Post-Omicron plans to be released on April 15

The number of confirmed COVID-19 castes in South Korea has dropped noticeably with the government’s social distancing measures to be scrapped next Monday. The government will issue new plans to deal with the Omicron variant on Friday at the earliest.

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the number of daily new confirmed cases as of midnight on Sunday reached 164,481. Usually, the number of new confirmed cases tends to decline on the weekends when weekend tests are reflected. Still, the decline on the number of confirmed cases is evident, compared with a week earlier (234,265) and two weeks earlier (318,070).

Such decline in numbers raise the possibility of the government removing social distancing measures. The government said that it would fully remove measures if the number of critically ill daily patients drops under 1,300 over April 4-17 and the intensive care unit operation rate maintains at 65%, including face mask covering requirements. The daily number of critically ill patients over the week averaged 1,111, while intensive care unit operated at 60.9%.

Experts point out, however, that death toll is still relatively high. The number of COVID related deaths in Korea over the past week reached 2,186. “The death toll is serious with more than 300 deaths per day. We need to focus more efforts on initial treatment of the disease to prevent deaths in nursing homes,” said Paek Soo-yeong, honorary professor at the medical school of the Korean Catholic University.


김소영기자 ksy@donga.com