South Korea has reported over one thousand new COVID-19 cases for a fourth straight day.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said Saturday that one-thousand-53 new infections were detected throughout Friday, raising the country's accumulated caseload to 48-thousand-570.

Of the new cases, 24 were imported and the rest were local transmissions, with nearly 700 coming from the greater metropolitan area including 382 in Seoul and 264 in Gyeonggi Province.

North Chungcheong Province has also added over a hundred new cases.

The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients has risen by 29 to 275 while 14 more deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 659. The fatality rate stands at one-point-36 percent.