SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) - South Korea reported 1,418 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Sunday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 237,782.

Elderly women wearing face masks attend a dance class re-opened for the first time since the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic at Seodaemun Senior Welfare Centre in Seoul on July 1, 2021, as South Korea seeks to ease coronavirus restrictions. (Photo: AFP)

The daily caseload was down from 1,628 in the prior day, but it hovered above 1,000 for 48 straight days. The daily average tally for the past week was 1,758.

The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Of the new cases, 383 were Seoul residents. The number of the newly infected people residing in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 392 and 72.

The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 523, or 38.2 percent of the total local transmission.

Forty-eight cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 13,196.

Seven deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 2,222. The total fatality rate stood at 0.93 percent.

A total of 1,325 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 207,601. The total recovery rate was 87.31 percent.

Since the mass vaccination was launched on Feb. 26, the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to a total of 25,910,685 people with 11,565,121 fully vaccinated.