South Korea reported 3,091 more cases of COVID-19 variants for the past week, bringing the total number of such cases to 23,388, the health authorities said Tuesday.
Among the new cases found since Aug. 29, 253 were imported from overseas while the remaining 2,838 were locally transmitted, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The far higher number of local transmissions indicated the domestic spread of the variants.
Of the new cases, 3,070 came from the Delta variant, 18 from Alpha and three from Gamma.
Among the combined cases involving the variants, 19,951 stemmed from the Delta variant, 3,262 from Alpha, 150 from Beta and 25 from Gamma. The four variants are believed to be more transmissible than the original one.
Meanwhile, the country confirmed a total of 3,855 "breakthrough" COVID-19 infections, which refer to people who tested positive after a full vaccination, as of Aug. 30. It was up from 3,128 a week earlier.
It equals 39.5 in every 100,000 people who got fully vaccinated. As of Aug. 30, the number of fully inoculated people was 9,751,718.
It is known that people can be protected from the virus two weeks after the full vaccination. The breakthrough case refers to people infected with the virus two weeks after the full inoculation.
Among the total, 1,010 were infected with the Delta variant, 30 with Alpha, one with Beta and one with Gamma.
In the latest tally, South Korea reported 1,597 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, lifting the total number of infections to 263,374. The daily caseload hovered above 1,000 for 63 straight days.
Among the new cases, 34 were imported from overseas, raising the combined figure to 13,764. (ANI/Xinhua)
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor