Omicron Infections Increase by 111... 3,129 New COVID-19 Cases Confirmed

On the 2nd, medical staff are warming their hands with a hot pack at a temporary COVID-19 screening clinic set up at Seoul Station Plaza in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The number of Omicron COVID-19 variant infections increased by 111, bringing the total to 1,318 cases. The number of new COVID-19 confirmed cases is 3,129.

On the 3rd, the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) announced that as of midnight, 111 new Omicron infections were reported, of which 10 were domestic (local) infections and 101 were imported cases.

Among the imported cases, 62 were from the United States, 7 from Canada, 5 from the Philippines, 4 from Spain, and 4 from Italy. Two cases each were imported from the Maldives, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, and Finland. One case each came from Greece, South Africa, the Netherlands, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Thailand, Poland, and France.

Since the 30th of last month, a domestically developed Omicron variant PCR reagent has been used for testing, enabling confirmation of infection status within 3 to 4 hours, which has led to a rapid increase in the spread.

On this day, the number of new domestic COVID-19 confirmed cases increased by 3,129, bringing the cumulative total to 642,207. The number of new cases decreased by 703 compared to the previous day, and this is the first time in five weeks that the Monday announcement has fallen into the 3,000 range.

However, the number of critically ill patients and deaths has not decreased significantly. The number of critically ill patients was 1,015, down by 9 from the previous day (1,024), but it has remained above 1,000 for 14 consecutive days. The number of deaths was 36, bringing the total deaths to 5,730 (cumulative fatality rate 0.89%).

By infection route, 2,993 cases were locally transmitted, and 136 were imported. Among the locally transmitted cases, Seoul reported 964, Gyeonggi 894, and Incheon 177, totaling 2,035 cases (68.0%) in the metropolitan area.

Non-metropolitan areas reported a total of 958 cases (32.0%), including Busan 166, Gyeongnam 129, Chungnam 115, Daegu 97, Jeonbuk 83, Gwangju 73, Gangwon 50, Gyeongbuk 47, Daejeon 46, Chungbuk 45, Ulsan 38, Jeonnam 33, Jeju 27, and Sejong 9.

The number of suspected cases tested at screening clinics the previous day was 89,988, and the number of tests conducted at temporary screening clinics was 86,660, totaling 176,648 tests.

Meanwhile, as of midnight, the domestic COVID-19 vaccination completion rate was 83.0% (a cumulative total of 42,603,909 people), and the third dose vaccination rate was 36.0% of the total population (18,493,667 people).

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