SEOUL, Oct 27 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea reported 3,363 more cases of COVID-19 variants for the past week, bringing the total number of such cases to 46,417, the health authorities said today.
Among the new cases found for one week, till Oct 23, 125 were imported from overseas, while the remaining 3,238 were locally transmitted, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The far higher number of local transmissions indicated the domestic spread of the variants.
Of the new cases, 3,362 came from the Delta variant, and one from Alpha.
Among the combined cases involving the variants, 42,945 stemmed from the Delta variant, 3,294 from Alpha, 151 from Beta and 27 from Gamma. The four variants are believed to be more transmissible than the original one.
Meanwhile, the country confirmed a total of 19,954 “breakthrough” COVID-19 infections, which refer to people who tested positive, after a full vaccination, as of Oct 10. It was up 2,982 from a week earlier.
It equals to 74.1 in every 100,000 people who got fully vaccinated. As of Oct 17, the number of fully inoculated people was 26,938,731.
It is known that people can be protected from the virus two weeks after the full vaccination. The breakthrough case refers to people infected with the virus, two weeks after the full inoculation.
In the latest tally, South Korea reported 1,952 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, lifting the total number of infections to 356,305. The daily caseload hovered above 1,000 for 113 days since July 7.
