Korea Sees over 1 Million New COVID Cases in a Week

The cumulative number of coronavirus infections in Korea surpassed 3 million on Sunday, just a week after they broke the 2 million barrier.

Daily infections surpassed 170,000 last Tuesday and have been hovering there since, with over 600 patients critically ill in hospital.

What is particularly worrisome is the increasing number of deaths, which rose to a record of 112 last Friday. The Omicron variant is milder than other strains, but the sharp increase in infections is killing more people as a smaller proportion of the total.

The government project daily infections will peak at around 250,000 in mid-March, but some experts are more pessimistic and put the estimate at 300,000, returning to pre-Omicron levels in May.

Chun Eun-mi at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital said, "We see the daily number of infections surpassing 300,000 in March and the peak could happen at the end of that month."

The National Institute for Mathematical Sciences predicts that daily infections will peak around March 15 but does not expect the caseload to return to pre-Omicron levels until late April.