SEOUL, July, (Xinhua): South Korea's daily COVID-19 cases hit a new record high amid the continued resurgence caused by cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area, the health authorities said Wednesday.

The country reported 1,784 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, lifting the total number of infections to 182,265, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

It was the highest-ever daily caseload since the country's first case was detected in January last year, topping the prior high of 1,614 tallied on July 14.

The daily caseload was sharply up from 1,278 in the previous day, staying above 1,000 for the 15th consecutive day. The daily average caseload for the past week was 1,479.

Expectations ran high for the government to extend the toughest social-distancing rules in the greater Seoul area. The toughest rules were scheduled to be kept in place for two weeks until July 25.

The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases.
Of the new cases, 599 were Seoul residents and 450 were people residing in Gyeonggi province.

Fifty-eight cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 11,034. One more death was confirmed, leaving the death toll at 2,060. The total fatality rate stood at 1.13 per cent.

A total of 1,287 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 161,634. The total recovery rate was 88.68 per cent.

The country has tested over 11.29 million people, among whom 10,864,225 tested negative for the virus and 252,187 are being checked.

Since the mass vaccination was launched on Feb. 26, the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to a total of 16,442,892 people with 6,684,839 fully vaccinated.