South Korea has reported over 700 new COVID-19 cases for the second consecutive day. 

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) on Thursday announced 762 cases compiled throughout the previous day, bringing the country's accumulated caseload to 157-thousand-723. 

The figure is 32 fewer cases than those reported Wednesday, which was the largest number since April 23. 

Health authorities are also on alert amid concerns about highly transmissible variants with the number of Delta strain cases linked to English academies in Gyeonggi Province growing to nine as of Wednesday. 

Of the new cases, 712 were local transmissions and 50 came from overseas.

By region, the greater metro area accounted for 85-point-three percent of new domestic cases, the highest since November 4 of last year, including 332 in Seoul and 245 in Gyeonggi Province.

The other regions reported 105 new local cases in total, including 17 in Busan and 16 in Daejeon. 

Three more deaths have been reported, raising the death toll to two-thousand-21. The fatality rate stands at one-point-28 percent. The number of critically ill patients dropped by five from the previous day to 144.