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A person waits to be tested for COVID-19 at a screening site in Seoul’s Yongsan District on Jan. 20. (Yonhap)

Three years after Korea saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19, the total number of cases has surpassed the 30 million mark. That means 3 in 5 people in Korea have tested positive for COVID-19 at some point.

Korea’s Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that the total number of cases stood at 3,008,756 as of midnight on Sunday. This milestone comes three years and three days after Korea registered its first COVID-19 case on Jan. 20, 2020.

The total number of cases reached 10 million on March 22, 2022, 26 months after the initial outbreak, and surpassed 20 million four months later on Aug. 2. It has taken a further five months to break the 30 million mark.

According to the statistics site Worldometer, Korea is the seventh country in the world to see total case numbers exceed 30 million since the beginning of the pandemic.

The number of new confirmed cases on Monday was 9,227, the lowest figure in 105 days since the 8,973 recorded on Oct. 10, 2022. This also represents the first time in 105 days that the daily number of cases dipped below 10,000. Daily case numbers have been gradually declining since reaching 40,184 on Jan. 17, falling to 9,227 in the space of a week.

The growth in confirmed case numbers may have tapered off in recent times, but is forecast to temporarily rise due to the possible lifting of the indoor mask mandate starting Jan. 30 and large numbers of Koreans traveling around the country for in-person Lunar New Year gatherings, which have not been possible for the past three years.

By Kim Mi-hyang, staff reporter

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