New COVID-19 cases fall below 7,000, but critical cases, deaths hit record highs
The country added 6,919 more COVID-19 cases, including 6,856 local infections, bringing the cumulative total to 589,978, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said, Yonhap reports.
Thursday's tally is down from 7,456 on Wednesday but higher than 5,202 reported Tuesday. The number of new daily cases usually shrinks at the beginning of the week due to less testing over the weekend.
The number of critically ill patients came to a fresh high of 1,083, the KDCA said, breaking its previous record high of 1,063 tallied Wednesday.
Medical workers in protective gear work at NHIS Ilsan Hospital, a medical facility only for patients infected with the new coronavirus, in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, on Dec. 22, 2021. (Yonhap)
The country added 109 more deaths from COVID-19, the most in one day since the onset of the pandemic, bringing the total to 5,015. The fatality rate stood at 0.85 percent.
The country reported 12 new omicron variant cases, bringing the total to 246, the authorities said.
The bed occupancy rate in intensive care units for COVID-19 patients stood at 79.1 percent as of 5 p.m. on Wednesday, slightly down from 79.2 percent from the same time a day earlier. The figure for the greater Seoul area came to 85.1 percent.
A figure higher than 75 percent is considered to have surpassed the saturation point. As of midnight, 367 COVID-19 patients in the greater Seoul area were waiting to be admitted to hospitals while undergoing at-home treatment.
On Wednesday, the government said it will secure some additional 7,000 hospital beds for patients by the end of January to cope with the possibility of daily COVID-19 cases reaching 10,000.
