Covid-19 cases hover around 25,000 after Christmas weekend

Following the weekly pattern, Korea’s Monday tally again stood around the 20,000 range recording 25,545 Covid-19 infections due to the smaller testing capacity on weekends.

In December, the cases have hovered around the 25,000 range posting figures of 26,622, 25,667, and 23,160 cases of infection on Mondays in the last three weeks.

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the 25,545 cases include 67 from abroad, bringing the total caseload to 28,684,600.

Additionally, Korea’s fatality rate stayed at 0.11 percent adding 42 more deaths, four fewer than the previous day, bringing Korea’s death toll to 31,832. The number of critically ill patients in the hospital that day was 583, down by nine from the previous day.

Following the announcement by the KDCA Friday, the indoor mask mandate will be removed in phases when a stable number of new infections and a downtrend in critically ill cases and deaths are met. Quarantine officials said they would adjust the obligation to wear indoor masks to a recommendation if the stabilization trend is confirmed after the seventh peak of the epidemic which is expected in late January.

Accordingly, Jung Ki-seok, a top adviser to the government's Covid-19 task force, commented on the issue at a regular briefing.

“It is still difficult to determine whether or not we have reached the peak of winter cases as we believe the cold weather of the past few days has restricted people’s movement to some extent and thus reduced the spread of infection."

However, he went on to say that since a similar trend has continued for the past month or two, it's almost time to check the peak.

Jung also added that they are discussing mid- to long-term roadmaps in preparation for future infectious disease outbreaks next year which include establishing hospitals specializing in infectious diseases per region, improving medical systems such as emergency, critical patients, children, adolescents, dialysis, and childbirth, and priority support measures for the socially disadvantaged among others.

According to the KDCA statistics, about 44.7 million among 52 million Koreans have been fully vaccinated inching towards 90 percent of the population. Meanwhile, winter vaccinations are still dragging along adding just 441 administered vaccines to a total of about 4.88 million administered winter booster shots.