NEWS BRIEF

[Anchor Lead]

South Korea added 525 new COVID-19 cases on Friday including 509 local transmissions and 16 from overseas. It’s the second day the daily count is in the 500s. Of the domestic cases, 61% come from the greater metro area including 177 in Seoul and 136 in Gyeonggi Province. There are 162 critically ill patients while 9 more deaths have been reported, raising the death toll to one-thousand-860. The fatality rate stands at 1.48%.
In a COVID-19 response meeting Friday, acting prime minister Hong Nam-ki pledged to carry out special quarantine efforts to bring down daily infections to below 500. He added that the virus reproduction number, which refers to the number of infections caused by a single patient, will likely be under one in the first week of May compared to higher figures above one for much of April. Hong said that despite the fluctuation, it’s fortunate the overall trend in case numbers is coming down. He explained that extensive preemptive testing and epidemiological surveys were under way to cope with virus variants.
Another group of some 200 South Korean residents returned from pandemic-stricken India on Friday. A special flight carrying 203 Koreans and one Indian national with a marriage visa that departed from Bengaluru in southern India arrived at Incheon International Airport at around 6:20 a.m. Another Asiana Airlines flight leaving from Delhi will arrive on Sunday but the passenger list is not yet determined.