Over two-thousand-600 new cases of the omicron COVID-19 variant were reported in the past week, with authorities forecasting it will become the dominant strain in the country by this weekend.

Health authorities said on Monday that two-thousand-679 omicron cases were reported between January 9 and 15, bringing the cumulative total to five-thousand-30.

The latest acceleration is two-point-six times faster than that of the one-thousand-33 cases reported during the previous week.

Out of the latest cases, one-thousand-363 involved people traveling from overseas, while the remaining one-thousand-316 were locally infected. While omicron took up 26-point-seven percent of new local cases, its ratio spiked to 94-point-seven percent among overseas travelers.

Once the variant becomes the dominant by this weekend, or daily cases surpass seven-thousand, the government will expand testing and treatment at private clinics, give testing priority to those at higher risk, and reduce quarantine period for patients.