Authorities: "It's too early to judge the effect of social distancing... Considering the elapsed period is reasonable"

On the 29th, as the spread of COVID-19 continues, citizens are waiting for testing at the COVID-19 testing center set up in the outdoor space on the west side of the basement level 1 of Terminal 2 at Incheon International Airport. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that as of midnight, 1,674 new confirmed cases were reported, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 195,099. Among the new cases, 1,632 were domestic transmissions and 42 were imported cases. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] As the number of locally transmitted COVID-19 cases continues to rise sharply, there are calls to raise the current social distancing levels of Stage 4 in the Seoul metropolitan area and Stage 3 in non-metropolitan areas. However, the health authorities have stated that "it is still too early to judge the effectiveness of raising the social distancing levels" and that the matter should be discussed with more time.

On the 29th, Son Young-rae, head of the Social Strategy Division at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, said during a COVID-19 briefing, "Social distancing measures naturally show effects with a time lag." He added, "The uniform Stage 3 in non-metropolitan areas started this week, and effects do not appear one or two days after implementation. If changes occur one or two days later, they should be attributed to previous measures." Considering this time lag, changes in confirmed cases in non-metropolitan areas in the latter half of next week will be the point at which the impact of the uniform Stage 3 upgrade can be observed.

He drew a line on the immediate implementation of additional measures such as 'Stage 4+α' in the metropolitan area or raising the entire country to Stage 4. Son said, "We need to continue to consider claims that additional measures should be implemented immediately," but added, "The uniform Stage 3 in non-metropolitan areas started on Monday. Claims that the entire country should move to Stage 4 because cases increased on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday do not take into account the evaluation period after the measures and are therefore unreasonable."

Son also emphasized, "Strengthening social distancing measures inevitably brings about socioeconomic damage, especially concentrated among low-income and working-class groups." He stated, "While strengthening quarantine measures is an important perspective to curb COVID-19, if the resulting damage becomes excessively large and outweighs the risk of COVID-19, it is necessary to apply the principle of proportionality and judge which outcome is more beneficial to society."

The health authorities have set the short-term primary goal to reduce the current outbreak in the metropolitan area and to block increases in non-metropolitan areas. Son explained, "We hope to see a decline by the 8th, and based on the situation, we will evaluate and discuss subsequent measures."

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