S. KOREA REPORTS 170,016 NEW CASES

[Anchor Lead]

Korea saw 170,016 cases as of midnight of today, exceeding 170,000 for two days in a row. The government believes that the latest spike in cases poses a short-term risk but may end up stabilizing the situation in the long run.

[Pkg]

South Korea reported 171,452 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. The daily virus tally for this day of the week has been doubling continuously. The figure has entered the government’s projected peak range of between 140,000 and 270,000 cases. But the country may have not reached the peak yet. The infection reproduction number, which shows how many individuals one case can infect, has stayed above one, indicating the daily tally will keep rising for some time.

[Soundbite] Son Woo-sik(National Institute for Mathematical Sciences) : "It was presumed the reproduction number would decrease the past two weeks, but it has stayed about the same, showing that the omicron variant remains very infectious."

With the spike in cases, 82 people died on Thursday and more than 580,000 patients are being treated at home. Authorities said such case increases may be considered a short-term risk but also could turn out to be a positive factor in the long run. The case surges are slowing down in the U.S., the UK and Germany after peaking. Experts predict as more people become vaccinated or acquire natural immunity, it would take a shorter amount of time to reach the peak and consequently the transmission would slow down.

[Soundbite] Sohn Young-rae(Central Disaster Management HQs) : "In the mid-to-long term, the omicron variant has a very low fatality rate compared to delta. A period of stability follows a surge, so this may be a positive sign for our return to normal lives."

Here in the nation, some 6,500 local government workers are assigned to public clinics to help reduce workload. Additional public employees from the central government ministries will be dispatched next week.