Health authorities in South Korea forecast that daily COVID-19 infections could reach 12-hundred if the spread continues at the current pace.

Jeong Eun-kyeong, head of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA), said in a Monday briefing that the virus reproduction rate as of Sunday was one-point-28. Based on this figure, daily cases are projected to surge from 950 to 12-hundred in the coming days.

The rate means that one patient is infecting one-point-28 others. A reading above one indicates the continued spread of the virus. 

Jeong said the third wave is different from the previous two and assessed the current situation as the biggest crisis in South Korea's COVID-19 outbreak so far.

The KDCA chief said patients with mild or no symptoms who have been growing in number within local communities for over ten months are now emerging as the source of transmission, causing infections in daily life.

But she stressed the number of cases can be reduced through rigorous social distancing, contact tracing, preemptive testing and various other quarantine measures.