New virus cases most since early January, post-holiday resurgence looming in S Korea
The country reported 621 more COVID-19 cases, including 590 local infections, raising the total caseload to 84,946, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.
The country added four more deaths, raising the total to 1,538.
Wednesday's caseload was the highest since Jan. 10 when 657 cases were reported.
The daily caseload remained in the 300s from Saturday to Monday due mainly to less testing over the holiday that began Thursday of last week, but it bounced back to over 400 on Tuesday when more people got tested.
A series of infections at religious facilities, hospitals and industrial plants have posed challenges to the country's antivirus efforts, coupled with the spread of more contagious variants.
South Korea has identified 94 cases of COVID-19 variants from Britain, South Africa and Brazil since December.
Authorities warned of a potential hike in new cases tied to holiday traveling and relaxed social distancing rules that went into effect Monday to help small business owners suffering from losses.
Health authorities said the traffic on the Lunar New Year's day on Feb. 13 was down 29 percent from a year earlier, but it was 18.9 percent higher than the daily average in February.
«The number of new cases has been rising recently. If traffic continues to rise, it could lead to a resurgence of the fourth wave of pandemic,» Sohn Young-rae, a senior health official, said in a briefing.
The Seoul metropolitan area, home to half of the nation's 52 million population, is under Level 2 distancing -- the third highest in a five-tier system -- and other areas are at Level 1.5.
The adjustment allows restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, nightclubs and bars in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province to remain open for an hour longer until 10 p.m.
Health officials said they are mulling over revising the current distancing scheme in a more sustainable mode for business owners, but they said the new system could only go into effect next month at the earliest if the country's virus curve flattens in the next two weeks.
South Korea plans to administer its first inoculations against the new coronavirus on Feb. 26 with AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, but the inoculation of seniors aged 65 and older will be put on hold amid efficacy concerns.
The government has secured vaccines for 79 million, more than the nation's population, through deals with the World Health Organization's global vaccine COVAX Facility project and separate contracts with foreign drug firms.
Starting from Wednesday, Celltrion Inc.'s anti-COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment is available at local medical institutions free of charge, the KDCA said.
Celltrion's CT-P59, the nation's first homegrown treatment, will only be administered to patients with health authorities' approval, with most patients likely to be aged over 60 or those with chronic illnesses, KDCA noted.
Of the 590 locally transmitted cases, 247 cases were reported in Seoul and 147 in the surrounding Gyeonggi Province. Incheon, 40 km west of Seoul, had 21 new cases.
A boiler factory in Asan, about 100 kilometers south of Seoul, reported 22 new cases among workers, raising the total to 116.
A mass testing on workers, mostly foreigners, at a factory in Namyangju, southeast of the capital, found that 114 were infected with the virus, while five were still waiting for results.
The KCDC said thirty-one virus cases were from abroad, with seven from the United States, five from France and three from Tanzania.
The number of seriously or critically ill COVID-19 patients was 169, up three from the previous day.
The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries was 75,360, up 809 from a day earlier.
