New COVID-19 Cases at 198,803... Deaths Reach Record High of 128

Estimated Impact of March 1st Holiday
Test Positivity Rate 51.3%... One in Two Tested Confirmed Positive

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] The number of new COVID-19 cases, which had approached 220,000, has fallen below 200,000 again. The health authorities believe the rate of increase in confirmed cases is slowing down, but the number of cases is still close to 200,000, indicating the situation is heading toward a peak.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that as of midnight on the 3rd, there were 198,803 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total cumulative number of confirmed cases to 3,691,488. This is about 20,000 fewer than the previous day's record high of 219,241 cases. The decrease in new cases compared to the previous day is also thought to be influenced by the March 1st Samiljeol holiday.

The health authorities see the increase rate slowing as the outbreak nears its peak and expect the number of new cases to peak within the next one to two weeks. In fact, while the 'doubling' phenomenon?where new cases doubled approximately every week?persisted for several weeks, since mid-last week, the increase rate has slowed to about 1.2 to 1.5 times compared to the previous week.

Severe cases and deaths, which typically lag confirmed cases by one to two weeks, continue to rise. As of midnight, the number of severe cases was 766, up by 4 from the previous day’s 762, marking the fourth consecutive day in the 700s. Severe cases were maintained in the 200s in mid-last month but have been on an upward trend, reaching the 400s on the 19th, 500s on the 23rd, 600s on the 25th, and 700s on the 28th of last month.

The number of deaths reached a record high of 128. This is an increase of 32 from the previous day’s 96, bringing the cumulative death toll to 8,394, with a cumulative fatality rate of 0.23%.

Accordingly, hospital bed occupancy rates are also rising. The total number of COVID-19 beds is 47,216, with occupancy rates of 50.7% for severe beds, 66.3% for semi-severe beds, and 48.9% for moderate beds. The operation rate of residential treatment centers is 21.3%. The occupancy rate for severe beds increased by 0.6 percentage points and for semi-severe beds by 0.9 percentage points compared to the previous day.

The number of patients receiving home treatment has also surpassed 850,000. After exceeding 800,000 the previous day, the number reached 857,132 as of midnight. Among them, 129,697 are in the intensive management group, and 199,022 were newly classified as home treatment patients yesterday.

The total number of tests conducted at screening clinics in one day was 571,080. The positive test rate as of midnight was 51.3%, the highest ever recorded. This means that one out of every two people tested at screening clinics was infected with COVID-19.

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