#16,643
Today South Korea has posted another large jump in confirmed COVID cases (n=621,328) - an increase of over 200,000 over their previous high (set just 2 days ago) - and 429 deaths, roughly 50% higher than has been reported previously.
To put this in some kind of perspective, the comparison (below) shows South Korea's incidence of COVID infection (per capita) is more than 75 times higher than in the United States right now, and more than 3 times higher than in Hong Kong. This is also 3 times higher than the United States has seen at any time during the pandemic.
Comparing Incidence of COVID in U.S., Hong Kong & South Korea
Credit Our World In Data
Although South Korea has been battling the Omicron variant (BA.1) since late January, daily case counts have roughly doubled over the past week, concurrent with the announced rise in the BA.2 variant earlier this week to 26.3%. This is up from just 4.9% in the third week of February.
Earlier this week, our own CDC posted a new estimate of BA.2 in the United States (n= 23.1%), and while similar to South Korea, we've yet to see a commensurate rise in cases. Exactly why BA.2 appears to be hitting Asia harder than it has here isn't entirely clear yet.
While deaths are a lagging indicator, and this recent rise in South Korean cases will likely translated into higher daily death tolls, until very recently South Korea was reporting one of the lowest death tolls in the world from COVID. Only in the past few weeks has it risen significantly, although it is nowhere near Hong Kong's numbers.
There are reports that Hong Kong's Omicron variant is BA.2.2, but little is known about the functional differences (if any) between BA.2 and BA.2.2. For now, the assumption is their low vaccine uptake among the elderly in Hong Kong may be driving their CFR unusually high.
This rapid increase in Omicron cases in South Korea is also no doubt raising concerns among Chinese officials, as it illustrates the potential impact the virus could have on their much larger - and likely more susceptible - population.
And while the United States is currently enjoying a drop in cases, there are no guarantees we won't see a rebound here as BA.2 increases its presence. Omicron may be milder than Delta, but it is far from benign, and it continues to evolve in unpredictable ways.
Stay tuned.
