▲ Students sit at desks that no longer have plastic dividers meant to stop spread of the coronavirus at an elementary school in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, on June 28, 2022. (Yonhap)

coronavirus-additional cases

S. Korea's new COVID-19 cases back up over 10,000 after 20 days

SEOUL, June 29 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's new coronavirus cases exceeded 10,000 for the first time in 20 days Wednesday, though in recent months the pandemic has shown a downward trend.

The country added 10,258 new COVID-19 infection cases, including 205 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,349,756, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

The pandemic has loosened its stranglehold on the country since mid-March when infections peaked at more than 621,000. Daily virus caseloads remained below 10,000 from June 10 until Tuesday.

But the pace of decline has slowed in recent days, and the government warned that the virus could pick up speed again, as the reproduction rate reached 1 on Wednesday from 0.74 for the first week of June.

The KDCA reported seven more deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 24,537. The fatality rate stood at 0.13 percent.

The number of critically ill patients came to 59, down by three from a day ago.

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