According to specialists, an even more transmissible subvariant of omicron known as BA.2 is on its way to becoming the dominant strain in Korea, which might cause the present wave to last longer.

It was revealed on Monday that the BA.2 strain was responsible for 26.3 percent of all assessed cases in the preceding seven days, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's weekly update on circulating variations of concern, which was published on Sunday. Its market share in Korea increased from 4.9 percent in the third week of February to 10.3 percent in the final week of the same month and 22.9 percent in the first week of March, according to data from Bloomberg.

In a recent interview with The Korea Herald, Dr. Paik Soon-young, an emeritus professor of microbiology at Catholic University of Korea, stated that based on current trends, "the omicron sublineage is expected to take over as the predominant virus within this month."

Paik expressed concern about a "possible rebound" in cases across the country as a result of BA.2's increasing prevalence and capacity to infect more individuals more quickly than the presently circulating strain of the virus.

The presence of "deltacron," a hybrid strain of delta and omicron that has not yet been identified by local authorities, was not expected to triumph over the considerably more transmissible BA.2 strain, according to the expert, at least for the time being, he said in conclusion.

"The capacity of a virus to spread and infect others is the most essential aspect in determining its potential to rule over others. The researchers cautioned that it is still too early to know if the delta-omicron recombinant virus is in fact more transmissible than the omicron lineages, although they believe this is unlikely.

In a phone interview, Dr. Jung Jae-hun, who models government projections, expressed hesitancy about forecasting when BA.2 will supersede the previous version of this article. "However, there's no denying BA.2 is on the verge of taking over," he remarked.

He stated that BA.2 is estimated to be 15 to 20 percent more transmissible than BA.1, but that the level of immunological escape and severity of the disease were not yet known at this time.

Jung predicted a week ago that the "ultimate crisis point" of the omicron wave would occur between the end of this month and the beginning of April, when more than 2,000 patients are likely to saturate critical care beds across the nation. "The high may linger for a longer period of time," he added when asked how BA.2 might influence prior estimates.

"At this point, counting new cases is virtually completely worthless. "The most important goal at this time is to increase bed capacity while also making oral antivirals more broadly available," he explained.

In an interview with a public radio station on Tuesday, infectious disease specialist Dr. Lee Jacob advocated for increased health-care capacity as well as increased funding. According to him, the BA.2 dominance might cause the peak time to be extended by a week or two.

KDCA spokeswoman Ko Jae-young said in a closed-door briefing held Tuesday afternoon that the change in the diagnosis method, which now allows fast antigen testing, rather than just PCR tests, done by health experts to confirm instances, will allow patients to obtain treatment sooner.

It is now possible to give the COVID-19 tablet Paxlovid, manufactured by Pfizer, at an earlier stage of the disease, he stated. In turn, this might make therapy more accessible to a greater proportion of home-isolating patients, reducing the pressure on hospital resources.

In Korea, the omicron wave is continuing its dramatic ascent to new heights. In the 24 hours leading up to midnight on Monday, 362,338 additional cases were registered. Daily cases increased by 336,982 in the most recent seven-day average, compared to 218,930 the week before that. In comparison, the seven-day average of 14,900 from the latter week of January, when omicron had just recently been named the dominant virus in this area, is more than 22 times higher.

Hospitals continue to be overburdened as the number of cases increases. According to the latest recent numbers, which were released last week, around 61 percent of all critical care beds across the country were occupied. However, according to Dr. Eom Joong-sik, an infectious disease specialist, what the bed counts do not reveal is the rising number of health care employees who are unable to report to work because they are also getting the virus at a far greater rate than the general population.

His coworkers were "being sick left and right," according to Eom, who works at Gachon University Medical Center in Incheon, near Seoul, which has been classified as a COVID-19 facility. "I've meekly embraced the reality that it's possible that I'll be the one," he explained.

According to him, in order to deal with staffing shortages, the authorities altered the criteria to reduce necessary isolation time for health care employees to three days. However, not all workers recuperate in time and are able to return to their jobs, he added.

In response to the anticipated takeover of BA.2 and the impending decision on social distancing policy, Eom said that "further relaxation of constraints would only serve to amplify the tsunami." "We're all well aware of this."

Despite the fact that the formal announcement will not be made until later this week, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has hinted at the possibility of relaxing other regulations, noting the low death rate associated with omicron.

According to Son Young-rae, the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, the case fatality rate has decreased to a level that is "similar to that of the seasonal flu" during the previous four weeks, according to the briefing on Tuesday. He said that fewer people were being admitted to hospitals than had been expected by the administration before.

The sheer number of deaths, on the other hand, has been increasing at an alarming rate. Deaths occurred on an average of 229 persons each day over the previous week, with a mortality rate of around 0.07 percent during that time period.

Son did not immediately respond to a query from the press about what type of preparations were being made to assist hospitals in dealing with the subvariant spreading. The scientist said, "Based on preliminary evidence from throughout the world, it is not considered that omicron's variants are worse or more harmful than the element itself."