COVID-19 744 New Cases Yesterday... Over 700 Cases for the First Time in Ten Days (Comprehensive)

Nationwide Spread Continues... 725 Local Cases - 19 Overseas
Cumulative 143,596 Cases, 2 New Deaths Totaling 1,971

Citizens are receiving COVID-19 tests at the temporary screening clinic in Seoul Station Plaza. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The number of new COVID-19 cases in South Korea has surpassed 700 again after ten days.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) announced that as of midnight on the 5th, there were 744 new confirmed cases. This is an increase of 49 cases compared to the previous day (695 cases), bringing the total cumulative confirmed cases to 143,596. The daily number of confirmed cases exceeding 700 was last recorded ten days ago on the 26th of last month (706 cases). It is also the first time in about a month that the number of confirmed cases on a Saturday has reached the 700s since the 8th of last month (701 cases).

Looking at the recent COVID-19 outbreak situation, cluster infections have been occurring nationwide, causing the daily number of confirmed cases to fluctuate between 400 and 700. The number of new confirmed cases over the past week from the 30th of last month to today are as follows: 480 → 430 → 459 → 677 → 681 → 695 → 744. During this period, the 400s and 600s appeared three times each, and the 700s appeared once.

Regarding the infection routes of the new confirmed cases on this day, 725 were locally transmitted, and 19 were imported cases. The number of locally transmitted cases increased by 51 compared to the previous day (674 cases). It is also the first time in 22 days since the 14th of last month (729 cases) that the number of locally transmitted cases has reached the 700s.

By region, Seoul reported 274 cases, Gyeonggi 206 cases, and Incheon 16 cases, totaling 496 cases (68.4%) in the metropolitan area. Non-metropolitan areas reported a total of 229 cases (31.6%), including Daegu 41 cases, Daejeon 31 cases, Chungbuk 24 cases, Jeju 22 cases, Gyeongnam 20 cases, Jeonnam and Gangwon 14 cases each, Busan and Jeonbuk 13 cases each, Gyeongbuk 10 cases, Gwangju and Chungnam 9 cases each, Ulsan 5 cases, and Sejong 4 cases.

The number of deaths increased by 2 from the previous day, bringing the cumulative total to 1,971. The domestic average fatality rate stands at 1.37%. The number of critically ill patients remained unchanged at 151.

The number of tests conducted at screening clinics on the previous day was 34,630, which is 4,370 fewer than the 39,000 tests conducted the day before. The positivity rate, calculated by the number of confirmed cases relative to the number of tests, was 2.15% (744 cases out of 34,630 tests), slightly higher than the previous day's 1.78% (695 cases out of 39,000 tests). As of midnight on this day, the cumulative positivity rate stands at 1.44% (143,596 cases out of 9,945,954 tests).

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