South Korea continues to push its vaccination campaign as it battles a fourth wave of COVID-19. (Photo: Yonhap)
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported a slight drop in new coronavirus cases on Friday with 1,630 new infections and three additional virus-related fatalities confirmed in the last 24 hours.
All but 43 of the cases were local infections.
The daily caseload was down from a record high of 1,842 on Thursday, when 270 patients from a virus-hit Cheonghae naval unit were counted as imported cases.
South Korea has registered 185,733 coronavirus cases, including 2,066 deaths, since the start of the pandemic.
Authorities are currently battling the worst wave of infections the country has experienced so far, due in part to continuing outbreaks in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area.
With other regions outside the capital also seeing more community transmission, health officials said the resurgence has been compounded by the highly contagious Delta variant and increased summer activities and travel.
Data showed infection rates have also been rising among people in their 20s to 40s who have yet to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The government's inoculation program has mostly focused on the elderly population, medical staff and social service workers.
But as the rollout is set to expand to those in their 50s next week, authorities anticipate the effects of the vaccines will begin to show results by late August.
The KDCA said 16.7 million people, or 32.6 percent of the population, have received their first shots, and 6.7 million people have been fully vaccinated
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