People queue in line to wait for the coronavirus testing at a makeshift testing site in Seoul, South Korea on November 24, 2021. New coronavirus infections in South Korea exceeded 4,000 in a day for the first time since the start of the pandemic as a Delta-driven spread continues to rattle the country after it eased social distancing in recent weeks to improve its economy. Photo: VCG

South Korea will consider expanding home treatment of COVID-19 patients, a health official said on Wednesday, as both new daily infections and severe cases hit record highs, putting hospital capacity under strain.

Infections in South Korea have skyrocketed in December after the government began to ease restrictions under a so-called "living with COVID-19" scheme in November.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 7,175 new coronavirus cases and 63 deaths for Tuesday, the first time daily infections topped 7,000, while hospitals treated a record 840 critical and serious cases.

"It is important to retain or reduce the trend of the current scale of the severely-ill patients within a week or two," Son Young-rae, a senior health ministry official, told a news conference.

He said the government may need to make significant adjustments to the healthcare system if daily cases top 10,000, and consider expanding at-home treatment from around 50 percent currently, as four-fifths of COVID-19 patients are symptomless or have only mild symptoms.

Less than 3 percent of the COVID-19 patients were hospitalized in the UK, 6.95 percent in Singapore and 12.8 percent in Japan, Son said. 

South Korea has so far confirmed 38 cases of the Omicron variant, and has reported a total of 489,484 COVID-19 cases, with 4,020 deaths. 

It has fully vaccinated 91.8 percent of its adult population aged 18 and above, KDCA data showed.