New infections yo-yo as sixth wave's peak nears

Social Affairs

Published: 08 Aug. 2022, 18:24

New infections yo-yo as sixth wave's peak nears

A worker at Seoul National University Hospital in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Monday shows Evusheld, an antibody treatment from AstraZeneca for immunocompromised patients. The Korean government allowed injections of the medicine starting Monday. [YONHAP]

Some 55,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday, a nearly 50 percent slump from the day before yet 1.24 times more than a week earlier.

There were 105,507 confirmed cases on Saturday.

Fewer people get tested on weekends because fewer testing sites are open, which means that people who come down with symptoms are likely to get tested and get positive test results on Monday through Wednesday.

Compared to two weeks earlier, Sunday’s figure was 1.54 times higher.

Though daily cases remain high, health authorities Monday said it was a positive sign that infections weren’t doubling every week as they feared.

Sohn Young-rae, a senior official in the Health Ministry, said in a press briefing last Friday that the increase in Covid cases was “slowing down,” though there was a high chance that deaths and the number of patients in critical or serious condition would rise in coming week or two.

Korea’s sixth wave of Covid-19 isn't over, either.

Officials were quick to point out that they still had reason to believe the peak of the sixth wave would fall sometime in mid-August, though it may not be as high as they once thought.

Up to a few weeks ago, the government thought that the country might see up to 250,000 new cases a day, and ordered frontline medical professionals to set aside many more hospital beds for Covid patients.

Under current circumstances, however, officials said late last week that they expect to see a peak of as many as 150,000 new cases a day.

How the summer vacation season affects that prediction remains to be seen, as more people are showing up at airports infected with the virus.

Among the total number of people who received positive Covid-19 results on Sunday, 482 were categorized as imported cases, meaning they were believed to have caught the virus in a foreign country.

Daily imported cases have hovered around 400 and 600 for eight straight days.

There were 324 Covid-19 patients in critical or serious condition on Sunday, 27 more than the day before. Of these patients, the vast majority are above 60 years old, which is considered a high-risk group.

Some health officials warned that new variants could also affect daily infections depending on how transmissible they are.

After detecting the nation’s first case of the BA.2.75 variant on July 14, health officials feared that together with the BA.5 variant, it would drastically drive up infections. Luckily, however, that prediction turned out to be wrong so far.

Among Sunday’s new cases, 15,095 were in Gyeonggi, 7,867 in Seoul, 3,420 in North Gyeongsang, 3,048 in South Gyeongsang, 2,792 in Incheon, 2,622 in Busan and 2,509 in Gangwon.

Gyeonggi accounted for about 27.15 percent of total cases on Sunday, while Seoul accounted for 20.05 percent, according to data from the Health Ministry.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]