Korea had the highest number of new virus cases per 1 million people worldwide last week, a global Covid-19 statistic tracking site said Sunday.

According to Our World in Data, an international statistics site, as of last week, Korea had 16,452 new Covid-19 cases per 1 million people, recording the highest figure among the 216 countries the site kept track of.

Korea's figure far outpaced those of the runner-up Marshall Islands (14,577) and third-ranked Japan (11,581) from Aug. 7-13. Some local health experts even pointed out that Korea’s figure might be underestimated, and the actual number of confirmed cases is higher.

They noted that the travel demand, which had been suppressed during the Covid-19 lockdown, exploded during the holiday season this summer, and the low participation from the public in the autonomous quarantine due to a decrease in Covid-19 subsidies, such as living expenses and paid vacation expenses, had decisive effects on the spread.

"The website showed Korea ranked first in the world regarding the number of Covid-19 cases per 1 million people, but even that number could be far lower than the actual caseload in Korea," Professor Eom Joong-sik, an infectious disease expert at Gachon University Gil Medical Center, was quoted as saying by Dong-A Ilbo, a vernacular paper. "Considering that people evaded tests, I think the actual cases will be twice the official count."

Professor Kim Woo-joo of the Infectious Disease Department at Korea University Guro Hospital agreed.

"As the number of hidden infected people who shied from testing despite having suspected Covid-19 symptoms increased, it has become difficult to contain the spread of the virus," Kim said.

Despite the negative result and concerns from experts, government officials did not put much meaning into the Our World in Data results.

"While it is true that Korea ranked first regarding the number of daily infections per population last week, the severity and fatality rates have continued to decrease, and Korea still has the lowest fatality rate among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries," Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) Commissioner Peck Kyong-ran said.

Peck stressed that as Korea is maintaining an active daily life, many new confirmed cases are occurring among young people.

"However, we are relatively managing well the high-risk group, keeping the fatality rate at the lowest level worldwide," Peck said.

Meanwhile, the health authorities reaffirmed their prediction that the peak of the Covid-19 resurgence will not surpass 200,000 daily cases and come at the end of this month before falling back slowly.

On Tuesday, the KDCA confirmed 84,128 new virus cases raising the cumulative caseload to 21,502,164. An additional 37 people died of Covid-19, lifting the death toll to 25,710, with a fatality rate of 0.12 percent.

While new Covid-19 daily infections fell below the 100,000 level for the second consecutive day, Korea recorded the highest number of critically ill patients in nearly four months, with 563.

Deaths and critical cases have been steadily rising in recent weeks as the country has experienced a new virus wave amid the fast spread of BA.5, the Omicron subvariant.

BA.5 accounted for 87.9 percent of total infections last week, up 11.6 percentage points from a week earlier, the KDCA said. The variant has been the dominant strain in Korea since the fourth week of July.

To better deal with the situation, the government will announce a plan for introducing the updated version of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine, which targets the Omicron strain, by the end of this month.

"Based on the results of the ongoing preliminary analysis, the government will announce plans considering the efficacy and safety of the improved vaccine, the quarantine status, and how many volumes to introduce in late August," Peck said.

According to the agency, about 44.65 million among 52 million Koreans have been fully vaccinated. In addition, about 33.51 million people had received their first booster shots, and 6.60 million had their second booster shots.