Seoul, Feb 24 (IANS): South Korea reported 1,70,016 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 2,499,188, the health authorities said on Thursday.

The daily caseload was slightly down from a record high of 1,71,451 in the previous day, but it stayed above 1,70,000 for the second straight day, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The recent resurgence was driven by infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the Omicron variant spread, Xinhua news agency reported.

Of the new cases, 37,106 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 51,317 and 13,861, respectively.

The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 67,562, or 39.8 perc ent of the total local transmission.

Among the new cases, 170 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 28,725.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 581, up 69 from the previous day.

At least 82 more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 7,689. The total fatality rate was 0.31 per cent.

The country has administered Covid vaccines to 44,827,579 people, or 87.4 per cent of the total population, and the number of fully inoculated people was 44,321,423, or 86.4 per cent of the population.

The number of those who received booster jabs was 30,853,832 people, or 60.1 per cent of the population.