Jeon Hae-cheol, minister of the interior and safety, said the curfew at restaurants, bars, movie theatres and other indoor businesses will be extended by an hour from 10pm to 11pm starting on Saturday

More than 85% of South Korea’s 51 million people have been fully vaccinated and more than 53% have received booster shots

South Korea set a new record for Covid-19 deaths on Thursday as officials warned that the highly transmissible Omicron variant could soon become the dominant strain.

New coronavirus infections in South Korea have exceeded 7,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic as long queues snaked around testing stations in the capital Seoul amid a worsening virus crisis.

The number of infected sailors on a South Korean destroyer on an anti-piracy mission off the coast of East Africa has soared to 247 – the largest cluster for the country’s military during the coronavirus pandemic.

South Korean Olympic chiefs have removed banners at the athletes’ village in Tokyo which referred to a 16th-century war between Korea and Japan, after the International Olympic Committee ruled it was provocative.

South Korea’s foreign minister has met his Chinese counterpart in the southern Chinese city of Xiamen. The move comes as Seoul seeks to improve ties with its top trading partner even as relations between China and the US remain strained.

South Korea reported another high in daily coronavirus increases as health officials face growing pressure to enforce stricter social distancing to slow the spread in the capital area.

South Korea’s health minister has said that the Seoul metropolitan area is now a “Covid-19 war zone”, as the country reported another 615 new infections and the virus appeared to be spreading faster.

The country has added nearly 4,000 Covid-19 infections while reporting triple-digit daily jumps on each of the past 14 days