South Korea reported 950 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, a record figure since the country reported its first virus case nearly 11 months ago.

Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency counted 928 local infections and 22 imported cases. Seven of the imported cases were from the US and three from Russia.

Korea's accumulated confirmed COVID-19 cases now stands at 41,736.

Saturday's new caseload marks a sharp increase from 689 the previous day. It is the highest mark since January, when the country reported its first confirmed COVID-19 case. The previous record was 909 tallied on Feb. 29.

Cases in the greater Seoul area accounted for over 70 percent of the total infections. Among the locally transmitted cases, 359 were traced to Seoul, and 268 to Gyeonggi Province which surrounds the capital in a ring. Incheon, west of Seoul, had 42 more.

In the western district of Gangseo in Seoul, 59 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus in relation to a church, and in Bucheon, west of the capital, 67 cases were reported from a care hospital.

Seoul currently has a reinforced Level 2.5 social distancing measures, which is the second-strongest curb under the country's five-tier virus resctrictions.

Authorities are urging people to strictly observe the rules as it is feared that winter may bring the worst wave of infections in Korea yet.

While it took more than 80 days for the country to see its virus caseload increase from 20,000 to 30,000, only 20 days were enough for it to add another 10,000 cases after its tally surpassed 30,000 on Nov. 20.

As of Saturday, the number of seriously or critically ill COVID-19 patients came to 179. KDCA reported six additional deaths, raising the total to 578. The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries amount to 31,493.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)