Due to the spread... COVID-19 infectious disease classification downgrade under review for another week

As the summer surge of COVID-19 continues for six consecutive weeks, health authorities have announced that they will review the possibility of downgrading the infectious disease classification to level 4 for one more week.

An official from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) stated on the 14th, “The increase in new COVID-19 cases slowed down last week,” but added, “We will closely monitor the epidemic situation for another week and then announce the transition of quarantine measures after consulting with experts.”

The KDCA initially aimed to change the COVID-19 infectious disease classification around mid-month, but postponed the plan due to the rapid spread. If the classification is downgraded from level 2 to level 4, COVID-19 testing and diagnosis will become paid services, and case counting will shift from exhaustive surveillance to sample surveillance. Some in the medical community have raised concerns that the burden of testing costs may increase the number of ‘hidden infections’ and make it difficult to estimate the total number of confirmed cases.

The KDCA official responded, “Even if we switch from exhaustive surveillance to sample surveillance, we are establishing a system that can effectively monitor the epidemic situation,” adding, “We are enhancing a multi-layered surveillance system including positive case monitoring and wastewater surveillance, and are working to verify the consistency between exhaustive and sample surveillance.”

Additionally, along with the downgrade of the COVID-19 infectious disease classification, health authorities had planned to lift the mask mandate in hospital-level medical institutions and infection-vulnerable facilities. However, there is a possibility that the implementation timing may be delayed due to medical opinions that COVID-19 remains severe for high-risk groups.

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