South Korea's daily Covid-19 case count rose past 1,200 in the past 24 hours - its highest daily count since December.

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Wednesday the government was now considering imposing tougher restrictions to help mitigate the spread.

Kim said existing pandemic prevention measures would be extended for the next few days. He said they were now studying other rules to help fight a fourth wave - sparked by the spread of the Delta variant.

Kim said the virus was spreading among unvaccinated people - hitting mostly people in their 20s and 30s. Kim said they should get tested and vaccinated.

South Korea's previous highest daily case count was 1,240, reported Dec. 25 - at the height of a third wave. Since then, cases have decreased as the nation accelerated vaccinations. As of Wednesday 30% only of its 52 million population has received at least one dose.

Officials said the country was set to receive 700,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine from Israel this week. The vaccines, which are on loan, are to help speed up inoculations.

Under an agreement with Israel South Korea agreed to give back the same number of vaccines in September and October. Health officials said they had distributed all of the vaccines they had in stock.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday the vaccines were already on a plane to South Korea. He said the agreement was a "win-win deal" for both nations.

Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency director Jeong Eun-kyeong said the vaccines from Israel will allow the country to accelerate its plans. He said they will prioritize workers in some sectors that have regular contact with others. This includes retail employees, delivery workers and street cleaners, Jeong said.