Seoul, Apr 20 (IANS): South Korea recorded 111,319 new Covid-19 cases as of midnight Tuesday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 16,583,220, the health authorities said Wednesday.

The daily caseload was slightly down from 118,504 recorded in the previous day and far lower than 195,393 a week earlier, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The health authorities believed that the daily caseload has been on the decline following the resurgence, driven by the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the virus and its subvariant BA.2, which peaked in mid-March.

Among the new cases, 17 were imported, lifting the total to 31,635.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 808, down by 26 from the previous day.

A total of 166 more deaths were confirmed, taking the death toll to 21,520. The total fatality rate was 0.13 per cent.

The number of people who received two doses of Covid-19 vaccines was 44,529,088, or 86.8 per cent of the total population, and the figure for those getting booster jabs was 33,024,450 people, or 64.4 per cent of the population.