This year’s summer wave of COVID-19 is estimated to have passed its peak, with the weekly number of the virus’ inpatients dropping 20 percent last week, health authorities said Wednesday.

The number of COVID-19 patients at 220 hospitals last week reached 1,164, compared with 1,464 reported a week earlier, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said in a statement.

“Taking into consideration a recent trend of outbreaks and last year’s summer wave, we believe that this year’s summer wave has peaked,” the KDCA said.

The latest tally also compares with 1,366 patients in the second week of this month, which shot up 55.2 percent from a week earlier.

Still, KDCA Commissioner Jee Young-mee urged people to remain vigilant as the virus could spread around the start of the new semester and the Chuseok holiday in September.

The Chuseok fall harvest holiday runs from Sept. 14 through Sept. 18 this year.

Jee also noted that South Korea plans to start inoculation programs with vaccines effective again
st recent variants, such as JN.1, in October, which also work against KP.3, the current dominant variant.

Source: Yonhap News Agency