South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases hit another all-time high reaching nearly 50-thousand on Wednesday amid the rapid spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA) said 49-thousand-567 cases were compiled throughout the previous day, lifting the total caseload to one-million-131-thousand-248.

It is the first time the daily tally exceeded 40-thousand since the nation reported its first coronavirus case on January 20 of 2020 and comes after four consecutive days with cases exceeding 30-thousand.

The latest tally is two-point-four times higher than a week ago and around three-point-eight times as high as the figure reported two weeks ago.

The number of critical cases is also showing signs of a gradual increase, rising by 17 from Tuesday to 285, although it remained in the 200s for the 12th consecutive day.

Twenty-one more people died of the virus, bringing the death toll to six-thousand-943. The fatality rate stands at zero-point-61 percent.

While the ICU occupancy rate for COVID-19 patients remains stable at 18-point-five percent nationwide, the number of home-treatment patients jumped by more than eight-thousand to 168-thousand-20.