Four variants of the novel coronavirus, including the highly contagious Delta variant, have risen sharply in recent days, embarrassing quarantine officials preparing to ease social distancing measure from July 1.
According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters on Monday, the nation has confirmed an additional 267 people infected with the four major variant viruses originating from the U.K. (Alpha), South Africa (Beta), Brazil (Gamma), and India (Delta) last week.
The cumulative number of variant infections has increased to 2,492.
The number of people infected with the Covid-19 Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading worldwide, increased by 73 over the past week.
To prevent the inflow of the Delta variants, health officials are likely to exclude countries with a high risk of Delta-type mutation from its quarantine exemption program. The program, set to start in July, allows those who have received Covid-19 vaccinations approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) to enter the country without undergoing the two-week quarantine.
Besides variant cases, health officials also expressed concerns about the rising share of confirmed cases in the Seoul metro region.
On Monday, confirmed cases in the greater Seoul area, including Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, totaled 472 cases, accounting for 78 percent of the daily total.
In the past week, the daily average of confirmed cases in the Seoul metro region stood at 363.4, accounting for 73.9 percent of the total, a steep increase from the beginning of this month when the comparable share was in the 60 percent range.
Quarantine officials pegged the sudden spike in cases to the hidden infection with unknown infection routes.
"The greater Seoul, especially Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, have seen a wide range of asymptomatic and mild infection infections," Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong said." These potential infection sources led to group infections in various enclosed indoor spaces such as pubs, karaoke rooms, indoor sports facilities, and learning institutes."
Despite the unrelenting infections in the capital and its vicinity, overall social tension has loosened ahead of applying a more flexible distancing system, officials pointed out.
"Even if the government implements its new distance measure, citizens will have to put a lot of effort so that the quarantine tension does not ease," Ministry of Health and Welfare Spokesperson Son Young-rae said. "We will receive a report on the quarantine status of the greater Seoul area before fixing new quarantine rules."
The government has vaccinated 15,290,302 people – 10,390,720 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 3,755,639 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,126,477 with Janssen's vaccine, 17,466 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up six from the previous day.
The figure accounts for 29.8 percent of the country's population.
On Monday, the KDCA confirmed 501 new virus cases, including 472 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 155,572.
Two more people died of Covid-19, raising the death toll to 2,015 with a fatality rate of 1.3 percent. A total of 146,675 people have returned to their daily life after full recovery, up 335 from the previous day. The country has carried out 10,520,929 tests since Jan. 3 last year.