Daily Covid-19 cases could hit 200,000 this winter

The South Korean government has predicted that the daily new Covid-19 infections could hit 200,000 this winter. This means that the number of new cases could surpass the previous record set during the peak in the sixth in July and August. It is the first time the government has suggested a daily figure for the peak in the seventh wave.

“The number of cases has been on the rise for three consecutive weeks,” Prime Minister Han Duk-soo told a press briefing on Friday. “We project the number could hit a maximum of 200,000 cases per day this winter due to the introduction of variants and other factors.”

Previously, the disease control authority predicted that the scale of the seventh wave would be smaller than that of the sixth. However, the government says the country could see a ‘peak number’ in the seventh wave that can be larger than the 180,745 cases in the sixth wave, reported on August 17. The Disease Control and Prevention Agency said the daily total of new cases was 43,449 on Friday at midnight. When considering that the daily cases fell to the 20,000 level on average per day in mid-October, the number has doubled from the low point.

A team of researchers led by Shim Eun-ha, a mathematics professor at Soongshil University, recently predicted the daily cases would hit 125,576 on November 15 in its report to the National Institute of Mathematical Science.


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