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The number of new confirmed cases in Korea was around 6,000 for two days in a row, but the number of severe cases again recorded an all-time high. By age, the number of new confirmed cases among the elderly, who have a higher tertiary vaccination rate, is decreasing, and the number of children under 11 years of age who are not subject to vaccination is rapidly increasing. 



Reporter Park Soo-jin.



<Reporter> The



number of seriously ill patients reached 1,000 for four days in a row, breaking the daily high.



Last week, the number of confirmed cases in the 7,000 range for four days in a row is still continuing.



Still, it is the third day of decline since this Wednesday.



The quarantine authorities are expecting the number of severe cases to decrease from next week.



[Lee Ki-il/Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters 1st Controller: The number of patients is now somewhat stagnant. We'll see what happens next week once again.]



Among the confirmed cases, the proportion of those aged 60 and over fell from 35% to 25% in just one month.



Most of all, it seems that the tertiary vaccination rate among the elderly has risen to 67%.



However, the number of confirmed cases under the age of 11, not subject to vaccination, increased rapidly, exceeding 6,000 in one week.



The government has launched a review to vaccinate children under 11 years of age.



[Kim Bu-gyeom / Prime Minister: We can never be vigilant because children's corona fatality rate is low.

(At the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Please review in advance whether children are vaccinated.] The



number of infected with Omicron mutation increased by 16 to 262 in total.



The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) announced that it has developed a PCR diagnostic reagent that can confirm Omicron infection in up to 3 hours.



In the meantime, it took 3 to 5 days to find out if the person was infected using the genome analysis method.



This reagent will be used in each municipality from the 30th.



(Video coverage: Jeong Seong-hwa·Kim Min-cheol, video editing: Park Ji-in, CG: Jang Seong-beom)