South Korea reported 444 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, once again hitting the 400s after five days below that number as the long Lunar New Year holiday is to begin on Thursday.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) said on Wednesday that the new cases raised the country's accumulated caseload to 81-thousand-930.  

The daily figure, which fell to the 200 range early this week, appears to be climbing back up again, with continued infection clusters in the capital region. 
 
Of the new cases detected throughout Tuesday, 414 were local transmissions, while 30 were imported.

More than 80 percent of the local cases came from the greater metro area, with 169 in Seoul, 157 in Gyeonggi Province and 18 in Incheon. Other parts of the nation reported 70 cases.
 
Four more deaths have been confirmed, raising the death toll to one-thousand-486, with the fatality rate at one-point-81 percent. 
 
The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients dropped by five to 184.