South Korea hits record of more than 400,000 new cases of covid-19

South Korea reported more than 400,000 new cases of covid-19 on Wednesday, a record for the country that began to ease restrictions despite the wave of infections driven by the omicron variant.

Health authorities reported 400,741 cases on Wednesday, the highest number for the country since the start of the pandemic two years ago.

This is the “biggest challenge” facing the country, said Sohn Young-rae, a health authority, at a press conference.

The government had anticipated an increase in infections, said Sohn, who considered that the country was approaching the peak of the omicron wave.

“If we overcome this crisis, we will approach a return to normality,” he added.

South Korea is the country that recorded the most cases of covid-19 in the last week in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with 2,358,878 infections in seven days, followed by Vietnam with 1,795,380.

The majority of the eligible South Korean population has been vaccinated and has reinforcement and the number of deaths from the coronavirus remains low, despite the level of infections in the country of 52 million inhabitants.

South Korea has eased its social distancing rules under pressure from the business sector, with many small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy due to prolonged health restrictions.

South Korea maintains a nightly curfew for business and a six-person limit for private congregations.

On March 21, the mandatory quarantine for vaccinated people arriving from abroad will be lifted.

Seoul abandoned its lauded “plot, test, treat” program in February, when a wave of cases of the omicron variant threatened to overflow its health system.

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