Seoul, Sep 15 (Bureau) South Korea reported 2,080 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Tuesday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 277,989. The daily caseload was sharply up from 1,497 in the prior day, hovering above 1,000 for 71 straight days. The daily average tally for the past week was 1,796. The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area. Of the new cases, 804 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people residing in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 688 and 164, respectively. The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 401, or 19.5 percent of the total local transmission.
Twenty-three cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 14,027. Thirteen more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 2,380. The total fatality rate stood at 0.86 percent. A total of 2,186 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 249,833. The total recovery rate was 89.87 percent. Since the mass vaccination was launched on Feb. 26, the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to 34,582,174 people, or 67.3 percent of the total population. The number of the fully vaccinated people was 20,710,283, or 40.3 percent of the population.