South Korea reports 407,017 new COVID-19 cases

Seoul [South Korea], March 18 (ANI/Xinhua): South Korea reported 407,017 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Thursday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 8,657,609, the health authorities said Friday.
The daily caseload was sharply down from a record high of 621,328 in the previous day, but it marked the second-highest number, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The recent resurgence was driven by infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the Omicron variant spread.
Of the new cases, 81,997 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 113,673 and 25,797 respectively.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 185,511, or 45.6 per cent of the total local transmission.
Among the new cases, 39 were imported, lifting the total to 30,539.
The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 1,049, down 110 from the previous day.
A total of 301 more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 11,782. The total fatality rate was 0.14 per cent.
The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 44,920,469 people, or 87.5 per cent of the total population, and the number of fully inoculated people was 44,449,882, or 86.6 per cent of the population.
The number of those who received booster jabs was 32,261,650 people or 62.9 per cent of the population. (ANI/Xinhua)