Reflecting the recent increase in new Covid-19 cases, health authorities on Wednesday set the pandemic's risk at a "medium level" nationwide, the third-highest of the five-tier rating system.

The higher risk level comes in six weeks after Korea lowered the level from 'medium' to 'low' in the third week of September nationwide.

"Comprehensive consideration was given to the overall increase in occurrence indicators such as the number of newly confirmed and severe cases, and the increase in response capacity such as the bed operation rate for critically ill Covid-19 patients," the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) said. "Although the weekly death toll decreased compared to the previous week, the number of new severe cases and inpatients increased, so continuous observation of changes in future occurrences is necessary."

According to the CDCH, the daily average number of new confirmed cases in the fourth week of October was 33,332, up 35.5 percent from the previous week.

The average daily hospitalization was 238, the same as the previous week, but the daily average number of deaths was 22, down 5.4 percent from the previous week.

R0, or an estimated reproductive rate of how many people may contract the virus from one infected person, increased to 1.17 and remained above 1 for two consecutive weeks.

The bed utilization rate for critically ill Covid-19 patients increased for two weeks in a row and reached 23.5 percent nationwide.

Amid the spread of the epidemic, the amount of population movement has increased even when compared to before the Covid-19 outbreak.

As a result of analyzing the mobile phone movement data provided by Statistics Korea, the nationwide movement amount from Oct. 24 to last Sunday was 288.91 million, an increase of 6.2 percent from the same period in 2019, just before the epidemic.

On Wednesday, Korea added 54,766 new Covid-19 infections, including 78 cases from abroad, bringing the total caseload to 25,670,407, according to the KDCA.

The nation also reported 30 more Covid-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 29,239. The fatality rate stood at 0.11 percent. The number of critically ill patients came to 303, up 15 from the previous day.

According to the KDCA, about 44.69 million among 52 million Koreans have been fully vaccinated. In addition, about 33.65 million people had received their first booster shots, and 7.54 million had their second booster shots.