Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said extending the restrictions, which were due to end on Sunday, was necessary to slow the spread of Omicron amid fears the Lunar New Year holiday, which ended on Wednesday, may have fuelled infections.
“Slowing the pace of the Omicron’s spread, which is heading to its peak day after day, is a priority in this difficult circumstance,” he said in a televised government response meeting.
New daily cases have tripled over the past two weeks, but the number of deaths and serious infections have remained relatively low in the highly vaccinated country.
South Korea reported a record daily increase of 27,443 new COVID-19 cases, with 24 new deaths, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Friday.
The extended curbs, which also include a six-person limit on private gatherings, spell more pain for businesses that have been forced to close early since December and endured numerous rounds of restrictions during the last two years.
Many small business owners say they have been forced to take on crippling debt to weather the restrictions and complained of inadequate support from the government.
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South Korea's daily number of COVID-19 cases hit a new record high, surpassing 27,000 for the first time amid the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus, the health authorities said Friday.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the country recorded 27,443 new cases of COVID-19, raising the total number of infections to 934,656.
The daily caseload was up from 22,907 in the previous day, hovering above 20,000 for three straight days.
The recent resurgence was driven by cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which became a dominant strain here.
Of the new cases, 6,139 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 7,202 and 1,779, respectively.
The virus also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 12,163, or 44.6 percent of the total local transmissions.
Among the new cases, 160 were imported, lifting the total number to 25,967.