South Korea registers max Covid-19 cases in 3 months, delays vaccinations
Seoul, Apr 8 (efe-epa).- South Korea confirmed Thursday its biggest rise in daily Covid-19 infections in three months, underlining the increase in the circulation of the virus at a time when the country has frozen vaccinations from drug company AstraZeneca.
The country reported 700 new cases Thursday (674 domestic and 26 imported), the highest since Jan. 7, the Korean Agency for the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases reported.
After South Korea registered daily volumes of between 300 and 500 new infections a day in the last two months, local authorities are attributing the increase in the last two days to an increase in travel with the arrival of spring.
The rise in cases coincides with the decision, adopted late Wednesday, to temporarily suspend the AstraZeneca vaccination of those under 60 after the European Medicines Agency established possible links between the vaccine and cases of thrombosis in women under that age.
In any case, the agency maintains that the advantages of continuing to vaccinate outweigh the potential risks and hopes to resume inoculation soon, possibly this weekend, once a committee of experts thoroughly analyzes the cases of thrombosis registered in Europe and domestically.
South Korea is one of the countries that best controlled the spread of the virus, and has registered 107,598 infections and 1,758 deaths since the pandemic began.
However, the late start of the vaccination campaign, repeated interruptions in administering the AstraZeneca product and problems in global supply complicate the goal of the country achieving group immunity in November.
Since it began to vaccinate on Feb. 26, the country has only administered doses to just over 1 million people, just 2 percent of the national population. EFE-EPA
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