Korea now ranks second in the world in new daily coronavirus infections and first in infections per million people among countries with more than 10 million people.
According to Our World in Data, Korea reported 171,452 cases of COVID-19 infection on Tuesday, up more than 70,000 from the previous day and second in the world after Germany’s 221,478 cases.
But in terms of infections per million people at 3,342, that’s well ahead of France’s 1,444, Britain’s 606 and Japan’s 551.
Elsewhere, infections appear to have peaked, but in Korea they are still rising sharply. In the US, new cases fell to 99,820 on Tuesday after topping one million earlier this year, while the UK reported just 41,353 after topping 230,000 last month. Japan recorded 69,447 new cases.
The rate of increase here exceeds health authorities’ forecasts of 130,000 as of February 23 and 180,000 as of March 2. Experts now forecast the daily number at 370,000 early next month.
New daily COVID-19 infections totaled 170,016 as of Thursday morning.
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