Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters – South Korea’s coronavirus daily counts topped 8000 on Tuesday. The highly contagious Omicron variant continues to spread rapidly despite strict social-distancing rules being extended recently.

Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, KDCA reported Monday 8,571 cases. That’s more than half the number of cases that were recorded for mid-December at 7,848.

The Omicron variant is less transmissible and less dangerous, but it was still dominant last week. This record also came amid less testing this weekend.

South Korea reinstated tighter distancing restrictions in December, as records-setting numbers of patients and daily cases threatened to overwhelm its healthcare system.

Daily totals were close to being halved at around 4,000 for this month. However, they started recovering last week due to Omicron infection.

Fears about a bigger surge ahead of Lunar New Year holiday travels by tens or millions of Koreans across the country to visit their families prompted the surge.

Omicron is believed to be responsible for over 90% of all new infections in the next two-three weeks. Daily numbers may reach as high as 20,000 to 35,000, according to health officials.

Kim Boo Kyum, the Prime Minister, issued a special statement Monday pleading for everyone to abstain from traveling and gatherings during this weekend’s break.

“It’s no different than adding fuel the raging flames, if many people move about the country and find each other,” he said at a briefing.

To reserve medical resources for the seriously ill, the required isolation period of vaccinated people will now be seven days. This change is part of an effort to reduce the time it takes to isolate them.

South Korea is also using one of its most restrictive vaccine pass mandates. Unvaccinated individuals cannot dine alone or use delivery or take-out services.

In an increasing legal struggle between citizens and the government, the court temporarily exempted large businesses and teens from vaccine mandates in Seoul from temporary restrictions.

A coalition of 300 small-business owners plans to organize a protest against the government’s curbs on Tuesday. They want the government to remove the curfews (including a 9 pm dining curfew) and to compensate them for their economic losses.

KDCA data revealed that South Korea recorded 733 902 COVID-19 infected and 6540 deaths. With 749,979 infections total and 6,588 deaths, the country of 52 millions has been an important COVID-19 mitigation success tale.

KDCA data revealed that more than 95% of South Korean adults were fully vaccinated, and almost 58% had received booster shots.