Korea's daily Covid-19 cases surpassed 200,000 for the first time on Wednesday as the highly transmissible Omicron variant continues to spread across the nation.

The surge in cases comes after the government suspended the vaccine mandate to ease the workload on medical workers and health officials.

Under the relaxed rules, the government temporarily suspended the vaccine mandate's application to all 11 types of multiuse facilities, including restaurants and cafes, large-scale events, and gatherings of 50 or more from midnight Tuesday.

Korea reported 219,241 new Covid-19 infections, including 219,173 local cases, raising the total caseload to 3,492,686, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The spread occurred much earlier than the forecasts of research institutes here and abroad, which expected the number of cases would reach 230,000 by March 9.

However, experts noted that the weekly doubling trend of the past several weeks had eased somewhat.

"The rate of growth will slow from this week, but the growth itself will continue into next week," Professor Jung Jae-hoon of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Gachon University College of Medicine said. "Accordingly, I expect that the epidemic will reach its peak of 260,000 to 270,000 by mid-March."

Professor Chun Byung-Chul of the Department of Epidemiology at Korea University also said, "The increase in the number of confirmed cases is faster than the government's forecast and is expected to reach 200,000 to 300,000 this and next week."

Nevertheless, the experts stressed the need to prepare for a proportional increase in critically ill patients, securing sufficient ICU beds and personnel to operate them.

They showed particular concerns about the possible surge of infections among schoolchildren aged 5-11 due to the resumption of in-person classes with the beginning of a new school semester.

Still, health officials pointed to the slowing growth rate of new Covid-19 cases.

"There was a trend of so-called 'doubling,' where the number of confirmed cases doubled every week," said Son Young-rae, head of the social strategy team at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH). "However, the growth rate started to slow down since last week, and the growth rate has slowed considerably this week."

If the growth rate continues to slow down, the government believes that the virus outbreak will reach its peak in a couple of weeks, Son added.

The government’s top quarantine officials also hinted at the possibility of easing distancing rules faster.

"We will discuss the need for adjusting restrictions according to the characteristics of the Omicron variant while closely analyzing the current quarantine situation," Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said during a daily task force meeting.

"Considering Omicron's rapid propagation power, we believe that strengthening distancing measures to block the spread of the epidemic is ineffective," Kim said.

If the government decides to ease the distancing scheme, it will effectively lift most of the major framework of the virus restrictions, observers said.

Health officials also discussed replacing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test with the rapid antigen test (RAT) during the meeting.

"As the positive response rate of the rapid antigen test has risen considerably amid the accelerating spread of the Omicron variant, there are opinions that the rapid antigen test should replace the PCR test," Son said.

Meanwhile, the government has fully vaccinated 44.37 million citizens, accounting for 86.5 percent, and provided booster shots to 31.51 million people.

On Monday, the country started expanding its vaccination campaign to administer the fourth dose to patients and workers at psychiatric hospitals and related facilities, as many of them are older adults and have preexisting medical conditions.

Earlier this month, the government began administering the fourth shot to people with weak immune systems.