As the Omicron pandemic accelerated, the number of new corona19 patients soared to 170,000 today (23rd).



The Central Quarantine Countermeasures Headquarters announced that as of 00:00 today, there were 171,452 new confirmed cases, bringing the total to 2,329,182.



The number of new confirmed cases jumped to 71,879 from 99,573 yesterday, surpassing the previous record on the 18th (109,822) and going straight to 170,000.



Compared to the previous week on the 16th (9439 people), it was 1.9 times, and it reached 3.5 times that of the 9th (49,549 people) two weeks ago.



Previously, institutions that study the trend of domestic and foreign confirmed cases expected that the number of daily confirmed cases would exceed 170,000 by the beginning of next month, but it reached the forecast faster than that.



The peak period of the epidemic varied from the 28th of this month to the 22nd of next month depending on the research institute, and the number of confirmed cases at the peak was predicted to reach up to 270,000.



With the rapid increase in the number of confirmed cases, the increase in the number of patients with severe cases is also accelerating.



The number of patients with severe severe disease is 512, an increase of 32 from yesterday (480).



Research institutes predict that the number of patients with severe cases will also increase to more than 1,000 as of the beginning of next month.



The number of deaths also increased significantly.



The death toll yesterday was 99, the fourth highest in history following December 23 (109), 31 (108) and 25 (105) of last year.



The total death toll was 7,607, with a cumulative fatality rate of 0.33%.



Looking at the age of the deceased, 58 people were over 80 years old, followed by 26 people in their 70s and 11 people in their 60s.



Among the young adults, one in their 40s, two in their 30s, and one in their 20s died.



The number of home care workers also exceeded 500,000.



As of 00:00 today, the number of home treatment subjects was 521,294, an increase of 3972 from yesterday (49322).



(Photo = Yonhap News)