<Anchor> The



number of new COVID-19 cases soared to 36,000.

In just one day, the number surged to nearly 9,000.

Looking at the provisional tally at this time, it seems that this surge will not stop for a while.



First news, this is reporter Jo Yoon-ha.



<Reporter> In



front of a hospital in Seoul.

People have been lining up to be tested since the morning of the weekend.



[Customer number 112, please come to window 1.]



[Chul-soo Jeong / Gangnam-gu, Seoul: Because a confirmed person has occurred within the company.

Because there are concerns about the family being infected, there are babies, so...

]



The number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 36,362, the first record of the 30,000.



The daily increase was also the largest at 8,900.



It surpassed 10,000 on the 26th of last month, 20,000 in one week, and 30,000 in three days.



The number of confirmed cases is increasing faster than the government expected.



The positive rate, which means the ratio of confirmed cases to the number of tests, is 18.7%, which means that if 10 people are tested, close to 2 people have been confirmed.



In addition to the spread of Omicron, the number of confirmed cases is expected to increase further if the impact of the Lunar New Year holiday, which has had a lot of movement, begins in earnest.



[Jeong Jae-hoon/Professor of Preventive Medicine, Gachon University College of Medicine: Because Omicron's transmission ability is very high and the generation period (spread infection rate) is short, (confirmed cases) are increasing twice.

I think this trend could go on for a few weeks.]



Contrary to this trend, the number of severe cases and deaths is not following.



The number of severe cases increased by 12 from the previous day, but it has remained in the 200 range for the eighth day, and the death toll is around 20 for a week.



However, if the number of confirmed cases increases at the current rate, there is still a possibility that the number of severe cases and deaths will follow.



(Video coverage: Choi Jun-sik, video editing: Kim Jong-mi, CG: Park Cheon-woong)