SEOUL, July 26 (Xinhua) — South Korea reported 1,318 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Sunday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 190,166.
The daily caseload was down from 1,487 in the prior day, but it hovered above 1,000 for 20 straight days. The daily average tally for the past week was 1,566.
The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases.
Of the new cases, 339 were Seoul residents and 343 were people residing in Gyeonggi province.
Fifty-four cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 11,571.
Concern emerged about the growing number of confirmed cases in the non-metropolitan area ahead of the summer vacation season, when people in the capital area moved to non-capital region to enjoy summer holidays.
The number of newly infected people in the non-capital area was 515, or 40.7 percent of the total new cases. The number stayed above 500 for the sixth consecutive day.
Four more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 2,077. The total fatality rate stood at 1.09 percent.
A total of 990 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 167,365. The total recovery rate was 88.01 percent.
The country has tested over 11.47 million people, among whom 11,001,177 tested negative for the virus and 281,003 are being checked.
Since the mass vaccination was launched on Feb. 26, the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to a total of 16,893,124 people with 6,858,656 fully vaccinated. Enditem
