hankyoreh

People wait in line at a COVID-19 screening station outside Seoul Station on Aug. 2. (Yonhap News)

Amid an ongoing resurgence in COVID-19 infections, South Korea’s cumulative total of confirmed cases passed the 20-million mark Tuesday.

The milestone, which came two years and seven months after the first patient was diagnosed in South Korea, means that approximately 2 out of every 5 people in South Korea have tested positive for COVID-19.

On Tuesday, Yonhap News reported that between 12:01 am and 9 pm that day, a total of 115,311 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in South Korea’s 17 metropolitan cities and provinces. Compared with the 97,617 new confirmed cases recorded as of 9 pm a week earlier on July 26, the number was approximately 1.18 times higher (17,694 more cases).

Earlier that day, the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced that 111,789 new confirmed cases had been counted as of the end of the day Monday. That brought the cumulative total of confirmed cases to 19,932,439.

The additional 115,311 cases counted as of 9 pm Tuesday put the cumulative total past 20 million. This came two years, six months, and 13 days after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in South Korea on Jan. 20, 2020.

With the cumulative total passing 10 million for the first time on March 22, the number has taken an additional 133 days to double to 20 million. This means that over 38% of South Korea’s population — with 51,638,809 total residents registered as of 2021 — has been confirmed infected with COVID-19 at least once.

The figure shared by Yonhap as of 9 pm Tuesday was a provisional number. The CDCH finished counting new cases at midnight, with the exact final total announced Wednesday morning reaching 119,922.

In a social media post the same day, Jung Jae-hun, a professor of preventive medicine at Gachon University and member of the national pandemic crisis response advisory committee, said, “We’re predicting that the resurgence will pass its peak between this week and next week.”

“The surge appears likely to be less than half as big as originally predicted,” he added.

On July 19, Jung had predicted that South Korea could see as many as 250,000 new confirmed cases daily by around Aug. 20. Based on a new prediction from July 29, the resurgence instead appears likely to peak at a little over 100,000 daily confirmed cases around Sunday, Aug. 7.

Analysts are attributing the lower numbers to people retaining their immunity after being previously infected during the Omicron surge of February to April, a low reinfection rate in the range of 5 to 6 percent, and a higher-than-expected rate of fourth vaccine dose uptake among members of high-risk groups.

Jung also said there was little likelihood of the so-called "Centaurus" (BA.2.75) subvariant suddenly displacing BA.5 to become the dominant strain.

“Based on the overseas data, it does not appear that this subvariant is going to suddenly supplant BA.5,” he said.

“Another surge is inevitable,” he also predicted, adding that “a surge caused by a different variant could begin as early as this November.”

The CDCH said Tuesday that BA.5 had become the dominant variant in South Korea, accounting for 60.95% of domestic infections during the fourth week of July.

By Lim Jae-hee, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]