S. Korea’s new COVID-19 cases rise to nearly 4-month high

SEOUL, Aug. 9 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s new COVID-19 cases jumped to a nearly four-month high Tuesday amid a resurgence of infections driven by a highly infectious omicron variant.

The country added 149,897 new COVID-19 infections, the highest since April 13 when the tally hit 195,387, bringing the total caseload to 20,694,239, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The tally includes 588 cases from overseas.

Tuesday’s figure is up from 55,292 the previous day and 111,785 from a week earlier.

The number of seriously ill patients also rose to 364, up from 324 the previous day.

The KDCA reported 40 new deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 25,332. The fatality rate was 0.12 percent.