Health authorities have reiterated that the current critical COVID-19 caseload is within manageable levels, adding enough hospital beds are secured for up to two thousand such patients.

In a Tuesday briefing, the Central Disaster Management Headquarters said the healthcare system is operating within a manageable scope, and a more efficient use of beds can support the handling of up to 25-hundred critically-ill patients.

As of Tuesday, critical cases have climbed to one-thousand-seven, edging past the halfway point of the two-thousand mark estimated by the government to be the maximum manageable intensive care unit capacity nationwide.

Senior health official Park Hyang said omicron's hospitalization and death rates stand at one-fifth of the delta strain's and the increase in critical patients is more moderate than expected.

According to authorities, over 27-hundred beds have been secured for those seriously ill, of which nearly 60 percent are occupied as of Tuesday. Over 41-hundred beds are in place for semi-seriously ill patients with a current occupancy rate of 63 percent.