After China, South Korea is now facing its worst COVID-19 outbreak. More than 400,000 cases of infection were registered in South Korea on Wednesday.
According to South Korean media, 4,00,741 new daily COVID-19 cases were reported in the country, the highest since the country reported its first COVID-19 case in January last year.
Most of these are reported to be cases of local infection. That is, the local transmission of corona has started in the country.
With the fresh cases, South Korea’s total caseload has now risen to 7,629,275, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Wednesday.
South Korea had its deadliest day of the pandemic on Tuesday, with 293 deaths in 24 hours, news agency Associated Press reported.
China is facing serious crisis of Corona
China is reportedly facing its worst COVID-19 outbreak, forcing millions into lockdown.
Seeing the huge jump in total infections, China on Wednesday reported 3,290 new COVID-19 cases, including 11 serious cases. China, where the first virus case was reported in Wuhan in late 2019, has not officially reported any Covid-related deaths for more than a year, news agency AFP reported.
Meanwhile, to stop the virus from spreading, China decided to free up hospital beds as authorities on Wednesday reported thousands of new cases from the coronavirus outbreak, reported by Omicron.
The sudden increase in COVID cases has put some 17.5 million residents of Shenzhen’s southern tech hub under lockdown. Apart from this, restrictions have also been imposed on Shanghai and other cities. The sanctions come at a time when the global economy is under pressure from Russia’s war on Ukraine, rising oil prices and weak consumer demand.
The highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 is said to be behind the rapid increase in cases in China and South Korea. This variant is once again presenting the toughest challenge to China’s ‘zero-covid’ strategy to stop the epidemic.