SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases hit a record high in the aftermath of the Chuseok holiday, health authorities said Saturday.
In the latest tally, the country reported 3,273 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, lifting the total number of infections to 298,402, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
It topped the previous daily high of 2,431 tallied in the prior day, surpassing 3,000 for the first time since the first case was found here in January last year.
The daily caseload rose sharply following the Chuseok holiday, the South Korean version of Thanksgiving Day when families gathered together to share newly harvested food and give thanks to ancestors.
The daily number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stayed above 1,000 for 81 straight days. The daily average tally for the past week was 2,055.
The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Of the new cases, 1,217 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people residing in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 1,094 and 201.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 733, or 22.6 percent of the total local transmission.
Twenty-eight cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 14,303.
Seven more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 2,441. The total fatality rate stood at 0.82 percent.
A total of 1,922 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 266,414. The total recovery rate was 89.28 percent.
Since the mass vaccination was launched on Feb. 26, the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to a total of 37,749,854 people, or 73.5 percent of the total population.
The number of fully vaccinated people was 22,997,770, or 44.8 percent of the population. Enditem
