S. Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases soar over 600,000

South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases recorded over 620,000. The only country that had such a figure in the world was the U.S. Due to the soaring cases, the number of deaths per day also exceeded 400 for the first time.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced on Thursday that the number of new daily COVID-19 cases recorded 621,328 as of 12 a.m. on Thursday. The figure included about 70,000 cases that were omitted on Wednesday due to system errors. Even without such cases, about 550,000 cases were recorded in one day.

Such a high number of cases is unprecedented across the world, except for the U.S. According to the international statistic website Our World in Data, the highest records of daily cases in countries were 1,3802,027 in the U.S. on Jan. 10, 502,507 in France on Jan. 25, and 401,828 in Germany on Feb. 16. South Korea now has the dishonor of being ranked No. 2 in daily cases.

South Korea’s Thursday record of COVID-19 cases per population is among the few highest countries in the world. Even in the U.S., the highest record was 4,151 cases out of one million people. South Korea’s is 12,032, which is about three times higher. The only countries that had higher records were Israel with 26,186 and the Netherlands with 22,150.

South Korea’s COVID-19 deaths also added 429 more cases on Thursday, 223 of which were reported three days after their deaths. Three of them were reported over three weeks later. “As patients are piling up and the office is overburdened, death reports are being delayed,” said Lee Sang-won, head of the epidemiological investigation and analysis team of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, during a Thursday briefing.

Amid the situation, the South Korean government is reviewing new social distancing guidelines to be applied from Monday. Originally, the guidelines were likely to be relaxed from limiting social gatherings under six people and business operation hours to 11 p.m to under eight people and 12 a.m. However, it was reported that disease control experts opposed the easing during a meeting of the normal life recovery committee on Thursday.


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