(LEAD) New cases at 500 on less testing; Seoul to ramp up vaccine rollout

▲ People wait to be tested for COVID-19 at a community health center in southern Seoul on April 25, 2021. (Yonhap)

▲ A medical worker prepares to swab for a COVID-19 test at a temporary testing center in Seoul Station, central Seoul, on April 25, 2021. (Yonhap)

(LEAD) coronavirus-additional cases

(LEAD) New cases at 500 on less testing; Seoul to ramp up vaccine rollout

(ATTN: ADDS more details in paras 11-14)

SEOUL, April 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's daily new virus cases fell below 600 on Monday for the first time in six days due to fewer tests over the weekend as health authorities accelerated the country's inoculation drive.

The country reported 500 more COVID-19 cases, including 469 local infections, raising the total caseload to 119,387, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The country added 4 more deaths, raising the total to 1,817.

Monday's figure was sharply down from 644 the previous day and 785 on Saturday.

Last week, daily infections neared 800 as cluster infections and untraceable cases grew amid increased social activities due to the warmer weather.

The KDCA has designated this week as a special period to stop the current pace of the outbreak.

Dining-in by civil servants will be banned, and working from home as well as working half time or part of business hours will be expanded in the public sector, the authorities said.

They added that tougher rules on multiuse facilities and business operations, as well as an additional ban on gatherings, will be considered if the current infection trend continues.

The greater Seoul area, where more than half of the country's 52 million people reside, is under Level 2 social distancing, the third highest in the five-tier scheme, with the rest of the country under Level 1.5.

The current social distancing level will be effective until May 2, while private gatherings of five or more people are banned nationwide.

South Korea has also pushed to ramp up its inoculation campaign, which started in late February, amid concerns of global vaccine shortages.

As of midnight, 2,266,888 people, or 4.4 percent of the population, had received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, up 6,140 from a day earlier, with 104,905 people, or 0.2 percent of the population, having been vaccinated with two doses, up 367 from a day ago.

AstraZeneca's vaccine took up 1,313,123 of the shots, while Pfizer's accounted for 953,765, according to the KDCA.

A total of 13,609 cases of side effects after vaccinations have been reported, though 98.1 percent of them were mild symptoms, such as muscle pain and fever.

A total of 60 deaths after vaccinations have been reported, up two from the previous day. Health authorities have yet to link the deaths with the vaccinations.

Authorities target inoculating 3 million people by the end of this month and 12 million by the end of June, with aims of achieving herd immunity by November.

Over the weekend, South Korea clinched a deal with Pfizer to secure additional vaccines for 20 million people.

The latest deal raised the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses from the World Health Organization's global vaccine COVAX Facility project and pharmaceutical companies -- Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson's Janssen -- to an amount great enough to inoculate 99 million people, nearly double the country's population.

Of the newly confirmed locally transmitted cases, 152 came from Seoul, 147 from Gyeonggi Province and 13 from Incheon, 40 kilometers west of the capital.

The southeastern port city of Busan, the country's second-largest city, reported 23 more cases.

There were 31 additional imported cases, raising the total to 8,217.

The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries was 108,850, up 375 from a day earlier.

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