South Korea Dealing With The Highest Rate Of COVID Cases In The World

Last week, South Korea officially announced a COVID resurgence in the country after the number of infections kept rising for four weeks straight. Now it has been revealed that the country has recorded the most number of COVID cases per population in the world over the last week.

According to the statistics of Our World In Data, South Korea witnessed 981 COVID cases per million people every day over the past week, followed by Taiwan (912), Hong Kong (704), Cyprus (578), and Japan (575). Authorities are afraid that Omicron variants of the virus, such as BQ.1.1, might spread to the country from U.S. and Europe soon.

Experts are saying that the number of COVID cases has been on a steady increase since lockdown restrictions were eased and post-infection vaccine immunity weakened. Over the past few months, large gatherings of people at concerts or festivals, as well as during Halloween, saw a spike in the number of COVID infections in the country.

According to health officials, South Korea will approach this issue with more vaccinations and proper mask regulations. Many professionals have identified the low rate of bivalent booster vaccination as one of the primary reasons for this increase. “Many people seem to think that they have gained immunity from earlier vaccinations or getting infected, but immunity weakens over time, and this is not enough to prevent infections with new variants,” a health official shared.

A resurgence of COVID has already shown its effects on several sectors, including the entertainment industry. Recently, Taeyeon from SNSD, Taehyun from TXT, and Yunjin from LE SSERAFIM have all been diagnosed with COVID, which has affected their professional commitments.