Government Introduces Level 3 Social Distancing... Currently at Level 1

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] The government has unified the various names for social distancing measures due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) under the term 'social distancing' and decided to classify them into levels 1 to 3 according to the severity of the outbreak.

On the 28th, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters announced the 'Criteria and Implementation Plan for Each Level of Social Distancing,' which specifies the criteria for transitioning between social distancing levels and the measures to be taken at each level.

The currently implemented 'Everyday Life Social Distancing' corresponds to the lowest level, Level 1. Level 1 refers to a situation where small-scale sporadic outbreaks repeatedly spread and subside below the capacity of the healthcare system.

Level 2 is a situation where the COVID-19 outbreak continuously spreads in the community, exceeding the capacity of the usual healthcare system.

Level 3 is a large-scale outbreak situation where multiple cluster infections occur in the community, and COVID-19 infections rapidly spread. This applies when the daily number of confirmed cases doubles two or more times a week, indicating a rapid spread.

When transitioning from Level 1 to Level 2, the focus is on whether the number of patients is within the manageable capacity of the healthcare system. When moving from Level 2 to Level 3, the emphasis is on whether the infection is rapidly spreading on a large scale.

The indicators used to assess risk include ▲daily number of confirmed cases (with emphasis on community cases) ▲proportion of cases with unknown infection routes ▲status of managed cluster outbreaks ▲proportion of cases managed within the quarantine network.

Regarding the daily confirmed cases, Level 1 is fewer than 50, Level 2 is between 50 and fewer than 100, and Level 3 is 100 to 200 or more. The proportion of cases with unknown infection routes should be maintained below 5% at Level 1, while a sharp increase must be confirmed at Level 3. The proportion of cases managed within the quarantine network should be 80% or higher or show an increasing trend at Level 1.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.