Daily Covid cases in Seoul top 1,000 for 1st time

Daily coronavirus cases in Seoul has surpassed the 1,000 mark for the first time following this week's 'Chuseok' (harvest festival) holiday, South Korean health authorities said on Saturday.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said 1,222 new Covid19 cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Of them, 1,217 were local infections and five were imported cases.

The number is far higher than the capital's previous record high of 907 cases announced on Friday.

The city added three more deaths from Covid-19, raising the death toll to 630.

The total caseload reached 95,949 in the capital, with a population of more than 9.58 million.'

The surge is largely attributable to a sharp increase in the number of virus tests following the Chuseok holiday, which ran from Monday to Wednesday, officials said.


A total of 81,599 people underwent tests in Seoul on Wednesday, compared with 30,000-50,000 per day from Saturday to Tuesday, according to the city government.

The number reached an all-time high of 110,589 on Thursday and 104,524 on Friday.

Over the past two weeks, the average daily number of new cases was 725 and the average daily number of tests was 64,118, the city government said.


The test positivity rate as of Saturday was 1.1 per cent.

Transmission routes are unknown for 616 cases, or 50.4 per cent of the new cases announced Saturday, the city government said.

Meanwhile, new cases across the country also hit an all-time high of 3,273 on Saturday, the KDCA reported.


The greater Seoul area, which also includes neighbouring Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, accounted for 77 per cent of the new infections.

Since the onset of the pandemic early last year, South Korea has registered 298,402 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 2,441 deaths - IANS