Increase in COVID Variant Detection Rate... "Careful Observation Needed"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Byeon Seon-jin] The detection rate of BA.5, the dominant domestic variant, has slightly decreased, while the detection rate of new variants increasing overseas is on the rise domestically.

The Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) announced at the regular briefing held on the 19th that the detection rate of the Omicron sublineage variants last week showed that the dominant BA.5 detection rate was 89.3%, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous week, whereas the detection rates of other variants slightly increased. The detection rate of 'BF.7,' a subvariant of BA.5, rose by 0.5 percentage points to 1.8%, and the detection rate of BA.2.75, commonly called 'Centaurus,' also increased by 0.5 percentage points to 3.3%.

Im Sook-young, head of the CDCH Situation Management Division, explained, "Recently, COVID-19 cases have been increasing in Germany, France, Belgium, and other countries, and the proportion of subvariants such as BF.7 is rising. Although there is no noticeable increase domestically, it is necessary to closely monitor the situation in Korea in accordance with trends in some overseas countries."

The downward trend of the outbreak is stagnating. The weekly number of confirmed cases last week (145,983) decreased by 7% compared to the previous week, which is less than half of the 15% decrease in the week before that. The effective reproduction number (Rt) was 0.89, maintaining below 1 for eight consecutive weeks, indicating suppression of the outbreak, but it slightly increased compared to the previous week (0.87). The effective reproduction number has shown a slight upward trend from the third week of September to last week: 0.80 → 0.80 → 0.87 → 0.89.

However, the health authorities reported that the weekly COVID-19 risk level for the second week of this month (October 9?15) was assessed as 'low' nationwide, in the metropolitan area, and in non-metropolitan areas. The weekly risk level has remained low for four consecutive weeks from the third week of September to last week.

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