South Korea's daily new coronavirus infections topped 8,000 for the first time on Tuesday, as the highly contagious Omicron variant spreads rapidly, despite the extension of tough social distancing rules.
The figure of 8,571 on Monday exceeded the previous peak of 7,848 in December, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said, as Omicron became dominant in the country last week, though it is less deadly than previous variants.
