"Chuseok Infection First Wave Crisis Passes... Overall Declining Trend" (Update)

Published 12 Oct.2020 11:58(KST)

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] The government judged on the 12th that the first wave of COVID-19 infections caused by the Chuseok holiday has passed.

Yoon Tae-ho, head of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters' quarantine team, stated this during a briefing held at the Government Complex Sejong on the same day, adding, "Regarding the holiday, the number of confirmed cases has not reached the level of concern we anticipated, so we believe the situation is relatively stable."

He said, "However, since there are some cases where the incubation period is longer than the average of 5 days, it is necessary to continue monitoring the effects of the Chuseok holiday through this week," and added, "We also need to keep a close watch on the impact of the Hangul Day holiday."

On the day when the number of new confirmed cases approached 100, the government analyzed that the overall trend is decreasing. Yoon said, "Although the number of confirmed cases is slightly higher than usual Mondays, about 6,000 diagnostic tests were conducted the previous day due to cluster infections."

He emphasized, "The daily situation is likely to fluctuate continuously, but overall, we believe it is on a downward trend," and added, "Whether sporadic cluster infections occur will be an important variable in maintaining a stable level of COVID-19 patient cases."

The government is currently considering maintaining the volume of diagnostic tests on weekends at the weekday level. Typically, the number of tests conducted on weekends, Saturday and Sunday, is lower, and since it usually takes about a day for test results to come out after specimen collection, the number of new confirmed cases tends to decrease from Monday to Tuesday compared to other days.