A riverside park in Yeouido, Seoul, bustles with vacationers amid a scorching heat wave on July 3, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 7 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s new coronavirus cases stayed above 18,000 for the third straight day Thursday, as the nation embarks on a summer vacation season amid the eased social distancing restrictions.
The country added 18,511 new COVID-19 infections, including 194 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,451,862, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
Thursday’s tally is similar to the 18,147 on Tuesday and the 19,371 on Wednesday but nearly doubled from the 9,591 a week ago.
The KDCA has said the pace of the virus’ reproduction has recently gone up amid the nation’s increasing mobility in the summer vacation season under eased social distancing rules.
The country added 10 COVID-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 24,593. The fatality rate stood at 0.13 percent.
The number of critically ill patients fell by five to 56, the KDCA said.
As of 9 p.m. Thursday, local governments had reported 18,625 additional cases, up 1,118 from the same time Wednesday and 2.1 times the number from one week before.
Daily cases are counted until midnight and announced the following morning.
Visitors spend time at a beach on Jeju Island, off the southern coast, on July 3, 2022. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s COVID-19 cases have been trending downward since they rose to an all-time high of over 620,000 in mid-March.
But the spread of infections has picked up steam recently amid waning immunity and eased social distancing rules.
Health authorities warned of another round of COVID-19 resurgence, as subvariants of the virus are spreading and more people are traveling for summer holidays.
Of the 18,317 locally transmitted cases reported Thursday, Seoul accounted for 4,574 cases, with the surrounding Gyeonggi Province reporting 4,967 cases.
There were 927 infections in Incheon, around 30 kilometers west of Seoul. The three areas accounted for 57.1 percent of all local infection cases.
Jeju Island, one of the most popular vacation spots for South Koreans, also saw its new cases soar to 408, up from 375 a day earlier.
(Yonhap)
