South Korea expected to report vaccine plans as coronavirus cases surge

[SEOUL] South Korea reported 594 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday as the government prepared to outline its plans to secure enough vaccine candidates to potentially vaccinate millions of people next year.

Officials are expected to disclose how many doses the country has secured so far and when those vaccines will be available, Yonhap news agency reported, citing a foreign ministry official.

Unlike South Korea's previous two waves of infections, which were largely focused around a handful of facilities or events, the new wave is being driven by smaller, harder-to-trace clusters in and around the densely populated capital city of Seoul.

Vice Health Minister Kang Do-tae said the government had been unable to trace the origin of 26 per cent of all cases, and the positivity rate spiked nearly fourfold within a month to about 4 per cent.

"If social distancing is not implemented properly, outbreaks in the greater Seoul area would lead to greater transmissions nationwide," Mr Kang told a meeting of health officials according to a transcript from the health ministry.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Monday for expanded coronavirus testing and more thorough tracing as infections continued to rise despite the imposition of increasingly restrictive social distancing measures.

Health authorities predicted daily cases would hover between 550 and 750 this week, and possibly spike to as much as 900 next week.

If such predictions are accurate, Mr Kang said the country's health system may collapse.

"There could be a dangerous situation where it becomes difficult not only to treat Covid-19 patients but also to provide essential medical services," he said.

South Korea has now reported a total of 38,755 cases, with 552 deaths.

REUTERS