SEOUL (XINHUA) - South Korea's daily number of Covid-19 cases has hit a new record high due to the spread of the Omicron variant, its health authorities said on Thursday (Jan 27).

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the country reported 14,518 more cases of Covid-19 for the past 24 hours, raising the total number of infections to 777,497.

The daily caseload was up from 13,010 the previous day, keeping a record-breaking trend for the third consecutive day.

The recent resurgence was attributable to cluster infections in the Seoul metropolitan area amid the spread of the Omicron variant, which the health authorities say has become the dominant strain.

Of the new cases, 3,385 were Seoul residents. The number of newly infected people living in Gyeonggi province and the western port city of Incheon was 4,738 and 1,010 respectively.

The virus spread also raged in the non-metropolitan region. The number of new infections in the non-capital areas was 5,168, or 36.1 per cent of the total local transmission.

Among the new cases, 217 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 24,451.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 350, down 35 from the previous day.

Thirty-four more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 6,654. The total fatality rate is 0.86 per cent.

The country has administered Covid-19 vaccines to 86.9 per cent of the total population. The number of fully inoculated people is 43,904,632, or 85.6 per cent of the population.

The number of those who received booster jabs is 26,043,358, or 50.7 per cent of the population.