Total 13,860 Cases of 'Dolpa Infection'... 3,320 Increase in One Week

62.7 Cases per 100,000 Fully Vaccinated
Steep Rising Curve Since April

On the 12th, at the Central Vaccination Center of the National Medical Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, healthcare workers at COVID-19 treatment hospitals, who are six months past their primary vaccination, are having their temperatures checked before receiving their additional booster shots. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] The number of suspected 'breakthrough infection' cases, where individuals test positive for COVID-19 despite receiving all recommended vaccine doses, has surpassed 13,000.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) announced on the 13th that as of the 3rd, 13,860 fully vaccinated individuals in South Korea have tested positive, suspected as breakthrough infection cases.

This is an increase of 3,320 cases compared to the 10,540 cases recorded as of the 26th of last month.

This corresponds to 0.063% of the total 22,106,559 fully vaccinated individuals who passed two weeks after completing vaccination. In other words, there were 62.7 confirmed cases per 100,000 fully vaccinated people.

Suspected breakthrough infection cases were 2 in April, but then sharply increased monthly: 7 (May) → 116 (June) → 1,180 (July) → 2,764 (August) → 8,910 (September). This month, 881 breakthrough infections have been confirmed.

The proportion of fully vaccinated individuals among all confirmed cases suspected of breakthrough infection was about 5.4% in the second week of August, but it has steadily increased weekly, surpassing 20% in the fourth week of September and reaching 22.9% in the fifth week of September.

Among the 2,828 suspected breakthrough infection cases analyzed for variant viruses, 91.9% (2,599 cases) were confirmed to be infected with major variants. More than 9 out of 10 new confirmed cases were infected with variants.

Among these, the most common variant was the India-origin 'Delta' variant, with 2,566 suspected cases leading the recent fourth wave, followed by the UK-origin 'Alpha' variant with 30 cases, Brazil-origin 'Gamma' variant with 2 cases, and South Africa-origin 'Beta' variant with 1 case.

By age group, those in their 30s had the highest breakthrough infection rate at 0.129% (128.7 cases per 100,000 fully vaccinated), slightly up from 0.119% (118.7 per 100,000) the previous week.

By vaccine type, Janssen recipients had the highest breakthrough infection rate at 0.216% (216.1 per 100,000), followed by AstraZeneca (AZ) at 0.068% (67.9 per 100,000), Pfizer at 0.043% (43.2 per 100,000), and Moderna at 0.005% (4.9 per 100,000).

The breakthrough infection rate among those who received a first dose of AstraZeneca and a second dose of Pfizer (heterologous vaccination) was 0.051%, lower than those who received both doses of AstraZeneca but higher than those who received both doses of Pfizer.

Among suspected breakthrough infection cases, 200 were severe or critical, and 55 resulted in death.

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