Korea’s daily Covid-19 tally surged to a two-month high of over 37,000 on Tuesday, as the BA.5, an Omicron subvariant, showed signs of becoming a dominant strain.

The nation added 37,360 Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, bringing the total caseload to 18,561,861, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. Tuesday's figure is the highest since May 11, when the daily count came to 43,908 in the aftermath of the Omicron wave. Cases on Tuesday have also more than doubled from 19,371 cases logged a week earlier.

Korea also reported seven more Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 24,668. The fatality rate stood at 0.13 percent. The number of critically ill patients came to 74, up three from the previous day, the KDCA said.

The KDCA confirmed the country has entered a new wave of Covid-19 and raised the national risk level of the virus from "low" to "moderate" for the first time in eight weeks. In addition, the BA.5's share among total infections rose to 35 percent last week from the previous week's 24.1 percent.

Health experts expect that BA.5, which has a strong transmission and evades immunity generated by infection or vaccine, will soon become the dominant strain in Korea and lead the summer resurgence.

"As the detection rate of BA.5 mutations in imported cases increases, the number of confirmed cases will also continue to increase," the KDCA said. "We will have to see if the BA.5 will become the dominant strain for the next week or two, but its proportion among the total infections will continue to increase."

A healthy expert, noting that no studies have confirmed that the severity and mortality rate of BA.5 is higher than that of the existing Omicron, has forecasted that the epidemic caused by BA.5 will be somewhat different from that of the Omicron wave earlier this year.

"No matter how weakened the people's immunity get, it does not change the fact that many people have immunity," Professor Jung Ki-seok of Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital said. "Therefore, Korea will likely face a different infection trend compared to the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak."

Jung added that by following the quarantine guidelines well, Koreans might somewhat control the epidemic.

Professor Jung also predicted that the number of confirmed cases would be smaller than the Omicron epidemic, which caused up to 600,000 confirmed cases per day from late January to the end of April.

However, Jung stressed that focusing on managing high-risk groups, such as the elderly or immunocompromised, with a high severity and mortality rate is necessary.

"Patient outbreaks are unavoidable," Jung said. "People will get it like the flu, but no matter how many cases there are, the goal should be to keep the number of severe cases and deaths to a minimum."

On Wednesday, the government will confirm and announce quarantine and medical measures in preparation for a re-infestation of Covid-19, such as expanding the age group that can receive the second booster shot and improving the medical response system.

As of Tuesday, 44.63 million, or 87 percent of the population, had completed the full two-dose vaccinations, and 33.39 million, or 65.1 percent, had received their first booster shots.

About 4.52 million people, or 8.7 percent of the population, had gotten their second booster shots, according to the KDCA.