'Mass Testing Begins' Qatar Surpasses South Korea in Cumulative COVID-19 Cases (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Kim] The number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in Qatar has surpassed that of South Korea.

The Qatar Ministry of Health announced on the 27th (local time) at 2 p.m. that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased by 957 from the previous day, reaching 11,244. This is more than South Korea's cumulative confirmed cases (10,738 as of 0 a.m. on the 27th).

Since Qatar's population is relatively small at about 2.87 million, the number of confirmed cases per 1 million people is 3,918, which is significantly higher than South Korea's 209.

The daily new confirmed cases in Qatar on this day are the highest since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Qatar on February 29.

The sharp increase in confirmed cases appears to be due to the start of large-scale testing. In particular, COVID-19 has spread in group accommodations of foreign migrant workers, leading to lockdowns and intensive contact tracing and testing.

According to the Qatar Ministry of Health, the cumulative number of COVID-19 tests conducted increased by 33%, from 64,620 on the 20th to 85,709 on this day.

Qatar's positive test rate is 13.1%, which is significantly higher compared to aggressive testing countries like South Korea (1.8%) and the UAE (1.0%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.