Health Organization’s global vaccine COVAX Facility project and pharmaceutical companies — Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen — to an amount great enough to inoculate 99 million people, nearly double the country’s population.
Authorities said that they have no plans to share the secured vaccines with other countries, including North Korea.
Of the newly confirmed locally transmitted cases announced early Monday, 152 came from Seoul, 147 from Gyeonggi Province and 13 from Incheon, 40 kilometers west of the capital.
The southeastern port city of Busan, the country’s second-largest city, reported 23 more cases.
There were 31 additional imported cases, raising the total to 8,217.
The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries was 108,850, up 375 from a day earlier.
(Yonhap)
