▲ Omicron diagnostic reagent. 2021.12.29. yunhap news
The number of people infected with Omicron, a novel mutation of COVID-19, increased by 269 in one day. A gene amplification (PCR) reagent that can read Omicron infection in 3 to 4 hours was introduced to the field from the 30th, and unconfirmed infections have been pouring in.
The Central Defense Countermeasures Headquarters (Bangdaebon) announced that as of 00:00 on the 31st, 269 additional cases of Omicron mutation were confirmed, bringing the total number of infected people to 894.
Park Young-joon, head of the epidemiological investigation team, Bang Dae-bon, said at a briefing, “As the rapid mutation PCR (gene amplification) test of local governments started from the previous day, the total number of analyzes increased, and the number of confirmed cases increased accordingly.” I think there will be,” he said. With the existing whole genome analysis, it took 3-5 days to confirm the presence of Omicron infection. The fact that 269 infected people were confirmed as soon as the diagnostic test capacity increased means that it may have already spread deep into the community.
Team leader Park said, “In particular, recently, the number of cases of unknown infection route is increasing, and another infection may have occurred due to these ‘unknown infection routes’ cases. We are responding in the direction of slowing the rate of spread by discovering the
Of the 269 new cases of Omicron, 83 were domestic (localized) and 186 were imported. 131 (70.4%) of the newly imported infections are those arriving from the United States. A total of 24 cases of Omicron’s nth infection and transmission have been officially confirmed so far.
Reporter Lee Hyun-jung hjlee@seoul.co.kr
