South Korea reports 75,449 new Covid cases,151 deaths in last 24 hours

South Korea reported 75,449 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Friday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 16,830,469, the health authorities said on Saturday.

The daily caseload was down from 81,058 the previous day and far lower than 107,896 a week earlier, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The health authorities believed that the daily caseload has been on the decline following the resurgence, driven by the Omicron variant and its subvariant BA.2, which peaked in mid-March.

Among the new cases, 29 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 31,761. The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 738, down 95 from the previous day.

A total of 151 more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 22,024. The total fatality rate was 0.13 per cent. The number of people who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines was 44,536,236, or 86.8 per cent of the total population, and the figure for those getting booster jabs was 33,061,123 people or 64.4 per cent of the population.