SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- South Korea reported 5,318 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Sunday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 570,417.
The daily caseload was down from 6,313 in the previous day due to fewer virus tests over the weekend.
The recent resurgence was attributable to small cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.
Of the new cases, 1,895 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 1,475 and 371.
The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 1,517, or 28.9 percent of the total local transmission.
The number of the Omicron variant infections was 178, including 54 imported cases and 124 domestic transmissions, unchanged from the prior day.
Sixty cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 16,388.
The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 997, down 28 from the previous day.
Fifty-four more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 4,776. The total fatality rate was 0.84 percent.
The country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 43,493,325 people, or 84.7 percent of the total population, and the number of the fully inoculated people was 42,070,660, or 81.9 percent of the population.
The number of those who received booster shots was 11,565,083, or 22.5 percent of the population. Enditem
