South Korea’s COVID-19 cases on Thursday passed the 100,000 mark, about 14 months since its first case was identified, as the country continues to grapple with the third wave.

The total number of confirmed cases reached 100,276, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency statistics showed Thursday, up 430 from a day earlier. According to the World Health Organization, the figure puts Korea at 86th in terms of number of cases, next to China.

In the last seven days the number of cases being reported per day has averaged over 420. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun had said March 14 that the government would aim to bring the daily case count to under 300 before April, when the vaccinations will begin among the wider community, including the elderly.

Since the mass vaccination program launched late February, 733,124 people have received at least a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine. This translates to about 26,100 shots being administered per day.

Despite concerns about the current vaccination place being slow, top officials at the national health agency reiterated in a news briefing Thursday that Korea “would have no problem achieving herd immunity by November.”

Korea’s current stockpile of vaccine comes from two pharmaceutical companies -- AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Nearly 92 percent of all those vaccinated so far, or 673,183, were inoculated with AstraZeneca’s jab, and the rest with Pfizer’s.

Those being offered the first doses of the vaccines now are front-line workers at COVID-19 wards and workers and residents at long-term care facilities.

From April, the rollout will extend to priority groups next in line, including people living in group homes or other congregate living settings, early childhood educators, airline cabin crews, non-COVID-19 health care personnel, adults with certain medical conditions at risk and anyone aged 75 or older. Elected and government officials traveling on official duty will also be eligible for the shots.

The prime minister as well as the Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-cheol will be getting their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine Friday. President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook received the first dose of the vaccine from the same company at a public health center near the presidential office on Tuesday.

Korea recorded two new deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total tally to 1,709. Most of the deaths so far were in people in their 60s or older, but three people in their 20s have died over the past month.

Last week, post-mortem examinations found a Seoul resident in his 20s had died with COVID-19. The week before, a woman in her 20s, also in Seoul, died on the day she was diagnosed with the disease. In Busan, a 20-something patient with a history of strokes died at a nursing hospital in mid-February, a day after testing positive.

No one under 20 years of age has died. On March 14, Korea reported its fourth case of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, or MIS-C, a condition associated with COVID-19 that is known to affect children and young adults.

By Kim Arin (arin@heraldcorp.com)