Korea Has World's 2nd Highest COVID Infection Rate

Korea now ranks second in the world in terms of new daily coronavirus infections and first when it comes to infections per million people among countries with a population of more than 10 million.

According to Our World in Data, Korea reported 171,452 COVID-19 infection cases on Tuesday, up more than 70,000 from the previous day and the second-most in the world after Germany's 221,478 cases.

But in terms of infections per million people at 3,342, it is well ahead of France's 1,444, the U.K.'s 606 and Japan's 551 people.

Elsewhere infections seem to have peaked, but in Korea they are still rising sharply. In the U.S., new cases fell to 99,820 on Tuesday after surpassing a million early this year, while the U.K. reported just 41,353 after surpassing 230,000 last month. Japan saw 69,447 new cases.

The rate of increase here exceeds health authorities' forecasts of 130,000 by Feb. 23 and 180,000 by March 2. Experts now project the daily number at 370,000 by early next month.

Daily new COVID-19 infections totaled 170,016 on Thursday morning.